Frank Zappa

    Had “Joe’s Garage” been released today, Frank Zappa would’ve probably been cancelled for wearing blackface on the album cover.  This is one of the reasons why he should always be part of the discussion on free speech in America.

      I remember looking up the record of his testimony at the hearings discussing mandatory parental advisory labels on recordings at the law library, only to find every word he said underlined by star-struck students.   These days even squeaky clean artists like Taylor Swift say “fuck” on every other song for street cred.  What would Frank have thought?

      Aside from the controversy he courted, Zappa seemed to really aspire to change popular music like his hero, Miles Davis.  Years before Prince had his vault, Zappa was known to hoard everything he recorded, and even released a three-album set of all his guitar solos.   “Shut Yer Mouth & Play The Guitar” was truly a testament to his virtuosity.  Zappa took it further by constructing original songs around those same solos and released them as Joe’s Garage.

       I’d never even heard of him the day my friend Cal brought over a tape of one of Zappa’s shows.  It still holds up as the greatest guitar performance I’d ever heard.  It was the first of two shows he performed at the Sunrise Musical Theatre in South Florida in 1980.  The second paled by comparison.  He began the show by announcing that we would hear 18 songs that had never been performed before.  This was “Joe’s Garage” live,

       Would Zappa recreate the old solos he put on the album or make up new ones on the fly?  For this show, he combined the two and the effect was musical nitro glycerine.  Every solo exploded in inspired risk taking with Zappa wielding his axe like an electric Paganini.

       A year later I would see Frank front row center in Atlanta for one of his final performances.  He played a tasty “whipping post” but nothing like that show in 1980.  I still feel honored to have witnessed his genius.