Trout Mask Replica, the album that many consider Captain Beefheart’s magnum opus was produced by Frank Zappa. It has been suspected by some that although it is credited to Beefheart, most of the music was Zappa’s. You can hear a real difference in styles if you compare this album to the one that directly came after, Lick My Decals Off, Baby, which was produced by Beefheart himself. This was brought to mind today while listening to the Zappa album which came out at about the same time, Weasels Ripped my Flesh. On the CD, there is an extended version of the song Didja Get Any Onya? (longer than what was on the original album) which contains a sequence of the main riff from the Beefheart track The Blimp. Since Beefheart is not credited, I’m assuming Zappa wrote it, but it brings up the title question, how much more of Trout Mask Replica was actually created by Frank Zappa?
Here’s an article that may help clear up the Beefheart/Zappa question. http://beefheart.com/datharp/int.htm
Without lessening the genius of Zappa, I would have to say the Captain was mostly responsible for the music. I believe Beefheart was a rather uncompromising individual when it came to his music. There is a lot of Zappa in the production, but there is a lot of Beefheart in Zappa.
If I recall correctly, Captain Beefheart expressed his musical concepts verbally and more abstractly than Zappa did. I think Zappa may have had a hand in the music in that he would take Captain Beefheart’s concepts and turn them into something more concrete and playable. It could have been more of a designer/engineer relationship. Beefheart would say “this is what I want to happen” and Zappa would say “OK band, this is how you make it happen” - that sort of thing.
Naturally these ideas would carry over into Zappa’s music, and Zappa’s ideas would carry over into Beefheart’s music.
Zappa wrote the music to the song The Blimp. He released officially as an insturmental called Charles Ives on the cd, *You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 5.
Not to diminish Zappa’s genius, but one knock I’ve heard from ex-Mothers of Invention is that when he had those that could read and write music score it for copyright and music publishing purposes, he invariably put his name on it. It was a bit of a sore spot, scoring your own improvisational solo, then having Zappa’s name put on it, and all the credits and royalities going to him.