Product Code Database
Bongo Fury is a collaborative album by American experimental rock musicians Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and Zappa's band the Mothers, released in October 1975. It contains both material recorded live in concert, as well as recorded in the studio.
The album was the first collaboration between Zappa and Beefheart in about five years due to creative and personal tensions, and was their final major collaboration.
In April 1975 Zappa had a one-sided demo acetate disc cut at Kendun Recorders in Burbank, California. This unreleased disc contains "Revised Music for Guitar and Low-Budget Orchestra", "200 Years Old" and "Regyptian Strut". Zappa's liner notes in the June 1975 album One Size Fits All mention a planned studio follow up album which never appeared. Zappa released Bongo Fury instead. The album contains a four minute version of "200 Years Old" which was edited from the one on the April 1975 acetate.
Napoleon Murphy Brock's vocals are featured both on the sprawling "Advance Romance" as well as on the three-part harmonies of "Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy". Captain Beefheart, in his only tour with Zappa's band, delivers vocals and harmonica on several tracks, including his two short prose readings "Sam with the Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Man with the Woman Head". Bongo Fury also marks the first appearance of Terry Bozzio, who would become Zappa's featured drummer between 1975 and 1978.
The live portions were recorded on May 20 and 21, 1975, at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas. Tracks 5, 6 and the introduction to 9 were recorded in January 1975 during the sessions which produced One Size Fits All and much of Studio Tan.
In a 1979 interview, Zappa made his disdain for Robert Christgau clear. Zappa said "So what am I supposed to do? Go around and tell everyone how moral I am because Robert Christgau thinks I’m immoral? The guy’s a xxxxing pinhead, let’s face it." Zappa was talking about a Christgau review of Sheik Yerbouti. Zappa also said "Let me tell you about guys like that: they’re gnats, they’re xxxxing gnats. They ought to be licensed to, touch a typewriter."
/ref>
A retrospective review from Lindsay Planner of Allmusic ranked Bongo Fury at 3.5 stars out of 5 stars, saying "Most Zappa enthusiasts either love or hate Bongo Fury," with some fans disapproving of Beefheart's vocals or disliking the stylistic shift away from Zappa's jazz-oriented albums of recent years. Nonetheless, Planner stated the album "had something for everyone" with good performances from all contributors.
Production
| + Chart performance for Bongo Fury (50th anniversary edition) ! scope="col" | Chart (2026) ! scope="col" | Peak position |
|
|
