| Subject: Frank Zappa Books |
Author:
Siren May
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Date Posted: 11:01:28 06/17/03 Tue
Author Host/IP: adsl-157-165-195.mob.bellsouth.net/66.157.165.195
NEW BOOKS ON FRANK ZAPPA
Email: CALCLASS@EARTHLINK.NET
CALIFORNIA CLASSICS BOOKS
PO BOX 29756 LOS ANGELES CA 90029
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
To schedule author interviews, contact the publisher at (323) 906-0262 or calclass@earthlink.net
The late composer/guitarist Frank Zappa wasn’t exactly forthcoming about his family life. In fact, whenever he did mention his family, it was generally in the context of defending his children’s decidedly eccentric first names.
Now, for the first time, readers have the opportunity to meet Zappa’s nuclear family...the family he grew up in, and from whom he gained many of his values. In the new California Classics release MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER: A ZAPPA FAMILY ALBUM, Patrice “Candy” Zappa, Frank’s baby sister, offers a candid, first-person account of what it was like growing up with an older brother who liked blowing things up, musically and otherwise.
Reading MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER is a lot like stumbling across the Zappa family photo album stashed away in an attic. Not only are there more than sixty previously unpublished family photos, but they are illuminated by Candy Zappa’s insights into her parents, Francis and RoseMarie, and their sometimes difficult, but always loving relationship with adolescent Frank. Candy’s memoir also provides a warm, humorous look at the other Zappa siblings, brothers Bob and Carl, and their relationship with their older brother.
We learn of Francis Senior’s immigration to America from Sicily at the turn of the 20th century, and how he worked his way through college to become a university professor, government meteorologist, and high school math teacher, meeting RoseMarie Collimore and marrying her against her family’s wishes. Candy gives readers a front-seat view of the Zappa family’s peregrinations across country as Francis followed the defense industry from the East Coast to Florida and at last to California, where young Frank began playing the guitar in the unlikely cultural atmosphere of the Antelope Valley.
As Candy Zappa remarks in her introduction to the book: “You couldn’t get any closer to knowing what it was like to grow up in the Zappa household unless you had been there right beside me.” Or as the L.A. Weekly put it: “... there’s something strangely compelling about Candy’s story. She shares her brother’s slashing wit and seriously deep thinking, and as a study in genetics alone, it’s worth perusing.”
A perfect companion to MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER is California Classics’ new release of Nigey Lennon’s BEING FRANK: MY TIME WITH FRANK ZAPPA. Since its original publication in 1995, BEING FRANK has received wide acclaim for its witty style, musical insights, and unique firsthand view of its subject. Zappa scholar Ben Watson described BEING FRANK as “irreplaceable.” Musician/author Lennon, author of eight published books including two on Mark Twain and one on French playwright/proto-surrealist Alfred Jarry, maintained a personal and professional relationship with Zappa during the period which is generally agreed to have been Zappa’s most creative, and she invests her recollections with considerable musical and emotional perception.
The new edition of BEING FRANK has been updated and includes introductory articles by David Walley (author of the first Frank Zappa biography, NO COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL), Greg Russo (author of the essential Frank Zappa reference work, COSMIK DEBRIS), and Candy Zappa.
Together, these books, by two remarkable women, fill in the gaps left by Frank Zappa’s own sketchy accounts of his family and personal life, and in the process reveal much about his genius.
CANDY ZAPPA and NIGEY LENNON are also musical collaborators. Candy Zappa contributes three vocals to the Nigey Lennon CD REINVENTING THE WHEEL (Dinghy Records, 2001), including an updated version of the Frank Zappa song “Any Way the Wind Blows.” Nigey Lennon, a guitarist/keyboardist/composer/producer, recorded REINVENTING THE WHEEL with co-producer-vocalist-drummer-programmer John Tabacco. REINVENTING THE WHEEL also features guitar work from former Frank Zappa sideman Mike Keneally. As Lennon/Tabacco/Zappa, Lennon, Zappa, and Tabacco appeared in July 2002 at the 14th annual Zappanale in Bad Doberan, Germany. They plan on performing on the East and West Coasts, as well as recording, in the coming months.
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MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER:
A ZAPPA FAMILY ALBUM
by Patrice “Candy” Zappa
ISBN 1-879395-38-X
7 x 10, 96 pages
$14.95
Publication date: June 1, 2003
BEING FRANK:
MY TIME WITH FRANK ZAPPA
by Nigey Lennon
ISBN 1-879395-55-X
6 x 9, 160 pages
$14.95
Publication date: June 1, 2003
REINVENTING THE WHEEL
Audio CD
Nigey Lennon
with John Tabacco and Candy Zappa
Dinghy Records 1001
$9.95 list
Original release date: February 2001
Both books are available at bookstores, as well as at Amazon.com. The CD is available through Amazon.com.
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