The "Piano People" Experiment With Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton presented voices for Lumpy Gravy and We're Only In It For The Money and also at the Mothers of Invention show (Los Angeles on Mother's Day 1969 - Shrine Auditorium) Clapton came up onstage from the audience and jammed with Frank and the Mothers for around a half hour.

While recording Lumpy Gravy in the studio in New York, Zappa realised that the strings of Apostolic Studios' grand piano would resonate when someone spoke close to those strings. The "piano people" experiment required Zappa having a variety of speakers improvise conversation utilizing topics offered by Zappa. Multiple people contributed to these sessions, such as Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart and Tim Buckley. The "piano people" voices primarily consisted of Mothers of Invention bandmembers Motorhead Sherwood and Roy Estrada, Spider Barbour (leader of the rock band Chrysalis), All-Night John (the manager of the studio) and Louis Cuneo, who was noted for his laugh, which sounded like a "psychotic turkey". They generated dialogue which was launched on additional Zappa album We're Only In It For The Money the and later albums.

Saying "Are you hung up,is that it, you're strung up are you, out of site yeah"

During The Frank Zappa Interview Picture Disk, Zappa stated the following regarding Clapton: "I know Eric, I haven't seen him in years and years. There's another guy who shouldn't use drugs."

How would you reveal the response given to an interviewer? He questioned Zappa whether he ever traded guitar ideas with Eric Clapton. "No," Zappa replied, "he wasn't that kind of musician, as far as I could tell; he wasn't the jamming type."