Frank Zappa Caricature 1979

Frank Zappa Caricature 1979, shown here in Los Angeles, California age 39 with his star-bangle top hat, March 1979.

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American musician, composer, activist and filmmaker. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.

As a self-taught composer and performer, Zappa’s diverse musical influences led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical composers such as Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, and Halim El-Dabh, along with 1950s rhythm and blues and doo-wop music (such as Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Guitar Slim, Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King). He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was rock, jazz or classical.

He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship. Unlike many other rock musicians of his generation, he personally disapproved of drugs, but supported their decriminalization and regulation.

Zappa ended the 1970s by releasing two of his most successful albums in 1979: the best-selling album of his career, Sheik Yerbouti and Joe’s Garage.

His honors include his 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the 1997 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Zappa died, after his long battle with prostate cancer, on December 4, 1993, 17 days before his 53rd birthday at his home with his wife and children by his side.