1940–1993 · American composer, guitarist, satirist and filmmaker
Frank Zappa (born 21 December 1940, died 4 December 1993) was an American composer, songwriter, guitarist, satirist, filmmaker and activist whose work ranged across rock, jazz, classical and the deliberately unclassifiable. He was a compulsive skewerer of American institutions — and, late in life, a vocal opponent of music censorship who testified before the US Senate. The Real Frank Zappa Book, written with Peter Occhiogrosso and published in 1989, was his own answer to what he called the proliferation of stupid books about him.