Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, guitarist, singer, bandleader and producer. He was one of the most prolific musicians of his time, releasing over fifty albums of original material spanning over a thirty-five year career.
Frank Vincent Zappa was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the first of four children to Rose Marie (Colimore) and Francis Vincent Zappa, a Sicilian immigrant. The family moved frequently due to Francis Vincent Zappa's expertise as a chemist and mathematician, contracted with various aspects of the defense industry.
Young Zappa's exposure to chemicals, such as mustard gas, may have had a profound effect on his health, which was always challenging. He showed early interest in innovation via gadgets but this soon turned to music. Avant-guard composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Edgard Varèse attracted him alongside interest in doo-wop/R&B and modern jazz.
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| Zappa (left) with The Mellowtones 1961 |
The family eventually settled outside of Los Angeles in Zappa's late teens, and he soon took up drum and guitar. His proficiency grew so quickly that by his last year in high school, he was writing, composing and conducting avant-garde arrangements for the school orchestra.
In 1965 he joined a bar-band called The Soul Giants, quickly dominating its musical direction and rechristening it The Mothers. Their debut album, Freak Out!, launched them as The Mothers of Invention. It was only the second double rock album ever released—a groundbreaking mélange of musical genres both innovative and irreverent. That tone continued with their second album, Absolutely Free, and regular New York shows that were part concert, part free-for-all circus with stuffed animals and vegetables.
Their reputation established, they gained a European following as well with a memorable appearance with the London Philharmonic. But in 1971, serious setbacks occurred: during a concert in Switzerland, the venue went up in flames—the event was memorialized in Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water." Just one week later, Zappa suffered an on-stage fall that resulted in serious injuries including a crushed larynx and multiple fractures—he was left with a limp, a lowered voice, and back pain for the rest of his life.
Never fully fitting into the rock genre anyway, partly due to his refusal to embrace its drug culture, he moved toward the formation of new bands with more of a jazz base. The decade of the '70s cultivated his reputation as one of the music industry’s most accomplished and demanding bandleaders. His prolific orchestral output was bisected by an unexpected Top 40 hit, "Valley Girl," performed with his daughter, Moon Unit, which funded more of his less commercially viable musical projects.
Zappa saw a second run of success in the early eighties with the release of many albums with predominantly comedic rock songs, but later continued to experiment with virtually every style of music through the eighties, and was productive as ever until his death. His output in this later-career period included two albums of strikingly original classical music with the London Symphony Orchestra, an electronic take on 18th-century chamber music, an album of Synclavier compositions, which garnered a Grammy award, a double-CD release of electric guitar instrumental music and a plenitude of official live releases, revisiting fan-favourites as well as showcasing Zappa's talent for reinventing the music of others; his version of Stairway to Heaven becoming a word-of-mouth favourite.
Outside of playing music, Zappa directed music videos, short films and features, and he became obsessed with the infinite possibilities synthetic music offered because it could accommodate almost most anything he dreamed up. Stints as a guest speaker on social activism emerged after his Senate testimony about censorship in music.
In 1990, Czechoslovakian President Václav Havel appointed Zappa as his cultural liaison officer, but Pesident George H.W. Bush soon quashed the appointment. Thereafter, Zappa briefly considered running for U.S. president. While the general public's perception was often one of a kook, Zappa was deeply respected as a consummate musician and composer, an innovative filmmaker, and a prolific cross-genre artist.
His death in Los Angeles, California, on 4th December 1993 came three years after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In 1995, Frank Zappa was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; in 1997, he was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
(Edited from Biography.com.& Wiki @ lastfm.)