Joe's Garage, Acts I, II & III
ARTIST: Frank Zappa
RELEASE: 1987
INTERVIEWEE: Ike Willis
Guitarist-composer Frank Zappa started making albums in 1966. Leading the Mothers and as a nominally solo artist, Zappa released more than two dozen albums between Freak Out and 1979's Orchestral Favorites. If there was anything even more unusual than the wildly ambitious, widely-encompassing nature of Zappa's music, it was the fact that he somehow hadn't made a rock-opera-type album.
The idea that Joe's Garage would be a concept album came to Zappa on the second day of recording, says Ike Willis. "After we recorded those first two songs, Frank came in on the third day with a bunch of sheets of paper." On those pages was the basic story of Joe's Garage. "And it grew exponentially every day from there," he says. "It took on a life of its own."