Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa

Zappa, Frank Vincent (1940-1993), American composer and rock star whose music defies all conventional categorization. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Zappa was influenced in his teens in California by the disparate influences of Edgard Var鑚e and 1950s rhythm and blues. He took up the drums, then the guitar. Two songs he wrote became minor local hits (one in Mexico), but it was not until 1965 that he had any real success, a year after forming a band in Los Angeles called The Mothers, later renamed The Mothers of Invention. In 1966 their debut record, Freak Out!, was the first double album, and the first concept album, in rock history. Nothing like it had ever been heard in popular music. The songs were essays in ironic social criticism, parodying the sounds of 1960s rock and including techniques taken from traditional and avant-garde classical music.