Happy Birthday Frank Zappa | Whats My Line? Appearance

While we lost Frank Zappa just over 21 years ago, we still want to take the opportunity to celebrate what would’ve been the legendary composer/guitarist’s 74th birthday. As we mentioned a few weeks back on the anniversary of his death, Frank’s influence can still be heard in many bands’ music and his son, Dweezil, continues to carry his father’s flag with the long-running Zappa Plays Zappa project.

Zappa, a longtime Southern California resident, had a few run ins with the more commercial end of showbiz starting with a 1963 appearance on the Steve Allen Show. He even had a cameo in an episode of The Monkees and also appeared in their Head movie. However FZ’s spot on What’s My Line in 1971 was the rare instance where he traded upon his fame to help promote a project. In this case the guitarist/composer was shilling for his 200 Motels film. Check it out:

The Zappa Family Trust celebrates Frank’s birthday with the release of the 2014 Anything Anytime Anywhere For No Reason At All bundle. The 2014 installment of AAAFNRAA features four different tracks -an alternate mix of “Down In De Dew” recorded in 1972 and 1973, a previously unreleased live recording from 1966 dubbed “Freak Chouflee’,” “Uncle Meat/Uncle Meat Variations” performed by Mexico’s 3NSAMBL3 and video of “RDNZL” filmed at a 1982 show in Palermo, Italy.

The tracks are available for purchase individually or as a bundle via Barfko Swill.