The genre Frank Zappa couldn’t stand being associated with: “Hillbilly music”
Frank Zappa was a committed musician. Some people think that because of how complex a lot of the music he made was, his attitude towards it was equally so, but that wasn’t the case.
Zappa was incredibly up front about the kind of music that he liked and didn’t… He liked music that was authentic and that came from a genuine place. He disliked music that felt somewhat commercial, almost like it was pandering to the audience as opposed to genuinely attempting to connect with them.
Exhibit A: Despite their music being a long way from the kind of thing that Zappa ever made, he was a huge fan of Australian rockers AC/DC – the idea of putting together a three-chord song is pretty alien to Zappa, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t appreciate it when it was done well… When he listened to AC/DC, he heard one thing, and that was genuine musicians who were fantastic at playing.
“The thing about AC/DC is they’ve carved a massive career out of playing one style that’s changed very, very little,” explained Zappa’s son, Dweezil. “That’s what people love, that consistency. They’re rock-solid, and they have a great sound. He loved rhythm and blues. AC/DC is essentially a very heavy-duty, electrified rhythm and blues band.”
Zappa’s love of rhythm and blues isn’t surprising when you consider the fact that he was always a big fan of authentic music. It didn’t really get any more authentic than R&B, as it was an incredibly romantic genre of movie. Not in the love sense (although sometimes that applied), but more in that people used the music in a bid to express genuine emotion.
When you listen to a lot of those early R&B artists, the music they’re playing might not be the most complex, but it’s enough to send you in a spiral because of how packed with feeling it is. Every lyric, every hit of a guitar string, is filled to the brim with something indescribable that allows the listener to connect more and more with the music.
It was this style of music that eventually led to the development of rock ‘n’ roll. People had different opinions on the more popular iteration of the genre, as it was certainly more commercially successful, but many felt that in pursuit of such success, the sound lost a bit of oomph. Zappa was one of the latter, as when he was growing up, he was in a band who played R&B covers, and despised it when they were even remotely associated with rock ‘n’ roll.
“My band played strictly rhythm and blues music,” he said when talking about one of his early bands, The Blackouts. “We didn’t know any rock ‘n’ roll songs. In fact, everybody in the band hated rock ‘n’ roll. Rock ‘n’ roll was that horrible Elvis Presley kind of hillbilly music. I liked Howlin’ Wolf and Jimmy Reed and that kind of stuff.”
This is an attitude which followed Zappa his entire career. While the music he went on to make was a lot more complex than R&B, the authenticity of the genre remained at the heart of everything. He was never trying to be commercially successful – rather, he just liked being true to his own creativity.
