Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa was an American guitarist, vocalist and composer. Zappa was a fan of Allan's guitar playing. Zappa let Allan use his home studio for mixes of the Road Games album, which were ultimately not used on the album, but which can be heard on "Tales From The Vault".

Some comments by Frank on Allan can be found here: https://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/Allan_Holdsworth

Allan Holdsworth: An interview (Atavachron 1994)

CH: Do you have any Frank Zappa anecdotes? Any thoughts about him, now that he's passed away?

AH: It's really sad... you know, I mean, we all loved what he did, and I think of him, like, to me, he was like a musical Clint Eastwood; ‘cause he did everything for himself, and not only was his music wonderful; he was a great man, you know. And I don't know anybody who didn't have-who didn't know him-who didn't have the utmost respect for him, both as a musician and as a person.

CH: Did you know him, at all?

AH: Yeah, I did! But he was really good to me-helped me out and he one time let me use his studio, you know, and there was no reason for him to do that, you know-he was just basically helping me out! But, you know, we were all, you know, really sad about what happened to him. You know, I just wish I could have seen a little bit more of him. Let him know what all of us thought about him. The other thing is, I think that "self-made guy" thing, you know, like Clint, you know... they go out and do their thing... and they say screw Warner Brothers, screw any record company... you know, they're all walking around with their fingers up... [obviously some unmentionable orifice]

FUSION, ROCK AND SOMETHING ELSE (The Jerusalem Post 2017)

“I was trying to find a drummer and I crossed paths with Frank Zappa who told me, ‘oh, you should check out this guy.' So when I held some auditions, I invited Chad. We just improvised, just me and the drummer, we didn't play any songs at all.

I know that people can learn to play certain music, you can learn anything, but I wanted a guy I could feel comfortable playing with. And with Chad, it was like, ok, you can stay. Even today, there's always surprises when we play together, which is great.”

Guitar Like A Saxophone (Guitar World 1987)

Mr. Holdsworth has this dilemma. On the one hand, he's revered by nearly every aspiring six stringer m the free world, and a guru to guitar heroes like Ed Van Halen, Frank Zappa, Gary Moore and Neal Schon. And yet, this guitar hero's hero can't seem to get over with the record-buying public.