Frank Zappa Guitarist/Producer/ComposerBorn: 21 December 1940
Died: 4 December 1993 (prostate cancer)
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
Best known as: Iconoclastic rocker
Guitarist Frank Zappa was also a production wizard whose early work with The Mothers of Invention displayed terrific musical knowledge and an outrageous sense of humor. His foul and funny lyrics were consciously crass, earning him cult status though at times masking the complexity of his compositions. After dozens of solo albums, including Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Apostrophe and Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, Zappa went from being an underground rock star to being a highly regarded -- if not widely appreciated -- composer. He died in 1993.
Extra credit: After Václav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia in 1989, he asked Frank to take a position in the ministry of culture.
Most awful part of the whole thing: If he'd been diagnosed in time, he might still be among us today. Yet a guy w/ plenty of money & access to celebrity medical care still died of a relatively treatable form of cancer, while a shithead like Giuliani gets it & survives. Fuck!!! Someone should've made him give up the Winstons™.
Other dead people born on this date:
Benjamin Disraeli, statesman (1804)
Henrietta Szold, Zionist leader (1860)
Joseph Stalin, Soviet Communist leader (1879)
Dame Rebecca West, novelist and critic (1892)
Josh Gibson, baseball player (1911)
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