With the release of The Hot Rats Sessions – the 50th anniversary boxed set of Frank Zappa’s landmark first solo album, Hot Rats – just around the corner next Friday, December 20, the Zappa Trust is pleased to share the previously unreleased outtake, “Dame Margret’s Son To Be A Bride (1969 Quick Mix).” Recorded at T.T.G. Studios in Hollywood during the sessions for Hot Rats, the instrumental composition written by Zappa features the basic rhythm tracks, performed by Max Bennett on bass and Paul Humphrey on drums, that were eventually used for the song, “Lemme Take You To The Beach,” on 1978’s Studio Tan. Unheard until now, the song from disc 6 of the six-disc collection, also features multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood’s tack piano performance that has since been lost, allowing the only opportunity to hear the original version. The quick mix was run off by Zappa following the basic track sessions so he could hear back what the musicians created. “Dame Margret’s Son To Be A Bride (1969 Quick Mix)” is available now to stream and as an instant grat download with preorder. Stream/purchase here: https://UMe.lnk.to/HotRats50thPR
The Zappa Trust is also excited to reveal more details and a first look at the one-of-a-kind “Zappa Land” board game included in The Hot Rats Sessions. Inspired by vintage board games, players are tasked with helping Frank get back to the studio to finish Hot Rats. Starting at home in Laurel Canyon, players will move their guitar pick playing piece through a windy and unpredictable path to the recording studio. Just make sure you don’t get attacked by hot rats or end up with a watery cup of coffee.
Hot Rats was Zappa’s inimitable, groundbreaking first solo album which put the songwriter and musician on the map as a virtuosic guitarist and changed the course of music forever with its conceptual, compositional and technological innovations. Self-described as a “movie for your ears,” the mostly instrumental 1969 album was a new musical avenue for Zappa following the dissolution of his band The Mothers Of Invention as he melded the sophistication of jazz with the attitude of rock and roll to create a highly influential masterpiece widely hailed today as a pioneering album of jazz-rock fusion.
Releasing on December 20, just one day before what would have been Zappa’s 79th birthday, Zappa Records and UMe is celebrating Hot Rats and the legendary composer’s highly prolific 1969 period with the mammoth six-disc boxed set, The Hot Rats Sessions. This expansive new collection documents and compiles every composition recorded during several days in July 1969 when Zappa recorded Hot Rats and a wealth of other material that ended up being used throughout multiple releases during his lifetime. Filled with an abundance of rare and unedited mixes, work mixes, relevant Vault nuggets and complete basic tracks mixed from the original multi-track master tapes by Craig Parker Adams and mastered by Bob Ludwig in 2019, the collection provides a fascinating look into the making of this classic album, and includes essentially every musical entity that was recorded during these iconic sessions.
Overseen by the Zappa Trust and produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister, Joe Travers, The Hot Rats Sessions will be available in a 6CD boxed set and digitally, including Apple Digital Master. This creatively fertile time in Zappa’s career is visually brought to life through a beautiful 28-page booklet featuring striking never-before-seen images of the recording sessions by Bill Gubbins, photographs of the master tapes and tape boxes, and stunning outtakes from original Hot Rats cover photographer, Andee Nathanson’s shoot with Miss Christine. Nathanson provides the collection’s new cover image and several unreleased photos, all from the same photoshoot, captured on Infrared film which gave the original album its otherworldly look. The photographer vividly details the shoot in the liner notes which also includes essays by Zappa collaborator Ian Underwood and Vaultmeister Travers and an appreciation from “The Simpsons” creator and lifelong Zappa fan Matt Groening, who recounts his first time listening to Hot Rats as a teenager: “From the opening moments of that unforgettable drum fill, I was transported. The kaleidoscopic, calliopean, dare-I-say-callipygian, mini-masterpiece ‘Peaches En Regalia’ elevated my scrawny body into the air, spun me around like a propeller beanie, and melted my brain.”
The original Hot Rats album will be pressed on limited edition translucent hot pink 180-gram vinyl featuring the 1969 mix mastered from the original analog master tapes by Bernie Grundman in 2008 and pressed at Pallas in Germany. Last month for Record Store Day’s Black Friday, a limited edition 10” picture disc Peaches En Regalia was released. The EP has rare mono mixes on Side A of “Peaches En Regalia” and “Little Umbrellas,” intended in 1969 as a promotional single, and the 1969 unreleased rhythm track mixes from the forthcoming boxed set on the flipside.
Hot Rats was composed, arranged, and produced by Zappa who played guitar on all tracks and delivered extraordinary solos throughout. One of the best-selling albums of his career, the six-song record is made up of five instrumentals, including one of his most beloved works, “Peaches En Regalia.” Frequent Zappa collaborator Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart provides his unmistakable vocals to lone non-instrumental, the skronky blues-rock number, “Willie The Pimp.” Star musicians on these sessions include multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood, violinists Don “Sugarcane” Harris and Jean Luc Ponty, bassist Max Bennett, drummers Jon Guerin (Max and Jon played together in the famed fusion outfit L.A. Express), Paul Humphrey and Ron Selico, R&B pioneer Johnny Otis and his 15-year-old son, Shuggie Otis who lays down some astounding, ahead of his time bass lines on “Peaches En Regalia” and several other tracks.
The Hot Rats Sessions offers a riveting and revealing fly-on-the-wall experience by showcasing the genesis and evolution of the Hot Rats songs as well as tracks that would be featured on Zappa’s acclaimed albums, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Studio Tan and Chunga’s Revenge. Hot Rats was the first record to be recorded on a prototype 16-track tape machine and this new technology, along with Zappa’s overdub techniques, further inspired him to create and innovate. The first three and a half discs of the set are dedicated to the basic track recording sessions recorded at T.T.G. Studios in Hollywood, California on July 18, 28, 29 and 30th, and allows listeners the opportunity to experience what it would be like to be in the studio as Zappa perfected these compositions. His intense work ethic is on full display and a newfound respect is gained for the choices he made when creating the final masterwork.
The fifth and sixth discs of the set presents the original Hot Rats album with Zappa’s 1987 digital re-mix along with an assortment of extras such as vintage promotional audio ads for the album, the mono singles of “Peaches En Regalia” and “Little Umbrellas” and rare mixes of more than a dozen tracks. The Hot Rats Sessions is rife with unreleased session material and also includes the first-ever official release of “Bognor Regis,” and several unedited masters of songs like “Peaches En Regalia,” “Twenty Small Cigars,” “Toads Of The Short Forest,” “Lil’ Clanton Shuffle” and “Directly From My Heart To You.”
The Hot Rats Sessions provides an awe-inspiring snapshot of an especially productive time for Zappa, who in the year 1969 alone, outside of his own projects, produced Captain Beefheart’s outsider classic, Trout Mask Replica and the one and only album for The GTO’s, toured and had his second child. With this new, exciting deep dive, fans can explore one of Zappa’s most revered records like never before and experience how it coalesced to become one of the greatest albums of all time.
THE HOT RATS SESSIONS
CD1
Piano Music (Section 1)
Piano Music (Section 3)
Peaches En Regalia (Prototype)
Peaches En Regalia (Section 1, In Session)
Peaches En Regalia (Section 1, Master Take)
Peaches Jam - Part 1
Peaches Jam - Part 2
Peaches En Regalia (Section 3, In Session)
Peaches En Regalia (Section 3, Master Take)
Arabesque (In Session)
Arabesque (Master Take)
Dame Margret's Son To Be A Bride (In Session)
CD2
It Must Be A Camel (Part 1, In Session)
It Must Be a Camel (Part 1, Master Take)
It Must Be a Camel (Intercut, In Session)
It Must Be a Camel (Intercut, Master Take)
Natasha (In Session)
Natasha (Master Take)
Bognor Regis (Unedited Master)
Willie The Pimp (In Session)
Willie The Pimp (Unedited Master Take)
Willie The Pimp (Guitar OD 1)
Willie The Pimp (Guitar OD 2)
CD3
Transition (Section 1, In Session)
Transition (Section 1, Master Take)
Transition (Section 2, Intercut, In Session)
Transition (Section 2, Intercut, Master Take)
Transition (Section 3, Intercut, In Session)
Transition (Section 3, Intercut, Master Take)
Lil’ Clanton Shuffle (Unedited Master)
Directly From My Heart To You (Unedited Master)
Another Waltz (Unedited Master)
CD4
Dame Margret’s Son To Be A Bride (Remake)
Son Of Mr. Green Genes (Take 1)
Son Of Mr. Green Genes (Master Take)
Big Legs (Unedited Master Take)
It Must Be a Camel (Percussion Tracks)
Arabesque (Guitar OD Mix)
Transition (Full Version)
Piano Music (Section 3, OD Version)
CD5
Peaches En Regalia (1987 Digital Re-Mix)
Willie The Pimp (1987 Digital Re-Mix)
Son Of Mr. Green Genes (1987 Digital Re-Mix)
Little Umbrellas (1987 Digital Re-Mix)
The Gumbo Variations (1987 Digital Re-Mix)
It Must Be A Camel (1987 Digital Re-Mix)
The Origin Of Hot Rats
Hot Rats Vintage Promotion Ad #1
Peaches En Regalia (1969 Mono Single Master)
Hot Rats Vintage Promotion Ad #2
Little Umbrellas (1969 Mono Single Master)
Lil' Clanton Shuffle (1972 Whitney Studios Mix)
CD6
Little Umbrellas (Cucamonga Version)
Little Umbrellas (1969 Mix Outtake)
It Must Be A Camel (1969 Mix Outtake)
Son Of Mr. Green Genes (1969 Mix Outtake)
More Of The Story Of Willie The Pimp
Willie The Pimp (Vocal Tracks)
Willie The Pimp (1969 Quick Mix)
Dame Margret's Son To Be A Bride (1969 Quick Mix)
Hot Rats Vintage Promotion Ad #3
Bognor Regis (1970 Record Plant Mix)
Peaches En Regalia (1969 Rhythm Track Mix)
Son Of Mr. Green Genes (1969 Rhythm Track Mix)
Little Umbrellas (1969 Rhythm Track Mix)
Arabesque (Guitar Tracks)
Hot Rats Vintage Promotion Ad #4
HOT RATS (TRANSLUCENT HOT PINK VINYL) TRACKLISTING
Side A
1. Peaches En Regalia
2. Willie The Pimp
3. Son Of Mr. Green Genes
Side B
1. Little Umbrellas
2. The Gumbo Variations
3. It Must Be A Camel
