Frank Zappa - Sheik Yerbouti (1979)

For those who aren’t familiar with the work of Frank Zappa, it’s difficult to accurately review one of his many, many albums without taking a track-by-track approach due to the widely varying musical styles he cleverly utilises as backdrops for his wit, opprobrium and social commentary (usually eloquently delivered in a suave but biting style). Oh, yes and he was no mean guitarist too and visionary composer/arranger!

With Sheik Yerbouti, Zappa was at the peak of his career and in his most accessible period musically: I’d always recommend the album to people interested in Zappa who hadn’t heard any of his work previously.

The album features 18 tracks, some of which are instrumentals, displaying a narrower range of musical stylings than on most of Zappa’s other albums – as close to a ‘mainstream’ Zappa album as you’re likely to find, filled with plenty of guitar solos, lengthy instrumental passages, powerful riff-driven numbers and acerbic lyrics poking fun at the US glitterati scene in all their pomp and vacuity (along with a few other notable targets).

Zappa’s backing band was always largely a revolving door but here he has the solid backing of Adrain Belew on vocals and guitar and Terry Bozzio on drums being the most notable. Not renowned for his singles output – in part due to the subject matter of many of his tracks – Sheik Yerbouti did spawn Bobby Brown Goes Down, a touching tale of transgendered sado masochism which proved a hit in mainland Europe and Scandinavia of all places!

• Frank Zappa – Guitar/Vocals
• Adrian Belew – Guitar/Vocals
• Terry Bozzio – Drums/Vocals
• Patrick O’Hearn – Bass/Vocals
• Ed Mann – Percussion
• Tommy Mars – Keyboards/Vocals
• Peter Wolf – Keyboards