Frank Zappa died 24 years ago today. It was a big loss for the music world, but Zappa has lived on through an unusually large body of work. From his debut "Freak Out" in 1966 until his final release, "The Yellow Shark," in 1993, Zappa put out around 50 albums that covered a staggering amount of territory—satirical and novelty songs, dinosaur riff rock, soundtrack music, jazz fusion, off-blues and reggae, doo-wop, guitar solo-driven instrumentals, avant-garde classical, and plenty of idiosyncraticmusic that is unclassifiable.
As a fan of almost four decades, and a lead guitarist of three, not seeing Zappa live is one of my biggest musical regrets. Fortunately for me and other Zappatistas, Frank's concerts are amply represented on YouTube. Among the many gems to be found is the live recording of "Zoot Allures" embedded below, which offers a prime exhibit of Zappa's undersung guitar prowess. Ever experimental, Zappa had a Floyd Rose tremolo system which kept his guitar in tune through frequent and extreme whammy bar manipulations and variable resonant frequency wiring which allowed him to marshal (and control) as much feedback as the venue could handle, making for a big, bold tone. The three-minute solo that begins at 2:31 is angular and unpredictable, coming in stops and starts and quick bursts of notes. The phrasing is well outside the Pentatonic box of most rock and blues guitarists, often moving horizontally along the neck, full of hammer-on pull-offs and isolated bends, moving in free-form cycles rather than building to a formula crescendo. Like much of Zappa's music, it may not sound pretty on the first listen, but repeated viewings reveal a sublime beauty. As Zappa famously said, "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
Some artists just have it. A vigorous work ethic is essential to artistic longevity (I think of anecdotes about John Coltrane playing 12 hours/day or Jimi Hendrix walking around his apartment with a guitar strapped on), but it isn't enough. Among the millions of musicians, writers, painters, dancers, photographers, and filmmakers who dedicate their lives to art, only a small number have a lasting impact. One such artist was Frank Zappa, a frequent flyer on this blog. Before he released the first rock concept album and double album, wowed audiences with wicked guitar chops in insanely tight touring bands, battled the Moral Majority over record labels, and served as a cultural emissary to Czechoslovakia during the Velvet Revolution, Zappa made a soft-spoken appearance on the nationally-televised Steve Allen Show at the age of 23. I'm much more partial to Zappa's later work than this safe made-for-tv bit, but this cultural artifact provides an earlypeek into the adventurous mind of a musical explorer whose unique vision would be going strong five decades later.
Last year, around the time a push button confection was taking the pop world by storm—on its way to knocking the mighty Justin Bieber out of the top spot in YouTube views—I was struck by an urge to write about the flesh-and-blood guitar stylings of Frank Zappa. Zappa's best work was decades in the rearview mirror, but I forged on with the assumption that my ode to Zappa would be a low-traffic niche post, an act of public service on behalf of timeless art. To my surprise, the post was a hit. It drew a steady stream of readers and became the most read post in the great guitar solos series by a factor of four. Today, on the 20th anniversary of Zappa's passing, I will re-visit the vaults to once again celebrate a musician who mattered.
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We open with "Stinkfoot" off of the 1974 classic, "Apostrophe." This performance arguably features Zappa's strongest lineup, the band which included Napoleon Murphy Brock, Ian and Ruth Underwood, and George Duke that recorded both "Apostrophe" and its predecessor, "Overnite Sensation." Here Zappa plays his signature Gibson SG, with a wah-wah pedal for spice. A helpful Zappa fanatic cut out the beginning and end of the song so we can treasure Frank's wailing guitar in isolation.
"Muffin Man" has one of Zappa's most recognizable riffs, the kind of big, lumbering riff that roamed the land during the dinosaur rock era. This recording from 1977 includes a twofer: a tasty blues bends-and-flash lead from the estimable Adrian Belew at 1:00 followed by Zappa's epic solo. Highlights include Frank's nifty use of hammer-on pull-offs with his fretting hand so he can slap skin with members of the audience at 2:17, the impossibly rapid flurry of notes at 2:49, the fretboard close-up at 3:28, and the dry ice vapors rising from the stage, a sign that some truly heavy rock was in the air.
"Chunga's Revenge" is a fusion instrumental that Zappa performed live. Using a sunburst Les Paul which wasn't a regular part of his rotation, Zappa starts out quietly to get the crowd warmed up. The distorted vibrato at 2:43 signals that Frank is about to let rip with anarchic fury and attendant gyrations. (*Added bonus: the YouTube discussion thread for this video has a debate for the ages about technique for technique's sake v. the power of jagged, authentic expression).
The live version of "Watermelon in Easter Hay" below features Zappa with a Stratocaster and a huge (yet well-rehearsed) backing band. As with "Black Napkins," the guitar moves seamlessly between a main melody, serrated fills, and improvised solos. No less an authority than Dweezil Zappa called the studio version of "Easter Hay" "the best solo" his father had ever played. That's a big claim, but if by "best"one means most lyrical and most beautiful, I'm inclined to agree.
In memory of Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940-December 4, 1993)
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here for "Great Guitar Solos, #6: Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My My'"
herefor "Great Guitar Solos, #7, Buckethead meets Bernie Worrell and Les Claypool herefor "An appreciation of '1984' as Eddie Van Halen turns 60" here for "Great Guitar Solos, #8" Freddie King's 'San-Ho-Zay'"
"He might as well have had the smoke machines following him, and the lights...'cuz that's all I saw...like a superhero walked in the house..."
-Dweezil Zappa, on meeting Eddie Van Halen
In the early '80s, every budding lead guitarist wanted to play "Eruption" by rock guitar's last major sonic innovator, Eddie Van Halen.
The release of this 1:42-long instrumental in 1978 drove thousands of kids to their rooms for countless hours to master the weapons in Eddie's arsenal: finger tapping, pinch harmonics, screaming pickslides, and whammy-bar dives/assorted whale sounds.
One of those kids, Dweezil Zappa, was lucky enough to know Eddie Van Halen personally. Van Halen would produce Dweezil's first record (at right), help him with a talent show, and offer timely condolences at a very difficult moment.
In the video
below, Zappa relates his star-struck wonderment when he met Van Halen, who stopped over in his "bonafide superhero" jumpsuit (pictured
above, from the back cover of "Women and Children First") to check out Frank Zappa's in-home studio. At the time, Van Halen's studio hours had been limited by the stingy suits at Warner Brothers, who expected the band to come in well-rehearsed and bang an album out in short order. Eddie wanted a home studio of his own to tinker around in to his heart's content and wrest creative control of the band away from David Lee Roth, a move that would ultimately produce "1984," Van Halen's biggest (if not best) album. After paying a debt of gratitude in his spoken introduction, Dweezil lets his fingers do the talking. Armed with a black-with-yellow-tape-striped guitar modeled on the axe Van Halen used early in his career - and later placed in Dimebag Darrell's casket - the Dweez opens "Eruption" at 5:14. Dweezil spent a couple years woodshedding to learn his father's complicated arrangements for the first Zappa Plays Zappa tour, and his studiousness shows in this interpretation too, as he nails both the technically demanding phrasing and the famous Van Halen "brown sound." This spot-on rendition is the closest live approximation to the original vinyl recording you're likely to find on video, as Van Halen has played only heavily-improvised versions for years.
The second song, "Somebody Get Me a Doctor," is a raunchy rocker from "Van Halen II," the too often overlooked follow-up to the classic "Van Halen I." This version is also true to the original, down to the singer's blond mane, snug spandex, and Tarzan shrieks (courtesy of one of Zappa Plays Zappa's fun-loving roadies).
Unbeknownst to many conventional minds, Frank Zappa was a multi-faceted national treasure.
Zappa the mad scientist composer moved freely between rock, doo-wop, fusion, reggae, avant-garde, and orchestral music. Zappa the social satirist skewered everything fromFlower Power to televangelism to the valley girlpatois. Zappa the indie label founder produced highly original albums by Wildman Fischerand Captain Beefheart that otherwise never would have seen the light of day. Zappa the activist spoke out against record labeling before Congress and jousted with a frothing fundy on a famous episode of "Crossfire." Zappa the world citizen was appointed cultural emissary to Czechoslovakia in the middle of the Velvet Revolution. And Zappa the lead guitarist was a force to be reckoned with. Over the course of 25 years, Frank Zappa's hot leads graced a sprawling catalog which included the strictly instrumental "Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar" series and the fretboard-heavy "Guitar."
Unlike many rock guitarists, Zappa read music, and went beyond the Pentatonic to use a wide assortment of scales, modes, and voicings. Asked what he sought in a guitarist, Zappa said he didn't want "a Mongolian string-bender."
Where some solos (e.g. the solo for "Smells Like Teen Spirit") serve as extensions of the main melody, Zappa's solos were compositions in themselves--he once called them "air sculptures"--which took songs to new and interesting places.
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First up in this embarrassment of riches is "Black Napkins." The best-known versionis on the studio album "Zoot Allures." Below is one of many alternative renditions on YouTube. Notice Zappa's finger-tapping at the end. Within a couple years, Eddie Van Halen would refine and popularize the technique, thereby spawning countless faceless hair metal imitators.
The solo on "Inca Roads" which comes on at 2:01 was patched together from live jams and seamlessly woven into this long, suite-like studio piece.
"Montana," an L.A. boy's vision of life in flyover land, features a solo at 1:55 which feels shot out of a cannon, backed by a cooking rhythm section. A nice little touch is the lead poking its head in to double the chorus about fifteen seconds before the solo proper starts, hinting at what's to come.
"Stevie's Spanking," below, is one of the sickest cutting contests committed to video. The spot-on camerawork augments lively back-and-forth from two gunslingers with mondo chops and very different styles. Steve Vai is a young buck here, fresh on the scene. His fleet, spidery fingering was representative of the highly technical '80s style (Vai is credited with "impossible guitar parts" on the liner notes to one of Zappa's albums.)
The ever-resourceful Zappa took a live solo (from a 1978 performance of "The Torture Never Stops") and added sparse studio instrumentation to create "Rat Tomago," my earliest introduction to Frank's commanding lead voice. All we hear is a guitar, drums, and a softly droning bass line in the background, but the sound is larger than life - wave upon wave of grand, thematic guitar lines that end suddenly with the words Oh, listen to him go.
The best visual snapshot of Zappa's six-string prowess is this live version of "City of Tiny Lights." The song is not one of my favorites, but things shift into high gear when the solo comes on at 2:12. From the aerial image of Terry Bozzio's balls-out drumming to the opening shot of Zappa striding across the stage in platform boots (with a spotlight overhead and a long shadow trailing behind) to his communion with enthusiastic front-row fans, the ironic eyebrow arch at 3:10, and a fretboard's-eye view of Frank's blazing chops at 3:23, this is a feast. When it comes to electric guitar, it doesn't get much better than this.
here for "Great Guitar Solos, #6: Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My My'"
herefor "Great Guitar Solos, #7, Buckethead meets Bernie Worrell and Les Claypool herefor "An appreciation of '1984' as Eddie Van Halen turns 60" here for "Great Guitar Solos, #8" Freddie King's 'San-Ho-Zay'"
