Frank Zappa

He was voted the 21st Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Artists of all time by Rolling Stone.

21 Dec 1940, Baltimore, MD) began to play drums at the age of 12, and was playing in R&B groups by high school, switching to guitar at 18. After barely graduating from high school, and then dropping out of junior college (where he met his first wife, Kay Sherman), Zappa worked at such jobs as window dresser, copywriter and door-to-door sales,an.

As a child, his favorite television program was Robert Clampett's puppet show Time for Beany (1949).

Of all the qualities that typified Frank Zappa, perhaps the most striking is that he was a paradox. A workaholic perfectionist rock star who eschewed the hippie culture of the 1960s, deploring its conformism, spurious ideals and drug use, Zappa was not only a brilliant rock guitarist but an orchestral composer, innovative filmmaker, music producer, businessman, iconoclast and perceptive political and social commentator. His oeuvre continually amazes: over 60 albums of music from rock to orchestral, in addition to innumerable films, concerts and other accomplishments. Frank Vincent Zappa (b.

With the money he earned from scoring Run Home, Slow (1965) (written by his high school English teacher, Don Cerveris), Zappa purchased a recording studio and, after concocting an allegedly obscene recording for an undercover policeman, spent ten days in jail. Zappa's diverse range of albums (both with the seminal and protean groups The Mothers of Invention and Zappa; as well as solo releases) are renowned not only for their bravura musicianship and satire, but for offending various groups (usually conservatives, both religious and political).

Zappa sponsored Hagstrom guitars early in his career. However, on his first three albums with The Mothers of Invention, he used a Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster. During the mid to late 1970s, he played a highly modified Gibson SG clone. He had one of Jimi Hendrix's guitars which was lit on fire by Jimi at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival.

The 200 Motels (1971) soundtrack was deemed too offensive by the Royal Albert Hall, which canceled scheduled concerts in 1975; and the song "Jewish Princess" (1979) led to Jewish calls for Zappa to apologize.

Wrote his own copyright notice, that appeared on his later records, and was the first to specifically mention sampling. Also released the first 3-inch CD single, with a remix of "Peaches En Regalia", in the late 1980s.

Founded Barking Pumpkin Records in 1981. He also founded Zappa Records, Barfko-Swill [mail order distribution] and DiscReet (record company).

These, and such events as Zappa testifying before Congress in 1985 against rock music censorship, being appointed by Czech president Václav Havel as his Cultural Liaison Officer or considering running for US president, have unfortunately been Zappa's only real source of mainstream publicity.

The small town of Bad Doberan, Germany, holds an annual Zappanale festival, celebrating his life and music (first held in 1990).

In July 1994, the International Astronomical Union named a Czech-discovered asteroid "Zappafrank".

In 1995, a group of Lithuanian artists erected the world's first Zappa statue in Vilnius, the capital. Since then one has been erected in Bad Doberan, Germany (which Gail Zappa says does not look like him), and another (a copy of the bust in Vilnius) in Baltimore, Maryland.

In March of 2003 his 1979 album "Joe's Garage" came 20th in Classic Rock Magazine's list of the 30 greatest concept albums of all time.

Inducted into the International Mustache Hall of Fame in 2015 (inaugural class) in the category Music & Arts.