Bongo Fury

In April 1975 Zappa had a one-sided demo acetate disc cut at Kendun Recorders in Burbank, California. This unreleased disc contains "Revised Music for Guitar and Low-Budget Orchestra", "200 Years Old" and "Regyptian Strut".^[5] Zappa's liner notes in the June 1975 album One Size Fits All mention a planned studio follow up album which never appeared. Zappa released Bongo Fury instead. The album contains a four minute version of "200 Years Old" which was edited from the one on the April 1975 acetate.

The album is a notable entry in Zappa's discography, because it was the last to feature a majority of his early 1970s band, which appeared on Over-Nite Sensation (1973), Apostrophe (') (1974), Roxy & Elsewhere (1974), and One Size Fits All (1975). It's also the last album to be released with the Mothers of Invention, which wouldn't release anything else until the 1992 archival album, Playground Psychotics.

Napoleon Murphy Brock's vocals are featured both on the sprawling "Advance Romance" as well as on the three-part harmonies of "Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy". Captain Beefheart, in his only tour with Zappa's band, delivers vocals and harmonica on several tracks, including his two short prose readings "Sam with the Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Man with the Woman Head". Bongo Fury also marks the first appearance of Terry Bozzio, who would become Zappa's featured drummer between 1975 and 1978.

Reviewing in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau wrote: "This sentimental reunion album, recorded (where else?) in Austin with (what else?) additional L.A. studio work, is dismissed by Zappaphiles and 'Fhearthearts alike, but what were they expecting? Perhaps because there's a blues avatar up top, the jazzy music has a soulful integrity, and though it's embarrassing to hear the Captain deliver Frankie's latest pervo exploitations, the rest of the songs are funnier because he's singing them."^[3]

In a 1979 interview, Zappa made his disdain for Robert Christgau very clear when he said "So what am I supposed to do? Go around and tell everyone how moral I am because Robert Christgau thinks I’m immoral? The guy’s a xxxxing pinhead, let’s face it."^[6] Zappa was responding to Christgau's review of Sheik Yerbouti which labeled him as "anally fixated and somehow morally vacant."

Musicians

• Frank Zappa – lead guitar, lead (2, 5, 6, 9) and backing vocals
• Captain Beefheart – harp, lead (1, 3–5, 8, 9) and backing vocals, shopping bags (also soprano sax)
• George Duke – keyboards, lead (2, 7) and backing vocals
• Napoleon Murphy Brock – sax, lead (2, 7) and backing vocals
• Bruce Fowler – trombone, fantastic dancing
• Tom Fowler – bass, also dancing
• Denny Walley – slide guitar, backing vocals
• Terry Bozzio – drums, moisture
• Chester Thompson – drums (5, 6)
• Robert "Frog" Camarena – backing vocals on "Debra Kadabra" (uncredited)

Production

• Michael Braunstein – engineer
• Frank Hubach – engineer
• Kelly Kotera – engineer
• Kerry McNabb – engineer
• Davey Moire – engineer
• Cal Schenkel – design
• John Williams – photography, cover photo
• Bob Stone – engineer
• Mike D. Stone of the Record Plant – engineer
• Mark Linett – tour mix engineer
• Paul Hof - tour production manager
• Coy Featherstone - tour lighting designer
• Unity - tour lighting designer

Album - Billboard (United States)