Lulu:

Book #69 in the series, Frank Zappa, Hot Rats. Thought of as THE Jazz/Rock Fusion record, the album has become legendary on so many levels. The performances were absolutely stunning & it was Ian Underwood's time to shine. His work on the Sax, Clarinet, Flute & Keyboards was groundbreaking & brought him International notoriety. Max Bennett (bass), John Guerin, Paul Humphrey & Ron Selico (drums), Sugarcane Harris & Jean-Luc Ponty (violin) all gave career best performances & yet, this album was still dominated by Frank Zappa! His Production & Engineering demands for the album pushed forward the recording industry by a decade. Hot Rats was also the album where Zappa unleashed his guitar prowess to the world, stunning fans with his originality & fluidity, along with the sonic masterpieces he created. But more than anything, it was his songwriting. These pieces truly defied categorization, as Zappa merged the Blues, Jazz, R&B & Soul all into a collection of timeless Rock & Roll songs for the ages!

Armando Franco:

After reading the author's first book in this series, on Zappa's album We're Only in it for the Money (#17 on his list of the 150 best albums), I was pleasantly surprised that his next release was Zappa's Hot Rats (#69), as this album has always been one of my favourites. It's a smaller book than the one on the Money album (I guess that's why it's cheaper), but it's just as good. This book is so well researched about all of the details and history of the album, it was like discovering Hot Rats again for the first time. The author writes about Zappa with so much love and passion that it's a pleasure to read. I recommend this book to any Zappa fan, as it's pretty clear that Hot Rats is not only a great album, but a very important one as well. The author makes some cool points about what Zappa was saying through his music and it's a very interesting premise. I highly recommend it as that's now 2 for 2 with this author. I'm now looking forward to his next book in the series, whichever album it is!

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