Zappa: Musician, Satirist and Activist

Those who know little else about the idiosyncratic Frank Zappa associate him with the San Fernando Valley because of his 1982 pop hit “Valley Girl,” and his followers may know he maintained a studio/office in North Hollywood and a sprawling home just south of Mulholland Drive.

But the rock musician, composer and social satirist, who died in 1993 at age 52, derided the role of Valley booster.

“It was a joke,” he once told an interviewer about “Valley Girl,” a dead-on spoof that featured vocals by his then-teenage daughter, Moon Unit, and cracked the Billboard Top 40. “It just goes to show that the American public loves to celebrate the infantile. I mean I don’t want people to act like that. I think Valley Girls are disgusting.”

Zappa grew up in Lancaster, graduating from Antelope Valley High in 1958. He got ejected from the school marching band for smoking in uniform and later formed the Blackouts, which he called “the only R&B; band in the entire Mojave Desert.”

That contrarian streak propelled Zappa through a critically celebrated recording career that spanned nearly 30 years, with his 1960s band, the Mothers of Invention, and later as a solo artist. Though never platinum sellers, his 40 albums, including “Freak Out,” “Sheik Yerbouti” and “Joe’s Garage,” influenced several musical generations with their unpredictable blend of free jazz, dexterous rock guitar and classical strains.

In the years before succumbing to prostate cancer at his Laurel Canyon home, Zappa tried his hand at various business ventures and became a vocal advocate of voter registration and opponent of rock music censorship.