By David Allen

Frank Zappa should be preparing to turn 75 on Monday. Alas, the iconoclastic musician died at age 52 of prostate cancer. He's something of a native son of the Inland Valley, even if he was born in Baltimore and achieved fame in Los Angeles. A chunk of his formative years was spent in various cities local to us: Rancho Cucamonga, most notably, but Ontario, Pomona, Claremont, Montclair and Upland all figure in. Let me pull together some of the threads of his story, based on previous research and Barry Miles' invaluable biography, to offer a one-stop overview.

Because of the young Zappa's health problems, the Italian-American family headed to California, first to Monterey and then to Claremont. His father, Francis, who worked in aerospace, got a job at Convair in Pomona. Zappa seems to have attended eighth and a portion of ninth grade at Claremont High before the rootless family — mother Rose Marie and siblings Bobby, Candy and Carl — tried San Diego and then Lancaster, where Frank graduated from Antelope Valley High in 1958.

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