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Frank Zappa and Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, had been friends since their teens, when they bonded over a mutual love of black music and outsider art. Their relationship over the years had its ups and downs, perhaps because both were similar characters - martinets, control freaks.
However, in 1975 they toured together as a means to help Beefheart during a period of contractual woes, and from those shows was drawn most of the material on Bongo Fury. The third artistic component was the version of Zappa’s band the Mothers Of Invention, which included George Duke on keyboards
While Beefheart is on raging, hollering form throughout, channelling Howlin’ Wolf with raucous gusto, keeping the ensemble earthed and then some, raising the rafters with his wailing harmonica, it’s Zappa who dominates the songwriting and instrumentation, with Beefheart’s lyrical contributions restricted to two short exercises in latter-day beat poetry, including Man With The Woman Head.
On the likes of Debra Kadabra and Poofter’s Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead (did Zappa know the UK meaning of that word?), Beefheart channels Zappa’s lyrics, a mix of surreal, supercilious satire and puerile lewdness, as Zappa and the Mothers play with all the hallmarks of 70s Zappa - parodic, virtuoso, dazzlingly fast-paced, but over-elaborating, going to needless trouble to prove Zappa’s musicological chops. Muffin Man, however, features some fine, Hendrix-esque soloing from Zappa.
At 57 tracks, this collection does feel like quite a stretch - among the items featured are the group coming on stage, and Zappa urging the over-excited audience not to topple over the wooden towers holding up the stage lights. He also informs them of a bomb scare, requiring the evacuation of the building.
There are various alternative live and studio takes of the Bongo Fury material, as well as versions, featuring Beefheart, of Apostrophe(′) and a live version of The Torture Never Stops, later the centrepiece of Zoot Allures, which lacks the dank, ambient menace of the eventual studio version.
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