Five years ago I contributed to a Kickstarter to preserve Frank Zappa's archive of recordings. This was run by Alex Winter who is best known for being in Bill and Ted movies, but he also makes documentaries. I received a shirt and some stickers for my pledge.
Some time later I had a postcard from Alex too.
This was a massive project as Zappa recorded just about everything he did. Someone had to work through it all, dealing with lots of media types. In his lifetime he released 62 albums and he died at only 52 or prostate cancer. Last year they released a documentary about Frank's life that includes some of the material they preserved.
I had to wait a while, but I got an invitation to watch it online and it is great. I am not a Frank Zappa expert, but I have enjoyed his music for years. The documentary was therefore very informative for me. It impressed on us how dedicated he was to making music. He may not have been the best at getting on with his bands, but it was partly about finding people who could allow him to hear what he had composed. He was on the cutting edge and influenced The Beatles to experiment. He also had racially mixed bands at a time that was not considered acceptable in parts of the USA. Some considered his songs to be pornographic and he actually went to prison for making recordings that were considered to break the law.
The movie covers the whole range of his music from hit singles to avante garde orchestral works. It also talks to lots of people who worked with him. He was not affraid to be politically active and was involved in the hearings about censoring rock music as well as ending up as cultural attache to Czechoslovakia.
They include some of his last performances when he was obviously very ill. He leaves a great legacy and it would have been great to see how he would have commented on the last few years.
I love music documentaries in general and this is a really good one, even if he is not really your thing. I recommend it.
In the credits they list lots of people who backed the project. I did not see my name, but then there were thousands and it may have just been for those who contributed larger amounts. I did see 