Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 Ð'- December 4, 1993) was an American composer, musician, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa established himself as a prolific and highly distinctive composer, electric guitar player and band leader. He worked in almost every musical genre and wrote music for rock bands, jazz ensembles, synthesizers and symphony orchestra, as well as musique concrÐ"Ёte works constructed from pre-recorded, synthesized or sampled sources. In addition to his music recordings, he created feature-length and short films, music videos, and album covers.

Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 21, 1940 to Francis Zappa (born in Partinico, Sicily) who was of Greek-Arab descent, and Rose Marie Colimore who was of three quarters Italian and one quarter French descent.[9] He was the oldest of four children (two brothers and a sister).[2] During Zappa's childhood, the family often moved because his father, a chemist and mathematician, had various jobs in the US defense industry. After a brief period in Florida in the mid-1940s, the family returned to Edgewood, Maryland where Zappa's father got a job at the Edgewood Arsenal chemical warfare facility at nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground. Due to the home's proximity to the Arsenal which stored mustard gas, Zappa's father kept gas masks on hand in case of an accident.[10] This had a profound effect on the young Zappa: references to germs, germ warfare and other aspects of the defense industry occur throughout his work.[11]

As a child, Zappa was often sick, suffering from asthma, earaches and a sinus problem. A doctor treated the latter by inserting a pellet of radium on a probe into each of Zappa's nostrils.[10] Nasal imagery and references would appear both in his music and lyrics as well as in the collage album covers created by his long-time visual collaborator, Cal Schenkel. While little was known at the time about the potential dangers of living close to chemicals and being subjected to radiation, it is a fact that Zappa's illnesses peaked when he lived in the Baltimore area.[12][10]

In 1952, his family relocated mainly because of Zappa's asthma. They settled first in Monterey, California, where Zappa's father taught metallurgy at the Naval Postgraduate School. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Claremont, then again to El Cajon