Investigation

'"Remember you're beautiful Christine! Hedy Lamarr", I exclaimed. She knew what I meant.'

Finally, Cohen spotted potential for a stunning image.

'I walked out of the pool and looked back, asking her to come forward. "OK, lower yourself slowly down... right... there!"'

The resulting shot would certainly jump out from any contact sheet. Swathed in fuchsia-hued light, Christine resembles some kind of supernatural creature crawling from a crypt, her wild curls and kohl-circled eyes peeking out from above the concrete as her long, slender fingers slide towards the sides of the lens as if she's about to leap out and grab the camera.

When Cohen showed Zappa the shots, he was instantly intrigued.

'I saw that iconic eyebrow lift' she later recalled. 'He peered over the top of the slide sheet at me: "What are you doing with these?". Frank pointed to the one of Christine in the Yucca plant, which wound up as the back cover of the GTO's album [1969's Permanent Damage]. "Can I use that for the girls' album?"

Cohen agreed, but there was more... 'Then he fixated on the one of Christine coming out of the pool. He was like a jeweller with a diamond in his loop. He held it up to the light and said, "I'm doing a solo album y'know... My first". I could see through that loop – right into his eye and right into his mind.'

Making Movies
Technically, Hot Rats wouldn't be Zappa's solo debut – 1967's Lumpy Gravy, conducted by him but recorded by session musicians Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra, is usually counted as such in discographies. But this new 'movie for your ears' was a departure for Zappa, which was reflected in the simple sleeve design geared around that stunning image of Miss Christine.

Where's The Beef?
So Cal Schenkel put together an uncharacteristically clean cover, with artist and album title in bold sans-serif type either side of that unnerving central image. The inner gatefold is also relatively simple by Zappa/Mothers standards, featuring a jumbled montage of photos of Zappa in the studio, live and at home, alongside portrait shots of the sole surviving Mother Ian Underwood (filtered in suitably psychedelic colours), who played a plethora of instruments on the album.

Also pictured is Captain Beefheart, Zappa's sometime friend, rival and fellow traveller, whose growling contribution to 'Willie The Pimp' was a rare vocal part on a mostly instrumental set.

The sleeve wasn't without its in-jokes and obscure references, though. Take the photo on the bottom right of the gatefold, which captures an advert stuck on the wall of Zappa's New York apartment, reading 'Shame on you. You didn't trust Mother's'.

Zappa explained to International Times in 1977 that 'It was an ad for Mother's Gefilte Fish, and it was based on the fact that some people had died of botulism from this particular product and they were advertising that they'd cleaned up their material'. No doubt part of what tickled Frank about the ad was how it read as an apparent dig at him for ditching his band.

Pond Life
Subsequent reissues of Hot Rats such as 2019's Hot Rats Sessions featured other seldom-seen shots from the photo session with Christine, such as one where she's laid backwards in the pond. 'I looked at the empty pool in the gardens which had been a lily pond at one time since it had several large planter boxes in it', Cohen Nathanson said. 'I remember it so well. I asked, "Can you drape your body over the planter box?" She did – and what a drape.'

Power Trip
Cohen Nathanson later reflected on the meaning of the images to her: 'I wanted to say something about the emergence of female power. Christine was a Tim Burton character mixed with a silent film star. The photos from the shoot that day were so good. The combo of me and Christine really worked.'

Fans of the album would later claim that the pink-hued image adorning the cover had seriously mind-bending qualities when viewed in the grip of an hallucinogenic trip. Meanwhile, radio ads recommended you held the photo under yellow light to return the photo to a more conventional black and white image, if the world turning infrared pink was a concept too disconcerting.

Zappa would soon reform The Mothers Of Invention, albeit with only Ian Underwood (keyboardist who also played on Hot Rats) surviving from the previous lineup.Christine Frka would make an album with the GTO's, although it would be the group's only release, and around that time she would date several notable musicians, including Alice Cooper, whose face-painted look was said to have been partly developed by the former GTO. 'I still look at that album cover', Cooper said in 2018. 'It's nice that she's immortalised.'