Frank wrote that song at the very beginning of the '77 European tour, and it has a personal relevance to me. We were doing this rehearsal in London and Frank was getting very tense. He expected certain things to be there when we got to rehearsal, and certain things were not there. We were gonna do the song "Zoot Allures," and he started playing this 11th chord and got very angry at everybody because nothing was happening right. I got fined because I hadn't memorized this little piece called "Little House I Used to Live In." I hadn't realized he wanted it totally memorized. So this rehearsal ended in a total fiasco. The next day, he came in with these lyrics: "Maybe you should stay with yo' mama. . . " It was really autobiographic; that's how things evolve with Frank.
Site maintained by Román García Albertos1978 Jan-Feb
During the Fall '77 tour, Frank would perform a guitar solo as the climax to the "Wild Love" improvisational festivities. After Belew's disco-vamped solo, the band would start from scratch and Frank would play his piece over a dramatic, slowly building vamp. For this tour, Frank kept his post-"Wild Love" solo spot, but he spruced it up with lyrics and a simple song structure. That song is, of course, "Yo Mama". The guitar monster. During this short 5 week tour, the "song" essentially stayed the same, but Frank's solo spot evolved through three distinct styles. The first is the most freeform of the lot, in which Frank simply played maniacally while the band attempted to support him. About a week into the tour, the initial freeform section remained, with a new, "this sounds like YAWYI" vamp supporting the remainder of the solo. By the third week, the song had transformed itself again, into the three part monster we know and love from "Sheik Yerbouti". Now, I really should go on and on about what a treat this song was- especially on this tour- but I think this is something that we all already know. This song usually ends up as one of the top 5 favorite songs in most FZ polls- as does the guitar solo among favorite guitar solos- which is particularly amazing considering that there exist many a live tape with "Yo Mama" solos that are better than the officially released one. Probably THE highlight on a tour with many.
1978 Aug-Oct
Essentially played as on "Sheik Yerbouti", with the standard deviation coming in Frank's solo. Not quite the monster guitar spot that it was on the previous tour (possibly due to O'Hearn's absence?), but a showstopper, nonetheless. [See the 10/29 review for the exception to this "not-quite-a-monster-guitar-spot" rule. Frank whips out what may be his best solo ever during that climatic "Yo Mama" show closer]
1981
Essentially played as on "Sheik Yerbouti", accounting for obvious differences in instrumentation, and with the standard deviation coming in Frank's solo. Sadly, this is one song that never really relived its heyday after its initial tour. The Spring '78 tour saw an overwhelming number of simply orgasmic "Yo Mama's". Unfortunately, the song seemed spent after that tour, as each subsequent performance never reaches the climatic heights of a Spring '78 Mama. The performances from this tour are no exception. They are not bad- I am not saying that- but they are not the show stopping tour-de-force's that we frequently heard three-and-a-half years earlier.