Celebrity story: Author Ben Bryant hangs out with Frank Zappa

Yet another

celebrity story

from my Hollywood memoir, Three Stages. The previous year [1969] I had been working with Jann Wenner, founder and publisher of Rolling Stone. We remained friendly after our joint venture bit the dust. Here’s the excerpt:

Click here to get Three Stages

“That spring [1970] Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were going to do a series of concerts at the Filmore East on Second Avenue. I had been a fan now since ‘66 and I called Jann Wenner and asked if he’d ever had a Zappa interview in Rolling Stone. He said they’d run one in ‘68 and he’d really like to have another. I told him I thought I could get Zappa to talk to me and so he gave me Frank’s number in LA. It took a few tries but I finally got him on the phone. I told him I was a musician in New York, had seen a lot of his shows and knew that he was not truly a Rock ‘n Roll guy. This broke the ice and I finally told him I was a friend of Wenner and that if he’d sit down with me it would not be a typical Rolling Stone interview. Much to my surprise and delight he agreed and we made a date for the second weekend in May. On Monday, May 4th the Kent State massacre happened. The following Friday, late in the afternoon, I met Frank Zappa at his Number One Fifth Avenue suite, tape recorder in hand.

“Our conversation began with my quoting one of his lyrics; “Mama! Mama! Someone said they made some noise. The cops have shot some girls and boys.” He replied that he didn’t think that put him in the Nostradamus category. And we went on from there talking about politics, music, dope, marriage – you name it. We talked about it.

“We spent nearly all of Frank’s free time together that weekend and talked about everything. Mostly he talked, I asked questions and listened. But when we were on music it was more a conversation than an interview. We were both fans of Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Bartok, Honneger, Milaud and the like. He turned me on to the music of Edgard Varèse, one of his earliest influences. He said that his high school music teacher gave him a record of Varèse and he listened to it over and over because, “It was some nasty stuff and I wanted to figure out what he was doing.” (Or words to that effect.)

“I was surprised what a gentleman Frank was. He opened doors for women, said please and thank you. He was nothing like his public image of a wild man. Just a gifted musician who wanted to compose for symphony orchestras and he did get to do that prior to his early death (prostate cancer) shortly before turning fifty-three.

“This was when I learned that I was no journalist. I spent many hours going through the cassettes I’d recorded of our conversations and simply couldn’t write an interview article from them. I apologized to Jann and thanked him for the opportunity but there was no Rolling Stone piece from me.

“A year or so later I went to see the Mothers again at the Filmore and on a break found Frank next door at Ratner’s Deli. He was sitting with Gerome Ragni. He saw me come in, waved me over and started to introduce me to Ragni. I shook hands with Jerry, told Frank we had worked together and sat down. I think Jerry got pissed off (he was no fan of mine to start with) because Frank spent the rest of his break talking with me.”

That’s the last time I saw Frank. We spoke on the phone a few times but never got together again. I feel privileged to have, albeit briefly, known this major artist.

This is but one celebrity story of the many  in Three Stages.

Click here to get Three Stages

 

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