Zappa
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Ten years after his death, Frank Zappa continues to influence popular culture. With almost one hundred recordings still in print, Zappa remains a classic American icon. Scores of bands have been influenced by (and have shamelessly imitated) his music, and a talented roster of musicians passed through Zappa’s bands. Now comes the definitive biography of Zappa by Barry Miles, best-selling author of Hippie and Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, who knew Zappa personally and was present at the recording of some of his most important albums. Miles follows Zappa from his sickly Italian-American childhood in the 1940s (his father worked for the military and was used to test the effectiveness of new biological warfare agents) to his youthful pursuit of what was a lifelong dream: becoming a classical composer. Zappa brings together the many different personalities of this music legend together for the first time: the self-taught musician and composer who gained fame with the “rock” band the Mothers of Invention; the political antagonist who mocked presidents while being invited by Vaclav Havel to represent Czechoslovakia’s cultural interests in the United States, and Zappa the family man who was married to the same woman for over thirty years. The New York Times - Camille Paglia Barry Miles's new biography, Zappa, argues that he was a major artist in the line of Courbet and Duchamp. Despite sometimes tendentious overstatements, the book does indeed establish that Zappa, through his genre-shattering experiments, technical virtuosity and staggering productivity, deserves to be considered a central figure of late-20th-century American culture.
List of IllustrationsixIntroductionxi1Baltimore12California173Lancaster, CA314Ontario, CA545Cucamonga666Studio Z807The Strip928Freak Out!1059Laurel Canyon11910New York City13711The Log Cabin16412Bizarre/Straight18413200 Motels20614Waka/Jawaka22415On the Road24216Dr Zurkon's Secret Lab in Happy Valley25817Days on the Road28118Orchestral Manoeuvres29719Wives of Big Brother31720One More Time for the World34021On Out36322Afterword381Notes389Bibliography415Discography421Films and Books440Index441
