Zappa: A Biography - Hardcover

Miles, Barry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080211783X ISBN 13: 9780802117830

Publisher: Grove Press, 2004

Synopsis

Ten years after his death, Frank Zappa continues to influence popular culture. With almost one hundred recordings still in print, Frank Zappa remains a classic American icon. Scores of bands have been influenced by (and have shamelessly imitated) Zappa's music, and a talented roster of musicians passed through Zappa's bands, including Captain Beefheart, Jean-Luc Ponty, George Duke, Lowell George, and Steve Vai. Now comes the definitive biography of Zappa by author Barry Miles, 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 how effective new biological warfare agents were) to his youthful pursuit of what was a lifelong dream: becoming a classical composer. Zappa brings 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.

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Reviews

Pop culture biographer Miles (Paul McCartney; Ginsberg; etc.) paints an engrossing portrait of the troubled musical genius who died of prostate cancer in 1993 at age 52. Zappa endured a peripatetic youth and an early brush with the law that fueled his trademark anti-authoritarian strain; his musical brilliance eventually transformed him from class clown into one of rock's major icons, with such landmark records as We're Only in It for the Money and Joe's Garage. Miles skillfully weaves together the major beats and minor notes of Zappa's remarkable life, no small feat given the musician's many contradictions: he was a hard-rocking star, but also a meticulous, studious composer influenced by Varèse and Stravinsky; he despised drug use and the trappings of stardom, but he loved groupies (he partook of their favors freely, eventually marrying one and fathering...children). A virtuoso, a perfectionist and a shrewd businessman, Zappa alienated, sued or otherwise offended nearly everyone in his life at some point; he especially loved tormenting his audience. Miles hits the ups and downs of Zappa's life like a skilled composer in his own right, and he captures the contentious eras (from the late 1950s on) in which Zappa's genius emerged. The result is a penetrating look both at Zappa and at the social and political milieu in which popular rock music stepped to the fore.
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Ten years after his death, Frank Zappa can be better appreciated than during the mercurial composer and performer's life, and Miles' attempt to do so is the most comprehensive biography to date. Zappa's early work, which he occasionally referred to as "comedy music," seemed to mock the music he had grown up with; political satire coexisted with R&B stylings in such songs as "Who Are the Brain Police?" in Zappa's first album, Freak Out, which also debuted his long-running band, the Mothers of Invention. Miles examines the mid-1960s L.A. milieu that spawned that album and how Zappa's first release stretched the limits of pop music, and he presents Zappa's earlier home and family life in more depth than anyone else has. Eventually Zappa became a target of Tipper Gore and friends' campaign for pop-music warning labels and Czech president Vaclav Havel's choice for his fledgling administration's U.S. trade representative. Well written and exceedingly well referenced, right down to the exhaustive discography. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080211783X
• ISBN 13: 9780802117830
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 480