Frank Zappa
| Frank Zappa |
|---|
| Frank_Zappa_Apostrophe_(').jpg |
American composer |
| Born | December 21, 1940Baltimore, Maryland, USA |
| Died | December 4, 1993Laurel Canyon, California, USA |
| "A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians." - Frank Zappa |
|
Frank Vincent Zappa (
December 21,
1940 –
December 4,
1993) was an
American composer,
guitarist,
singer,
film director, and
satirist.
[As noted by Zappa and Occhiogrosso (1989), his real name was "Frank", never "Francis". Until rediscovering his birth certificate as an adult, Zappa himself believed he had been christened Francis, and he is credited as Francis on some of his early albums. Some encyclopedias still incorrectly claim that his real name was "Francis".] In his 33-year musical career, Zappa proved to be one of the most prolific musician-composers of his era, releasing over sixty albums during his lifetime, almost all of which consisted of original compositions. He was also a renowned
electric guitarist and a gifted producer-engineer with an encyclopedic knowledge of studio technology, who self-produced almost every recording he made after his 1966 debut.
His work spanned virtually every contemporary musical genre (including
avant-garde,
big band,
blues,
contemporary classical,
doo-wop,
electronic music,
funk,
hard rock,
jazz,
jazz fusion,
country,
musique concrète,
pop,
proto punk,
Punk Rock,
progressive rock, proto-
rap,
reggae,
rock,
ska, and
world music), and was often noted for its blend of high art,
rock opera, absurdity, scatological
humor, and for its caustic
satire. Zappa was also noted as a spotter of talent and conductor of extremely stringent auditions, his various groups including such musical luminaries as
Adrian Belew,
Terry Bozzio,
Aynsley Dunbar,
Lowell George,
Jean-Luc Ponty,
Ruth Underwood,
George Duke,
Vinnie Colaiuta,
Mike Keneally and
Steve Vai.
Zappa has a large and fiercely dedicated worldwide following, particularly in the
United States, the
United Kingdom,
Italy,
Germany,
The Netherlands and
Scandinavian countries. His albums were a strong influence on other groups, and his critically acclaimed work garnered brief mainstream success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the hit singles: "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow", "Dancin' Fool" and "
Valley Girl". Zappa, as demonstrated by his disparaging comments about the music business, never cared much for mainstream acclaim.
Zappa was married twice, once to Kathryn "Kay" Sherman (1960–1964; no children), and then in 1967 to Adelaide Gail Sloatman, with whom he remained until his death. They had four children:
Moon Unit,
Dweezil (born
Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa, because the hospital refused to put Dweezil on the birth certificate; Dweezil later legally changed his name to "Dweezil"),
Ahmet Emuukha Rodan (named for
Atlantic Records executive
Ahmet Ertegun), and
Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen.
[As a guest on "The Tonight Show," chatting with guest-host Jay Leno, Zappa was asked why he had given his children such unusual names. Zappa answered, in a casual tone of voice, "Because I wanted to!" When asked the same question by Joan Rivers, he urged her to "consider for a moment any beauty in the name Ralph." In an interview with Arsenio Hall Zappa said that if their names ever gave them problems, it would be because of the last name.] Gail Zappa handles the businesses of her late husband under the company name the
Zappa Family Trust.
Frank Zappa was born in
Baltimore, Maryland on
December 21,
1940 to Francis Zappa (born in
Partinico,
Sicily, of
Greek and
Lebanese descent) and Rose Marie Colimore (who was of 3 quarters
Italian including
Sicilian and 1/4
French descent). He was the oldest of four children (two brothers and a sister). In January of 1951, his family relocated to the West Coast because of Frank's
asthma. They settled in
Monterey,
California, about 100 miles south of
San Francisco. Shortly thereafter, they moved to
Pomona, then to
El Cajon before moving a short distance, once again, to
San Diego in the early 1950s.
During Zappa's earliest childhood, his father, a
chemist and
mathematician, worked at the Edgewood Arsenal
chemical warfare facility at nearby
Aberdeen Proving Ground. Due to the home's proximity to the Arsenal, Zappa's father kept gas masks on hand in case of an accident. Evidently, this had a profound effect on the young Zappa; references to germs, germ warfare and other aspects of the "secret" defense industry occur throughout his work. Zappa developed a sinus problem during his early teens. To his lasting horror, his doctor treated the stubborn ailment by inserting a pellet of
radium on a probe into each of his
nostrils. Nasal imagery and references would appear both in his writing and in the collage album covers created by his longtime visual collaborator,
Cal Schenkel.
By 1955 the Zappa family had relocated to
Lancaster. Lancaster was a small
aerospace and farming town in
Antelope Valley of the
Mojave Desert, close to
Edwards Air Force Base (30 miles away),
Los Angeles (60 miles away), and the
San Gabriel Mountains. By age 15, Zappa had attended six different
high schools. Lancaster's location gave Zappa access to the exciting sounds of radio stations in Los Angeles and KSPC 88.7 FM in
Claremont, where Zappa had his own Saturday night show. In addition, his parents were affluent enough to afford a record player, records, a television, and musical instruments. Television also exerted a strong influence, as demonstrated by quotations from show themes and advertising jingles found in some of his later work.
As a student, Zappa was bored and given to distracting the rest of the class with juvenile antics. He left community college after one semester to make low-budget films. Frank maintained his disdain for formal education throughout his life, taking his children out of school at age 15 and refusing to pay for their college.
Zappa was, from the beginning, interested in sounds for their own sake. This led to his interest in modern composers, and he grew up influenced in equal measures by
avant-garde composers such as
Edgard Varèse,
Igor Stravinsky and
Anton Webern, local
rhythm and blues and
doo-wop groups (particularly local
pachuco groups), and modern jazz (including
bebop and
free jazz). The pivotal events leading to Zappa's engagement with modern classical music ocurred after his reading of a
LOOK magazine story on the
Sam Goody record store chain that lauded its ability to sell an LP as obscure as
The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Volume One. It further described
Varèse's dissonant drum composition "
Ionisation" as "a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds." Zappa then became convinced that he should seek out Varèse's music. When he spotted a copy of
The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Volume One in a local record store after a year of searching (he noticed the LP for the "mad scientist" looking photo of Varèse on the cover, and was surprised it was the Varèse LP he'd long been searching for), Zappa convinced the salesman to sell him the store's demonstration copy at a discount. Thus began a lifelong passion for Varèse and his music. Zappa's mother gave him considerable encouragement. Though she greatly disliked Varèse's music, she was indulgent enough to award Zappa the gift of a long distance call to the composer as a fifteenth birthday present. Unfortunately, Varèse was in Europe at the time, so Frank spoke to the composer's wife. Zappa later received a letter from Varèse thanking Zappa for his interest, telling him about a composition he was working on called "Déserts" (living in the desert town of Lancaster, Zappa found this very exciting), and inviting Zappa to look him up if he was ever in New York. The meeting never took place (Varèse died in 1966), but Zappa kept the framed letter proudly displayed for the rest of his life.
[On several of his earlier albums, Zappa paid tribute to Varèse by quoting his: "The present-day composer refuses to die."]Zappa's interest in composing and arranging burgeoned in his later high school years and he dreamed of being a
composer. By his final year, he was writing prolifically and had not only composed, arranged and conducted an avant-garde performance piece for the school orchestra, but had also contrived to have the event both broadcast on local radio and recorded. A portion of this recording is included on
The Lost Episodes (1996).
Zappa began his musical career on drums, taking his first lessons at school in the summer of 1953. He played drums with local teenage combos, but later switched to guitar. Although he performed as a singer and guitarist for most of his career, Zappa always retained a strong interest in rhythm and percussion. His bands have been noted for the excellence of their drummers. Works such as "The Black Page" are notorious for virtuosity and complexity in rhythmic structure and arrangement, featuring radical changes of tempo and metre as well as short, densely arranged passages contrasted by free-form breaks and extended improvisations.
[Classically trained percussionist and drummer Terry Bozzio, who played for Zappa in the late 1970s (along with many recordings of well-known classical and avant-garde works), is on record as saying that Zappa's writing for percussion is as difficult and complex as anything else he has played.]In 1956 Zappa met
Don Van Vliet (best known by his stage name "Captain Beefheart") while taking classes at
Antelope Valley High School and playing drums in a local band, The Blackouts. The Blackouts, a racially-mixed outfit, included Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood (who later lived with Zappa at 'Studio Z' and was a member of the Mothers of Invention). Zappa and Vliet became close friends, influencing each other musically, and collaborating in the late Sixties and mid-Seventies (on the 1975 album
Bongo Fury). They later became estranged for a period of years. Van Vliet's own feelings about Frank Zappa were perhaps best summarized in a quote published in a March 1994 issue of Musician magazine: "I knew him for thirty-seven years, and in the end, the relationship was private."
Zappa is quoted as saying, "
Johnny "Guitar" Watson's 1956 song 'Three Hours Past Midnight' inspired me to become a guitarist." Zappa would later invite Watson to contribute on numerous albums.
In 1957 Zappa was given his first guitar and quickly developed into a highly accomplished and inventive player. He considered his solos "air sculptures", and developed an eclectic, fluent and individual style. Zappa eventually became one of the most highly regarded electric guitarists of his time. While it is possible that Zappa might have become a professional jazz musician, he was soon drawn into rock music. Throughout, he retained a lifelong attachment to jazz forms, voicing and structures and often drew his band members from the jazz world (if only because of the high degree of competence his complex music demanded).
After graduating in June 1958 Zappa worked for a time in advertising. His sojourn in the commercial world was another important influence on his work, and within a few years Zappa was co-opting the techniques he learned as a commercial artist. Zappa used them to deconstruct music, the music business, the media and society at large by combining them with the ideas he had gleaned from his studies of
dada, the
Situationist International, and
surrealism. Zappa thereafter always took a keen interest in the visual presentation of his work, designing some of his album covers (for example,
Absolutely Free) and directing his own films and videos. Zappa's album covers are highly distinctive; frequently bizarre and surreal. His two most important visual collaborators were
Cal Schenkel in the
Sixties and early
Seventies, and
Donald Roller Wilson in the
Eighties and
Nineties.
Zappa moved to Los Angeles in 1959 and spent most of the rest of his life there. Among his earliest professional recordings are two adventurous and remarkably accomplished scores for the low-budget films
Run Home Slow and
The World's Greatest Sinner. In 1963, he began playing professionally around Los Angeles and bought the small Pal Recording Studio in
Rancho Cucamonga, California (formerly called Cucamonga), which he renamed "Studio Z". Zappa had been recording at Pal since the early 1960s and after receiving a payment for one of his film scores he was able to buy the studio, including a unique 5-track tape recorder. Soon after, he moved out of his apartment and into the studio where he began routinely working 12 hours or more per day. This set a pattern that would endure for almost all of his life. At this time, only a handful of the most expensive commercial studios had multitrack facilities, the industry standard for smaller studios was still mono or two-track. By the time he recorded his first LP with The Mothers in 1966 he was already an accomplished recording and mastering engineer and from his third LP on and for the rest of his career, he produced all his own work.
After being approached by a customer who offered him $100 to produce a suggestive tape for a stag party, Zappa and a female friend jokingly faked the "erotic" recording, which purported to contain the sounds of people having sex (which consisted of Frank and his friend jumping on the bed and making sex sounds). Unfortunately the customer was an undercover member of the
Vice Squad and Zappa was jailed for ten days on charges of supplying
pornography. His entrapment and brief imprisonment left a permanent mark, and was a key event in the formation of his anti-authoritarian stance.
After a short career as a professional
songwriter — his
elegiac "Memories of El Monte" was recorded by
The Penguins — in 1964 Zappa joined a local R&B band, The Soul Giants, as a
guitarist. Soon he assumed leadership, renaming the
band "The Mothers."
The Mothers gradually began to gain attention on the burgeoning Los Angeles
underground "freak scene" and in 1965 they were spotted by leading record producer
Tom Wilson, who had earned acclaim as the producer of the seminal
Bob Dylan album
Bringing It All Back Home and the single, "
Like a Rolling Stone," as well as the breakthrough "electric" version of
Simon & Garfunkel's "
Sounds of Silence." Wilson was also notable as one of the few African-Americans working as a major label pop producer at this time. Wilson signed The Mothers to the
Verve label, which had built up a strong reputation for its fine modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was then attempting to diversify into pop and rock, with an "artistic" or "experimental" bent. Around this time, Zappa also met and signed with longtime manager Herb Cohen.
The Mothers signed with Verve Records, which insisted that they officially re-title themselves "
The Mothers of Invention" out of a concern (likely justified) that the band's original moniker had obscene undertones. With Wilson credited as producer, The Mothers recorded their groundbreaking double album debut
Freak Out! (1966), a mixture of often topical R&B and experimental sound collage that attempted to capture the "freak" subculture of Los Angeles at that time. One of the first record albums united by an
underlying theme, it was also only the second double LP of rock music ever released, and firmly established Zappa as a major new voice in rock music. Wilson is also credited with producing the even more accomplished follow-up
Absolutely Free; but for the third LP, Wilson was listed as "Executive producer," and Zappa took over as producer for all the Mothers and solo Zappa recordings issued from that time on. It is clear that even on the two first albums, Zappa was already responsible for virtually all of the musical decisions, with Wilson providing the industry clout, credibility, and connections to get the unknown group the financial resources they needed to produce a double album with use of an orchestra; by the third album, Zappa had already enough of a proven track record to allow for a more accurate description in the album's credits of their respective roles. During this period, Wilson also had Zappa collaborate with
The Animals on the song "All Night Long" on their album
Animalism.
Zappa's second and third studio albums were landmarks of record production highlighted by liberal use of his famous 'cut-up' editing techniques.
Absolutely Free (1967) continued Zappa's lyrical preoccupations with the hypocrisy and conformity of American society, with the alleged suppression of underground and alternative culture. It was followed by the album widely regarded as the peak of the group's late Sixties work,
We're Only In It For The Money (1968) which featured some of the most radical audio editing and production yet heard in pop music, and ruthlessly satirized the
hippie and
flower power phenomena. The cover photo (which included
Jimi Hendrix) parodied that of
The Beatles'
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
[To avoid a lawsuit, however, the album was released with the cover and back on the inside of the gatefold, while the actual cover and back were a picture of the group in a pose parodying the inside of the Beatles album.]This was book-ended by two closely linked companion pieces. The audio collage
Lumpy Gravy (1968) — released as a solo album under the name
Francis Vincent Zappa — took Zappa's production techniques to a new peak and, according to Zappa himself, took nine months to edit. It mixes a multitude of musical styles and orchestra line ups. Next was his tribute to the
doo-wop genre
Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968). Other important Mothers recordings from this period were collected in the 1970s albums
Burnt Weeny Sandwich and
Weasels Ripped My Flesh.
During the late Sixties Zappa continued his rapid artistic development, emerging as a superb lead guitarist, a skilled producer and engineer, and a composer and arranger of extraordinary range and facility. He increasingly used tape editing as a compositional tool; his editing skills are apparent on the work he produced in the late Sixties with The Mothers. A prime example being the double album
Uncle Meat (1969), where the track "King Kong" is edited from various studio and live performances.
Zappa evolved a unique compositional approach — which he dubbed "conceptual continuity" — that ranged across virtually every genre of music. His work combines satirical lyrics and pop melodies with virtuoso instrumental prowess, where long, jazz-inflected improvisational passages are counterbalanced with densely edited and seemingly chaotic collage sequences that mix music, sound effects and snatches of conversation. Conceptual continuity clues are to be found throughout Zappa's entire oeuvre.
He also became famous for regularly quoting musical phrases that influenced or amused him — one of his most famous and regular quotes was the riff from the perennial Sixties rock hit 'Louie Louie', which appears in various forms in more than twenty separate recordings over the whole span of his career. He also frequently quoted from or referred to TV show themes and advertising jingles, from famous rock & pop songs such as "My Sharona," "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?," "Let's Dance," "Whip It," and "Stairway To Heaven," and from classical works such as
Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring and
Ravel's Boléro.
Around 1968 Zappa also began regularly recording his concerts, beginning with a simple two-track portable recorder and eventually progressing to a portable 48-track digital system. In the process he built up a vast archive of live recordings. In the late 1980s some of the best of these recordings were collected for the 12-CD set
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore. Because of his insistence on precise tuning and timing in concert, from the 1970s on Zappa was able to augment his studio productions with excerpts from live shows, and he is known to have inserted 'live' guitar solos into the final studio recordings of some compositions, a process he dubbed
xenochrony.
Although they were lauded by critics and their peers and had a rabid cult following, mainstream audiences often found much of Zappa and the Mothers' music, appearance and attitude impossible to comprehend, and the band was often greeted with derision. More importantly, the financial strain and interpersonal tensions involved in keeping a large jazz-rock ensemble on the road eventually led to the group's demise in 1969, although numerous members would remain with or return to Zappa in years to come.
After he disbanded the original Mothers, Zappa released the acclaimed solo instrumental album
Hot Rats, featuring his
jazz-inflected guitar playing backed by jazz, blues and R&B session players including violinist
Don "Sugarcane" Harris, drummer John Guerin, multi-instrumentalist
Ian Underwood, and bassist
Shuggie Otis. It remains one of his most popular and accessible recordings and undoubtedly had a major influence on the development of the
jazz-rock fusion genre.
During this period Zappa also produced the double album
Trout Mask Replica for his old friend
Captain Beefheart (who also appeared on
Hot Rats) as well as releases by
Alice Cooper,
Tim Buckley,
Wild Man Fischer and
The GTOs.
Around 1970, Zappa put together a new version of The Mothers that included British drummer
Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist
George Duke, previous Mothers member Ian Underwood, and no fewer than
three members of
The Turtles: bass player
Jim Pons, who before joining
The Turtles had been the lead singer of
The Leaves (of "Hey Joe" fame); and singers
Mark Volman and
Howard Kaylan, who due to persisting legal/contractual problems adopted the stage-monikers "The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie," or "
Flo & Eddie" for short.
The new lineup debuted on Zappa's next solo LP
Chunga's Revenge, which was followed by the sprawling soundtrack to the movie project
200 Motels, featuring both The Mothers and The
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. At the time George Duke was in the band and appears both in the film and on the sound track as a musician. He left the band to play with
Cannonball Adderly and was replaced by
Don Preston from the original Mothers, who acted in the film, but is not playing on the soundtrack. This double album was followed by two live sets,
Fillmore East - June 1971 and
Just Another Band From L.A., which included the 20-minute track "Billy The Mountain," Zappa's satire on rock opera, set in Southern California. The former features hilariously low-concept cover art (similar to the
bootleg albums that had recently become popular) just at the apex of the era of great rock "album cover artwork".
In December 1971 there were two serious setbacks. While performing in
Montreux,
Switzerland, the Mothers' equipment was destroyed when a flare set off by an audience member started a fire that burned down the casino where they were playing —an event immortalised in
Deep Purple's song "
Smoke On The Water." The event and immediate aftermath can be heard on the bootleg album
Swiss Cheese/Fire, released legally as part of Zappa's
Beat the Boots II compilation. Later that month, Zappa was attacked at the Rainbow Theatre,
London. A jealous boyfriend of a female fan pushed Frank off the stage and into the orchestra pit. Zappa suffered serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed
larynx (which caused his voice to drop a
third after healing). This left him wheelchair bound for a time, forcing him off the road for over a year. (He was wearing a leg brace for a period thereafter, had a noticeable limp and couldn't stand for very long while on stage.) He said one leg healed "shorter than the other" (a reference found years later in the lyrics of "Dancin' Fool"). He employed tour
bodyguard John Smothers, who was an accomplished martial artist and bodyguard for several big-name celebrities. Meanwhile, the Mothers were left in limbo, and eventually formed the core of
Flo and Eddie's band as they set out on their own.
In 1971-72 Zappa released two strongly jazz-oriented solo LPs,
Waka/Jawaka and
The Grand Wazoo, which were recorded during the forced layoff from concert touring, using floating lineups of session players and Mothers alumni. He began touring again in late 1972, first with a scaled-down version of the big band appearing on Grand Wazoo - appropriately known as "Petit Wazoo."
[Official recordings of this band would not emerge until more than 30 years later on Imaginary Diseases (2006)]. Then he formed groups that variously included
Ian Underwood (reeds, keyboards),
Ruth Underwood (vibes, marimba), Sal Marquez (trumpet, vocals),
Napoleon Murphy Brock (sax, flute and vocals),
Bruce Fowler (trombone),
Tom Fowler (bass),
Chester Thompson (drums), Ralph Humphrey (drums), George Duke (keyboards, vocals) and
Jean-Luc Ponty (violin).
He continued a high rate of production through the early 1970s, including the excellent and accessible albums
One Size Fits All and
Apostrophe,
Over-Nite Sensation and
Roxy & Elsewhere featuring ever-changing versions of a band though still called the Mothers. These albums were notable for the highly technical
jazz-fusion the bands were renowned for, demonstrated on such pieces as "
Inca Roads," "Echidna's Arf (Of You)" or "Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)."
In the mid 1970s Zappa began recording material for
Läther (pronounced "leather"), an ambitious four-LP project.
Läther featured all aspects of Zappa's musical styles —rock tunes, theatrical works, complex instrumental compositions, and Zappa's own trademark
tube distortion-drenched guitar solos were all recorded for the release. Zappa had completed the recording for the album and presented it to
Warner Brothers Records executives. Wary of a quadruple-LP, they refused to release it and told Zappa that he owed them four more records.
In an attempt to complete his contract, he reedited
Läther into four separate albums, and delivered the master tapes to Warner Brothers, who refused to release the albums, and told him he still owed them four more albums. Zappa soon appeared on the (at the time) influential Los Angeles radio station
KROQ, allowing them to broadcast the
Läther album and encouraging listeners to make their own tape recordings. A lawsuit between Zappa and Warner Brothers followed, during which the four albums were dumped on the market as the live album
Zappa in New York (1978),
Studio Tan (1978),
Sleep Dirt (1979), and the symphony orchestra-based
Orchestral Favorites (1979), with no
promotion and only cheaply produced
cover art by
Gary Panter.
[Additionally, all of the albums except for Zappa in New York, were issued with the wrong equalization settings. Although Warners had the master tapes, Zappa had the Dolby line-up tones. He liked to be present during disc mastering. See link.] Läther was released in its original form in 1996.
In 1976 the cessation of cordial relations with Zappa's long-time manager Herb Cohen occurred. The breakup was an acrimonious affair exacerbated by Zappa's ongoing feud with Warner Brothers. Cohen had created
DiscReet Records with Zappa as a label of Warner Brothers, in order to be used as a business venture to aid funding of Zappa albums. Zappa however discovered that Cohen had been skimming more than he was allocated from the label, and he also alleged that Cohen had used some of Frank's money to fund recordings for other artists. Cohen filed a lawsuit against Zappa in return, due to Zappa taking the master copies of
Zoot Allures (1976) directly to Warner Brothers, thus bypassing DiscReet completely. While it is unknown what became of the lawsuits, with both parties remaining tight-lipped about the affair, Zappa and Cohen would never work together again. Zappa eventually gained the rights of all his material created under the Warner Brothers contract.
Zappa's 1970s period ended with the releases of the triple LP
Joe's Garage (1979), which features lead singer
Ike Willis as voice of "Joe", and
Sheik Yerbouti (1979), which contained Zappa classics such as
Dancin' Fool,
Bobby Brown (Goes Down), as well as
Jewish Princess, which received some controversial attention.
Joe's Garage is considered to be one of Zappa's definitive achievements of the period. It features a coherent story line (which Zappa, however, later described as "stupid") about the suppression of freedom of speech (and music), and mixes catchy songs like "Catholic Girls," "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up," and the title track, with long guitar solos taken from live concerts and mixed with studio material (cf. the aforementioned process
xenochrony). Finally, the album contains what would become one of Zappa's most famous signature guitar pieces, "Watermelon in Easter Hay."
Sheik Yerbouti was a commercial success, and according to Zappa's record company Rykodisc: "Bobby Brown (Goes Down)" is perhaps the oddest of Zappa's successes. This colorful tale of a young man's encounter with a "dyke by the name of Freddie" would never get airplay in the US, but it reached the top of the charts in Sweden, Norway and Austria, was Top Ten in Germany and remains a favorite in territories where English is not the primary language. Said Zappa to
Matt Groening in a 1992 Guitar World interview, "I don't think anything has outsold Sheik Yerbouti, partly because "Bobby Brown" keeps becoming a hit every ten years... I think it was back on the charts again in Norway. For no apparent reason, it was back."
In 1980, Zappa helped former band members
Warren Cuccurullo,
Terry Bozzio and
Patrick O'Hearn launch their new band,
Missing Persons, by letting them record their 4-song demo EP in his brand new UMRK (
Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) studios. In 1981, the double album
You Are What You Is was released, featuring 19 songs, which included such complex instrumentals as "Theme from the 3rd Movement of Sinister Footwear", but mainly focused on rock songs with Zappa's sardonic social commentary. "Dumb All Over", is an example of this, being a devastating tirade on religion, as is "Heavenly Bank Account", wherein Zappa rails against people such as
Jerry Falwell for relying upon the US administration to finance the religious organization, the "Moral Majority," whilst simultaneously embezzling the funds. The album is also notable for the presence of guitar virtuoso
Steve Vai who joined Zappa's touring band in the Fall of 1980.
In the same year,
Tinsel Town Rebellion was released, a mixture of songs taken from a 1979 tour, one studio track and the rest were taken from the last tour of 1980. The album is a mixture of complicated instrumentals, of which "The Blue Light" is a salient example, demonstrating
Vinnie Colaiuta's dexterity around a
drum kit, and Zappa's use of
sprechstimme (speaking voice), a compositional technique utilized by such composers as
Arnold Schoenberg, and
Alban Berg.
1981 also saw the release of three instrumental albums
Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar,
Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More, and
The Return of the Son of Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar. As the titles reveal, these albums focus exclusively on Frank Zappa as a guitar soloist. Frank Zappa's guitar solos had been a trademark during his career, and now he decided to satisfy those who could not get enough. The tracks on the albums are predominantly from 1979-80, and highlights Zappa's exceptional improvisational skills and unique sound. The albums were subsequently released as a 3-album box set, and were in 1988 followed by the album
Guitar focusing on recordings from 1981-82 and 1984. A third guitar-only album,
Trance-Fusion, was completed by Zappa shortly before his death, but an official release is still pending.
In May of 1982, Zappa released
Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch, which featured his biggest selling single, "Valley Girl" (topping out at #32 on the
Billboard charts). In her improvised "lyrics" to the song, Zappa's daughter
Moon Unit satirized the vapid speech of teenage girls from the
San Fernando Valley. Naturally, this led to the
meme-like propagation of "Valspeak" such as "gag me with a spoon" and "barf out".
1983 saw the release of two different projects,
The Man From Utopia, a rock-oriented work. The album itself is eclectic, featuring the vocal-led "Dangerous Kitchen" and "The Jazz Discharge Party Hats", both continuations of the
sprechstimme excursions shown on
Tinseltown Rebellion. The second album was the first fully orchestral recording of Zappa pieces, something he had been waiting to accomplish for some time. Conducted by
Kent Nagano and performed by the
London Symphony Orchestra, it featured the compositions "Sad Jane," "Pedro's Dowry," and "Mo 'n Herb's Vacation." A second record of these sessions saw release in 1987, containing "Bogus Pomp."
For the remainder of his career, much of Zappa's work was affected by use of the
synclavier as a compositional and performance tool. In 1984, he released four albums within a few months.
Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger, which juxtaposed orchestral works commissioned and conducted by world-renowned conductor
Pierre Boulez and premiere synclavier pieces;
Thing-Fish, an ambitious three-record set in the style of a Broadway play (where new vocals are combined with previous released tracks and new synclavier music);
Francesco Zappa a synclavier rendition of works by 17
th century composer, Francesco Zappa (a relation to Frank is uncertain);
Them or Us, a two-record set of heavily edited live and session pieces.
On
September 19,
1985, Zappa testified before the
US Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or
PMRC, a music
censorship (though others would say
watchdog) organization founded by then-Senator
Al Gore's wife
Tipper Gore and including many other political wives, including the wives of five members of the committee. In his prepared statement, Zappa said
"The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design. It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation."
"The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow "J" on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?"[See full transcript of Zappa's Senate Testimony.]
Zappa put some excerpts from the PMRC hearings to music in his composition
Porn Wars from the 1985 album
Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention. Zappa is heard interacting with Senators
Fritz Hollings,
Slade Gorton,
Al Gore (who admitted to being a Zappa fan), and, most notably, a funny exchange with Florida Senator
Paula Hawkins over what toys the Zappa children played with. Zappa would also go on to argue with PMRC representatives on the
CNN's
Crossfire in 1986 and 1987.
[See excerpts from 1986 Crossfire interview with Frank Zappa and John Lofton .]The album
Jazz From Hell, released in 1986, brought Zappa his first
Grammy Award in 1988 for
Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Except for one live guitar solo, the album exclusively featured compositions brought to life by the synclavier.
His last tour in a "
rock band format" took place in 1988 with a 12-piece group which was reported to have a repertoire of over 200 (mostly Zappa) compositions, but which split in acrimonious circumstances before the tour was completed. The tour was documented on the albums
The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (Zappa "standards" and obscure cover tunes),
Make a Jazz Noise here (mostly
instrumental and
experimental music), and
Broadway The Hard Way (new material featuring songs with strong political emphasis). Parts are also found on
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 6.In the early 1990s Zappa devoted almost all of his energy to modern orchestral and
synclavier works. In 1991, he was diagnosed with
prostate cancer. Although ill, in 1992 he appeared as a guest conductor with the "
Ensemble Modern" in a series of concerts in Germany devoted to his compositions, recordings from which appeared on
The Yellow Shark.
[See excerpts from the 1992 Ensemble Modern concert in Frankfurt.] It was revealed before he had been diagnosed with the cancerous tumor, that he had planned to run for
President of the United States, perceiving what he thought to be a fascist bias in American politics.
During these years, he edited numerous CD collections of concert recordings made throughout his career. In 1993, he completed
Civilization, Phaze III, a major synclavier work he had begun in the 1980s. He stated in interviews that he was working on hundreds of synclavier pieces, most of which remained unfinished.
Frank Zappa died on
December 4,
1993, age 52 of
prostate cancer, and was interred in the
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in
Westwood, California. His grave is unmarked, although its location is known among fans and can be found on the Internet.
|
A bust of Zappa in Vilnius, Lithuania. Another image is available. |
Zappa was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. That same year the only known cast of Zappa was installed in the center of
Vilnius, the capital of
Lithuania. Zappa was immortalized by
Konstantinas Bogdanas, the famous Lithuanian sculptor who had previously cast portraits of
Vladimir Lenin. In 2002, a bronze bust was installed in a square in
Bad Doberan, a small town in the north of
Germany, where, since 1990, there has been an annual international festival celebrating the music of Frank Zappa, the "Zappanale"
[See Zappanale website.]. Zappa received a posthumous
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.
* After his death, an internet campaign to the
International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center led to an
asteroid being named in his honor:
3834 Zappafrank, the asteroid having been discovered by Czech astronomers.
[(03834) Minor Planet Name],[Zappafrank] Since then, other things have been named in his honor including: another asteroid (
16745 Zappa), a
gene (ZapA gene of
Proteus mirabilis, a microbe that causes urinary tract infections
[ZapA (Proteus mirabilis)]), a
goby fish (
Zappa confluentus[Zappa confluentus]), a
jellyfish (
Phialella zappa[ Phialella zappa]), an extinct
mollusc (
Amauratoma zappa), and a
spider with an abdominal mark supposedly resembling Zappa's mustache (
Pachygnatha zappa[ Spider of Destiny].)
* He made an appearance on The Steve Allen Show in 1963. This appearance featured Frank demonstrating the wide scope of percussion by playing the spokes of a spinning bicycle wheel with drum sticks.
[See first and second parts of Zappa's appearance on The Steve Allen Show.]* The early Mothers' anarchic stage shows were legendary — during one famous 1967 performance at the Garrick Theatre in
New York, Zappa managed to entice some soldiers from the audience onto the stage, where they proceeded to dismember a collection of baby dolls, having been told by Zappa to imagine that they were "gook babies".
* An old
rumor states that at some point in the 1960s, Zappa once won a gross-out contest by eating his own
excrement on stage. Zappa refutes the claim, noting, "For the record, folks:
I never took a shit on stage, and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973." (Zappa and Occhiogrosso (1989:14)).
* Zappa made a
cameo appearance in the
1968 film starring the
Monkees,
Head with a talking
cow. He also made a cameo appearance on an episode of the Monkees TV series entitled "The Monkees Blow Their Minds" (air date: 3/11/68). Here, he was shown "playing" a car by beating it into submission. This is done in a Monkees-style montage to the Zappa song "Mother People" after being interviewed by Monkee
Michael Nesmith. Zappa agreed to appear on the show provided he could be Nesmith. Nesmith liked the idea, so long as he could be Zappa. The two wore cheap, exaggerated disguises and the interview was performed as if Mike was Frank and Frank was Mike.
* Frank used a
Wah-wah pedal but did not use it in the conventional way of rocking it back and forth. Frank left it in different positions to get different tones, using it as a filter.
* In the 70s,
Ann Landers listed the ten most obscene rock songs. Three of Frank's songs made the list ("Jewish Princess," "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" and "Dirty Love.")
* Music from his early albums with The Mothers Of Invention is used in the
1969 film Medium Cool* He appeared on
Dick Cavett's interview show in the early 1970s with the Flo and Eddie version of the band, and other interview shows.
* Zappa retrieved the burnt and broken parts of the
Fender Stratocaster guitar that
Jimi Hendrix destroyed onstage at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival. After Hendrix's death in 1970, Zappa rebuilt the instrument and played it extensively during the 1970s and 1980s. In 2002, Zappa's son Dweezil put the guitar up for auction in the U.S., hoping it would fetch $1 million, but it failed to sell. Dweezil also used this guitar on his albums "Having a Bad Day" and "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama"; on the latter album, Dweezil covers a song first recorded by his father.
* Zappa was the guest host and musical guest of the October 21, 1978 show of
Saturday Night Live. His sense of humor alienated him from the cast and his mugging-to-the-camera performance has led to
Lorne Michaels never allowing the show to be shown in repeats or on video (this proved to be temporary as the episode in question has been rerun a few times). In the same show he portrayed
Connie Conehead's date. He was also part of another skit, entitled "Night of Freak Mountain", in which Zappa met with a couple hippies who offered various drugs to him, which he declined, stating "I don't do drugs." The hippies regarded his statement in awe and surprise.
* On December 6, 1976, Zappa introduced
Black Sabbath at their
Madison Square Garden concert. This announcement is featured on a Black Sabbath bootleg album. He once declared Sabbath's "Iron Man" (Paranoid, 1970) the greatest ever rock track, he would later change his choice of track to "Supernaut" from the group's Vol.4 Album (1972) A jam was once organised featuring Sabbath and Zappa, Sabbath however pulled out. Though technical difficulties were cited, it has been rumoured Sabbath lead guitarist
Tony Iommi was not comfortable with sharing guitar duties with Zappa.
* He appeared on
What's My Line? in 1971 during the shows syndicated run as a
Mystery Guest.
* He played a
drug dealer in the episode "Payback" of TV show
Miami Vice.
* In 1990, Zappa visited Czechoslovakia at the request of President
Václav Havel, one of his lifelong fans, and was asked by Havel to serve as Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism. Zappa enthusiastically agreed and began meeting with corporate officials interested in investing in Czechoslovakia. He told
The Nation "You don' have to know about international financing. You just have to know about composition." Bush administration officials pressured Havel to withdraw the appointment, but Havel made Zappa an unofficial cultural attaché anyway.
* Zappa was the voice of
the Pope in the
1992 Ren and Stimpy episode
Powdered Toast Man.
* The television cartoon show Duckman featured the voice of Zappa's son Dweezil and Zappa's music.
* Zappa's music and cult status play an important role in Kenneth Lonergan's play, This Is Our Youth.
* In 1995 a series of Intel PC motherboards were named after him.
* His song "Dirty Love" was used in the 1997 film The Ice Storm, and "Watermelon In Easter Hay" was used in the 2001 film Y tu mamá también.
* Zappa is mentioned in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Manos: The Hands of Fate", and the episode "Village of the Giants" was dedicated in memorium to him. Kevin Murphy, one of the writers and performers on the show, is an admitted lifelong fan.
* In summer 2007, the MUSIKFABRIK ORWOhaus (musician community) and the city of Berlin rename a Street 13 in the Marzahn district the "Frank-Zappa-Straße."
* The Simpsons' creator Matt Groening is a fan.
* Zappa's easy recognisable face and appearance have made him an popular character in several comic strips:
** He was referenced in several comics of French comic artist Gotlib where for instance scouts leader Hamster Jovial listens to 200 Motels. When he hears the track Penis Dimension he decides to measure his own penis.
** The Belgian cartoonist Kamagurka made a comic strip in the seventies starring Zappa. He once met Zappa after a concert and showed him a comic he drew about him, only with empty text balloons. Zappa then filled in a text.
** Zappa also appeared as an evil professor in the album, Het Beest Zonder Naam
(The Beast Without A Name)(1985) in the Belgian comic series Nero by Marc Sleen. In another Nero album, De Zwarte Toren'' (The Black Tower) (
1983) he appears as a
robber who together with a gang threatens to attack Jan Spier, the strong
french fries seller. And in the Nero album "Doe De Petoe" (
1994) his face is seen against a wall in a music business center where one also recognises the faces of
Elvis Presley,
Michael Jackson,
Bob Dylan and Flemish
charm singer Eddy Wally.
* For years the Belgian magazine
Humo had a
running gag whenever Zappa was interviewed or mentioned in their articles. Due to
chief editor Guy Mortier's physical resemblance with the rock artist they were always compared or mistaken for each other.
* The character
Zappa in the fighting game
Guilty Gear XX is a reference to him.
* He is referenced in the songs:
** "Winds of Change" - The Animals
** "
Smoke on the Water" and "MTV" by the legendary British
Hard Rock band,
Deep Purple.
** "Sucede" by the Spanish
Hard Rock band,
Extremoduro.
** "Ouija" by the Spanish band,
Gigatron.
** "Censorshit" by
the Ramones.
** "Blood from a Clone" by
George Harrison.
** "Thanks" by
Sublime (on the
40 Oz. to Freedom album).
** "Rock and Roll" by
Edan** "Scrapbook" by Chicago
** "Weihnachtskaat Vun Nem Flittche Vum Eijetstein" by The Piano has been Drinking.
** "Genius in France" - "Weird Al" Yankovic on the Poodle Hat album. The song is performed in the Frank Zappa musical style.
** "Art School Canteen" from "L" by Godley & Creme - "Does getting into Zappa / mean getting out of Zen?"
** "Зачем?" ("What for?") by the Russian band
Aquarium.
** "Corporation Combo Boys" by the Dutch "
Canterbury Scene" group
Supersister (on their "Present from Nancy" album).
**"Walropus" by Microwave Mangos
** "Chunga's Revenge" by the France based band
Gotan Project on their album
La Revancha del Tango.
* In
Sim City 3000, one of the buildings that appears in industrial zones is called "Utility Muffin Research Kitchen"
* One of Frank's idols was comedian
Lenny Bruce, and the original
Mothers of Invention opened for him at his final performance. Before the show, Frank asked Lenny to sign his draft card. Apprehensive, Lenny declined.
*
KMFDM leader
Sascha Konietzko regularly cites Zappa as a major inspiration and influence. Several early KMFDM songs, such as "
Don't Blow Your Top" and "UAIOE," recycle lyrics from Zappa's songs.
*
Download sample of "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" from
Freak Out!*
Download sample of "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" from
We're Only in It for the Money.
*
Download sample of "Bobby Brown Goes Down" from
Sheik Yerbouti.
Theatrical releases
*
200 Motels (1971)
*
Baby Snakes (1979)
Video Releases
*
The Dub Room Special (1982)
*
Video from Hell (1985)
*
Does Humor Belong in Music? (1985)
*
The True Story of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (1988)
*
The Amazing Mr. Bickford (1987)
*
Uncle Meat (1987)
DVD Releases
*
Does Humor Belong in Music? (2003)
*
Baby Snakes (2003)
*
The Dub Room Special (2005)
*
The Roxy Film (TBA)
*
*
The Official Frank Zappa Site*
ARF: Frank Zappa Scholars Web Page Includes detailed
FAQs on every song on every released album.
*
Frank Zappa's Musical Language Detailed analyses of various compositions.
*
The FZShows homepage List of songs performed at most Franz Zappa shows.
*
Harry Pipco's Home - A Tribute to Frank Zappa Detailed biographical material, links to interviews, etc.
*
The Highway 57 Zappa Zone Includes searchable discography.
*
Information Is Not Knowledge Comprehensive discography (vinyl and CD), songlists, chronology, filmography, lists of musicians, etc.
*
Kill Ugly Radio Detailed gig lists and links to numerous interviews.
*
The Planet Of My Dreams Includes list of all Frank Zappa shows and line-ups chronology.
*
Touring Can Make You Crazy Detailed tour info, and in-depth analysis of selected tours.
*
The Zappa Patio Includes "The Frank Zappa Versions Guide;" detailed discography including bootlegs.
*
Zappa Wiki Jawaka A Wiki exclusively about Frank Zappa.
