Background
In early 1976, Zappa's relationship with manager and business partner Herb Cohen ended in litigation. Zappa and Cohen's company DiscReet Records was distributed by Warner Bros. Records. When Zappa asked for a re-assignment of his contract from DiscReet to Warner in order to advance the possibility of doing special projects without Cohen's involvement, Warner briefly agreed. This led to the 1976 release of Zoot Allures on Warner. Early in 1977, Zappa delivered the master tapes for a quadruple-LP set, entitled Läther. However, Warner changed its position following legal action from Cohen, and refused to release the album, claiming that Zappa was contractually bound to deliver four more albums to Warner for the DiscReet label.
After Warner Bros. released Zappa In New York, they told him that he still owed them four more albums. He then attempted to get a distribution deal with Phonogram to release Läther on the new Zappa Records label. This led Warner to threaten legal action, preventing the release of Läther and forcing Zappa to shelve the project. As Zappa had delivered the tapes only, these three individual albums were released with no musical credits. Warner also commissioned sleeve art by Gary Panter, which was not approved by Zappa. When this material was first released on CD in 1991 Zappa chose to release the individual albums, along with Panter's artwork. The material on Studio Tan was made available in a different form when Läther was released in 1996.
Read more about this topic: Studio Tan
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