The Four Frank Zappa Songs I Would Like Played At My Funeral
Frank Vincent Zappa, born 1940 in Baltimore USA, died 1993 in Los Angeles, was a composer, guitarist, bandleader, film maker, entrepreneur and satirist who began his recording career in 1966 with the Mothers Of Invention double album Freak Out – an unheard of extravagance for a new band in pop music and a forerunner to the Beatles Sergeant Pepper album, of some twelve months later.
From the word go, Zappa was an edgy, provocative and somewhat exotic figure in the world of rock ‘n roll. His musical influences alone marked him out as a maverick, from the contemporary classical works of Edgard Varese, Igor Stravinsky and Anton Webern to rhythm and blues artists such as Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, Howlin’ Wolf and the esoteric records of vocal groups like The Channels, Don & Dewey, The Penguins and Jackie Dee and the Starlites. His command of these and many other different musical languages make him one of the significant musicians of the 20th century.
I’ve become familiar with a lot of his output over the past thirty years or so, and there is now a vast quantity of his material to evaluate. For this slightly morbid exercise of choosing one’s own funeral soundtrack, I’ve decided to whittle down to four those Frank Zappa songs I love and think best exemplify him. I’d be interested to hear the choices of any other Zappa fans:
*Strictly Genteel – the finale from the film 200 Motels, largely sung by Theodore Bikel. Several, alternate versions of …
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