#ricky lancelotti

[mychameleondays]

Frank Zappa: Over-Nite Sensation

Discreet DIS 41 000, 19??

Originally released: September 7, 1973

[somethingvinyl]

Zappa’s first album after the dissolution of the third Mothers is his closest yet to a true solo album: most of the tracks feature only Terry Bozzio on drums and various background vocalists, with all guitars, bass, synths and keyboards overdubbed by FZ himself. On the back cover you’ll see his next core group, but two of the four didn’t play on the album. And the solo-ness of the effort is central to this album: it’s only Frank’s lead vocal and mostly Frank’s instrumental contributions. There’s none of the synergy and interplay vital to the sound of the records in the first half of the decade, just Zappa’s unadulterated vision. It’s good, but it’s lacking something. The most timeless track, Black Napkins, is a great example: it’s a wonderful melody, and an all-time great Zappa performance, but that’s ALL it is, just a Zappa guitar showcase. It’s the only song on the album where he’s backed by a full band instead of just himself overdubbed, and yet it’s still just him really. So this will never be in my pantheon of favorite Zappa records—I love the bands too much!

Of the other songs, we’ve got some really good ones with great melodies and good lyrics. Disco Boy is fun, his ‘60s hippie critiques updated for ‘70s culture, and Wonderful Wino is a good rendition of a song that had been around since at least 1970–it’s in lots of Flo & Eddie sets, appears on the debut album of Jeff Simmons, and was recorded around the time of Over-Nite Sensation with Ricky Lancelotti on vocals (later released on The Lost Episodes). And then there’s The Torture Never Stops, which is a pretty good song that I usually put on my Halloween mixes. It’s got two things going against it. 1, the fake orgasming is only not annoying the first time you hear it. 2, he played it in his live set for, like, every show he ever played after this point, with not a lot of changes between bands and years—and it’s always 10-15 minutes long. So every time they release a new complete Zappa show, you’ve gotta sit through this song again… so yeah, I don’t hate the song, but I am sick of it.

This album came out on Warner Brothers, the major label who had been distributing Frank’s Discreet Records. Frank got into a protracted legal battle with his (now former) manager Herb Cohen, so this wound up Frank’s first album since the early Verve days to come out directly on a major label instead of something he operated. The legal battle stretches on and complicates Zappa’s ability to release music. After a decade of releasing multiple albums per year, FZ releases only this in 1976, nothing in 1977, and two albums released by Cohen against Zappa’s wishes in 1978. In 1979 he will strike back with a vengeance, because his music was sure not standing still in all that time…

Possibly in part due to it being released by Warner Bros, this is one of the easiest to find original Zappa records—if your local record store has two Zappas in the bins, it’ll be this and Over-Nite Sensation. (If they have three, the third will be Ship Arriving Too Late…)

[longliverockback]

Frank Zappa Läther 1996 Rykodisc ————————————————— Tracks CD One: 01. Re-Gyptian Strut 02. Naval Aviation in Art? 03. A Little Green Rosetta 04. Duck Duck Goose 05. Down in de Dew 06. For the Young Sophisticate 07. Tryin’ to Grow a Chin 08. Broken Hearts Are for Assholes 09. The Legend of the Illinois Enema Bandit 10. Lemme Take You to the Beach 11. Revised Music for Guitar & Low Budget Orchestra 12. RDNZL

Tracks CD Two: 01. Honey, Don't You Want a Man Like Me? 02. The Black Page #1 03. Big Leg Emma 04. Punky’s Whips 05. Flambé 06. The Purple Lagoon 07. Pedro’s Dowry 08. Läther 09. Spider of Destiny 10. Duke of Orchestral Prune

Tracks CD Three: 01. Filthy Habits 02. Titties ‘n Beer 03. The Ocean Is the Ultimate Solution 04. The Adventures of Greggery Peccary 05. Regyptian Strut (1993) 06. Leather Goods 07. Revenge of the Knick Knack People 08. Time Is Money —————————————————

Terry Bozzio

Michael Brecker

Randy Brecker

Don Brewer

Ronnie Cuber

George Duke

Roy Estrada

Bruce Fowler

Tom Fowler

Jim Gordon

Paul Humphrey

Ralph Humphrey

Eddie Jobson

Ricky Lancelotti

Andre Lewis

Tom Malone

Lou Marini

Patrick O’Hearn

Don Pardo

Emil Richards

Dave Samuels

Chester Thompson

Ruth Underwood

Chad Wakerman

Ray White

Frank Zappa

* Long Live Rock Archive

[sofakingmanyrecords]

For some reason this specific version of "Wino Man" popped into my head this morning. Ricky Lancelotti was such an awesomely absurd vocalist. The guy had some pipes!

[somethingvinyl]

Zappa’s next album is a doozy—one of my favorite albums of all time, and the first album by the best iteration of the Mothers. His bedridden albums and tours with the Grand and Petit Wazoos shifted something in FZ. After disbanding the Petit Wazoo, Zappa spent early 1973 touring with a combo including George Duke, Ian & Ruth Underwood, some of the horns from the Grand Wazoo, and the jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. You can hear this band on Piquantique from Beat the Boots, and there’s a full concert by them on YouTube, they’re quite a group. On this tour he started to hone his new sound, which integrated his bizarro jazz compositions more fully with traditional rock song structures. This tour also marked most lead vocal work Zappa had done up to that point. He had never been super comfortable singing, but he was writing vocal songs and wasn’t employing a lead vocalist for the first time in his career—he started the tour mostly instrumental, then became a lead vocalist by necessity. So he developed the Sprechgesang talk-singing style he would use for the rest of his career.

The core of this band went into the studio to make Over-Nite Sensation. Jean-Luc Ponty contributed some, but he was far too successful in his own right to stay long as just a member of a band. The result is unlike any Zappa record before it. This might be a silly thing to say about a band that put a shaving-cream-spraying stuffed giraffe on stage, but I feel like every album/tour before this has a sort of frustrated seriousness, a desperate need to prove that this music is Important even through the ridiculous humor. This album just feels fun. The music is still as complex and serious as ever, but FZ and the band just sound like they’re enjoying themselves throughout. The lyrics are deeply absurdist, delivered by Zappa in his half-sung monologue voice or sung by his “ringer” vocalist Ricky Lancelotti. Lancelotti didn’t last long, but the formula did: FZ takes vocals unless the song needs someone with chops to belt it out, and there’s always at least one person in the band whose job that is. This album also features some unlikely contributions of background vocals by Tina Turner and the Ikettes—the collaboration happened because FZ was recording in the Turners’ studio, but when Ike heard the songs, he hated them and insisted that Tina and the Ikettes not be credited in the liner notes.

Over-Nite sensation is a great listen all the way through, and a good Zappa starting point for anyone looking. And his next few albums are with largely the same band and cut from the same cloth—1973-1975 is the second golden age of Zappa.

This album also kicks off a new record label: FZ and his longtime manager Herb Cohen cofounded Discreet records, distributed by Warner Bros, the parent company of Reprise who distributed Bizarre. The name is a pun on the discrete channel method of creating quadraphonic records, because Zappa figured quadraphonic was the way of the future (he even says in the first verse of the first song “she said her stereo was 4-way”). He did prepare quadraphonic releases of both this and Apostrophe, but the label did not develop into the quadraphonic powerhouse he envisioned for, perhaps, obvious reasons. My copy is an original on Discreet, which are extremely plentiful in record stores. I’m looking forward to the eminent release of the 50th anniversary box set—the bonus discs promise to be chock full of amazing material!