This little 123 page book was one of my Christmas presents this year. It was originally published in 1998 by Omnibus Press, but author Ben Watson has added a short chapter entitled "Posthumous Existence" for the 2005 reprinting, to ensure up-to-date coverage of all of Zappa's official albums and some of the oddities.

On the positive side, I'll start off by saying that Ben Watson is clearly expert in relation to Zappa's music. I'll readily concede that he knows Zappa's body of work better than do I, even after all the listening and reading that I've done in relation to Zappa. In fact, I rather wish I had had this book at my fingertips as I was writing by series of Zappa reviews because it's filled with little nuggets of information about the various albums.

The book is arranged in eleven chapters, as follows:

1. Introduction
2. The Verve Years
3. The Bizarre Years
4. Discreet
5. Warner Brothers Versus Läther
6. The CBS Years
7. Classical Projects
8. Barking Pumpkin
9. Digging the Archive
10. The Final Masterpiece
11. Posthumous Existence

I'm gratified to note that Watson's organizational framework pretty much parallels what I came up with for my A Frank Zappa Categorical Discography. Watson's second chapter covers the first iteration of The Mothers, the third chapter is the jazz albums and the Flo and Eddie version of Mothers, while the fourth chapter covers the 1973-5 third configuration of the band. "The CBS Years" corresponds to what I called the eighties guitar-driven bands. "Barking Pumpkin" covers the late eighties, including the two music videos, the Broadway musical, "FZ Meets the Mothers of Prevention," and the 1988 jazz band. Chapter ten analyzes Civilization Phaze III.

Back of the book items include a useful bibliography and an index. One of the book's nicest attractions is sixteen pages of mostly color photographs, totalling thirty-nine. The photographs are of Zappa, his associates, and some of the album covers.

My principal reservation about the book is that it is noteworthy for its lack of critical assessment of Zappa's various albums. Watson avoids rating each album, preferring instead to treat Zappa's oeuvre as though it were one totality (an approach consistent with Zappa's own view of his work, but not very useful to music lovers wanting to sample a piece here and there). With the sole exception of a few compilation albums (that he gives short shrift), which duplicated previously released material, Watson tends to muster about the same level of enthusiasm (always glowing) for all of the albums, including both ones I consider masterpieces and others that I consider inferior products. Consequently, this book is not an especially useful book for Zappa novices hoping to derive some guidance as to which albums to explore first. Instead, it is better designed for the interests of already committed Zappa enthusiasts who want to learn more about the background behind albums about which they've already formed their own judgmental opinions. For that reason, I enthusiastically recommend this book to Zappaphiles but not to novices looking for an aid in their initial exploration of Zappa's work.

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You can quickly link to my Zappa CD reviews at:

A Frank Zappa Categorical Discography & Top Choice Lists

You can check out my reviews of other Zappa-related books at:

The Real Frank Zappa Book
Barry Miles: Zappa – A Biography

Recommended: Yes