Wild Love — New York & Elsewhere, 77/78

Posted on November 22, 2009 by urbangraffito


Over 18 minutes worth of solos in the above audience recording of the October 29th, 1977, New York City performance of “Wild Love” followed by a February 15th, 1978, audio of the same from Berlin, Germany.

To me, these clips prove why Frank Zappa’s solos are so sublime, and why, no matter how tribute bands and individual musicians might try, there was just one FZ, and when he picked up his guitar, something incredibly special happened.

About urbangraffito

I am a writer, editor, publisher, philosopher, and foole (not necessarily in that order). Cultural activist and self-described anarchist.
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3 Responses to Wild Love — New York & Elsewhere, 77/78

  1. metafunj says:
    November 24, 2009 at 3:45 am

    I believe that is Adrian soloing in the last clip. Sounds like his strat. Also it sounds like he is playing a written melody that goes along with the backing music, so it might have been part of a song Frank made him inject into the solo.

  2. urbangraffito says:
    November 24, 2009 at 8:19 am

    [quote comment=”8388″]I believe that is Adrian soloing in the last clip. Sounds like his strat. Also it sounds like he is playing a written melody that goes along with the backing music, so it might have been part of a song Frank made him inject into the solo.[/quote]

    Quite right, metafunj. I think it’s Belew’s “manic solo” that always made this song stand out, particularly on the official version. Yet when you hear the myriad live versions, especially from 1977 to 1978, the evolution of the solos is really quite incredible.

    Check out what Information Is Not Knowledge has to say:

    After the conclusion of the song as we know it from the album, Belew’s chorded guitar riff is played again, and this lead us into The Solos. The keyboard players typically go first, accompanied by a very active percussion section and some intense bass playing. Ocasionally throughout the tour, Ed Mann gets his chance to solo, and his percussion workout follows the keyboardists. Belew goes next, and for his solo, a disco vamp is introduced (which sounds remarkably similar to a song I heard on VH1), along with a short theme that Belew toys with for the duration of his solo. Belew employs liberal use of his volume pedal for his rather manic solo, with O’Hearn once again providing some exceptional bass support. Frank then picks up his guitar and concludes the festivities.

  3. metafunj says:
    November 25, 2009 at 10:05 pm

    Thanks for that info Urban. It seems like this song has many variations, its seems to be one of the songs forgotten for many of the live releases. Belew would also solo using an E-bow on his guitar which gives the notes a lot of sustain like a violin but slides similar to a normal guitar slide. In this version it sounds like normal picking though.

    Also I don’t remember the official Sheik Yerbouti release having a solo? I though it just went into the funk chord part.

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