Sleep Dirt

Sleep Dirt is an album by Frank Zappa, released in January 1979 on his own DiscReet Records label, distributed by Warner Bros. Records. It reached No. 175 on the Billboard 200 album chart in the United States. Zappa's original title for the album was Hot Rats III. As the original title implies, Zappa saw this as a sort of follow up to his earlier jazz-influenced rock albums such as Hot Rats (1969) and Waka/Jawaka (1972). Though it was on his own label, Zappa did not authorize the original 1979 release of this album. Warner did no promotion and it was largely overlooked by fans upon release. At the same time Zappa gave interviews which described his legal problems with Warner and former manager Herb Cohen. The 1991 CD re-release was the first time the album was issued with Zappa's authorization. Some of the songs on this album were originally written in 1972 for a Zappa stage musical called Hunchentoot. A complete script exists, but the recordings for this project were never completed.