Everything about Captain Beefheart totally explained
Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet on
January 15 1941, in
Glendale, California,
U.S.) is an
American musician and
visual artist, best known by the
pseudonym Captain Beefheart. His musical work was mainly conducted with a rotating assembly of musicians called
The Magic Band, which was active from the mid-1960s through to the early 1980s. Van Vliet was chiefly a singer and
harmonica player, occasionally playing noisy, untrained
free jazz-influenced
saxophone and
keyboards. His compositions are characterized by their odd mixtures of shifting time signatures and by their surreal lyrics, while Van Vliet himself is noted for his dictatorial approach to his musicians and for his enigmatic relationship with the public.
Van Vliet joined the newly formed Magic Band in 1965, quickly taking over as bandleader. Their early output was rooted in
blues and
rock music, but Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band (as they were called, collectively) gradually adopted a more experimental approach. 1969 saw the release of their best known album,
Trout Mask Replica, which was produced by Van Vliet's childhood friend
Frank Zappa and is today regarded by some as a challenging but groundbreaking and influential masterpiece. Van Vliet released several more albums throughout the 1970s, but his group was beset by shifting line-ups and a lack of commercial success. Towards the end of that decade, he settled with a group of younger musicians and received acclaim for his three final albums, released between 1978 and 1982. Van Vliet's legacy is one of limited commercial success, but nonetheless one with a devoted following. Despite this lack of commercial success, his influence on musicians, especially those of the
punk and
new wave genres, has been described as "incalculable".
Since the end of his musical career around 1982, Van Vliet has made few public appearances, preferring a quiet life in his northern
Humboldt County, California home where he's concentrated on a career in painting. His interest in art dates back to a childhood talent for
sculpting, and his work—employing what has been described as a "neo-primitive abstract-expressionist aesthetic"—has received international recognition. Several of Van Vliet's former band members recently reformed as a group, and toured as
The Magic Band from 2003 to 2006.
Early life
Both Van Vliet's parents were internal migrants. His father, a
Helms Bakery delivery van driver, came originally from Kansas and was of
Dutch ancestry. His mother came from Arkansas. Her maiden name was Warfield and her ancestry is unclear, though the Warfield surname has its origins in England. It has been reported that Don added the 'Van' prefix to his surname to emphasize his Dutch heritage, and specifically as an acknowledgement to the
Dutch Masters in painting. Van Vliet is also distantly related to
Wallis Simpson, famous as the wife of
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom; his maternal grandmother was Simpson's second cousin. At a young age, Van Vliet demonstrated prodigious painting and sculpting talents, in spite of describing his working class family as lacking interest in art, and he was noticed by
Augustinio Rodriguez, who invited Van Vliet to sculpt with him on a weekly television show. Van Vliet claims his parents discouraged his interest in sculpture, turning away several
scholarship offers were later featured on several of his own albums.
While studying at
Antelope Valley High School in
Lancaster, Van Vliet met fellow-teenager
Frank Zappa. the first appearance of the Beefheart name. Van Vliet's stage name came from a term used by his Uncle Alan. Alan had a habit of exposing himself to Don's girlfriend, Laurie. Alan would urinate with the bathroom door open and, if she was walking by, mumble about his penis, saying "Ahh, what a beauty! It looks just like a big, fine beef heart." In a 1970 interview with
Rolling Stone, Van Vliet requests "don't ask me why or how" he and Zappa came up with the name. but able to imitate the deep voice of blues singer
Howlin' Wolf. He eventually grew comfortable with public performance, and after learning to play the
harmonica, began playing at dances and small clubs in Southern California.
Professional music career
Van Vliet's earliest work was with local groups such as The Omens and The Blackouts. In early 1965 he was contacted by
Alex Snouffer, a local Lancaster
rhythm and blues guitarist. Together they assembled the first Magic Band, and at this point Don Vliet became Don Van Vliet, whilst Alex Snouffer became Alex St. Claire. Nearly all the musicians that Van Vliet worked with were given stage names, which became more bizarre over the years. The first Magic Band was completed with
Doug Moon (guitar), Jerry Handley (bass) and Vic Mortenson (drums—soon replaced by Paul Blakely).
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band signed to
A&M Records and released two 1966 singles, a version of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy," followed by "Moonchild," which was written by
David Gates. Both were hits in Los Angeles. The band began to play "underground" venues such as the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
Sometime in 1966 demos of what became the
Safe as Milk material were submitted to A&M.
Jerry Moss (the "M" in A&M) reportedly described the new direction as "too negative" According to Vliet, the 28 songs on the album were written quickly during a three-week period, though it took the band about eight months to actually mold the songs into shape.
The 28 songs on
Trout Mask Replica draw on
delta blues music,
Bo Diddley,
free jazz, and
sea shanties, but the relentless practice blended the music into an
iconoclastic whole of conflicting
tempo, harsh
slide guitar, loping drumming, and honking
saxophone and
bass clarinet.
Van Vliet's vocals range from growling blues singing to frenzied
falsetto to laconic, casual ramblings. To some listeners his
lyrics seem impenetrably strange and nonsensical, but others find that closer examination reveals complex
poetic use of
wordplay,
metaphor and all manner of references:
music history, American and international
politics, the
Holocaust, love and
sexuality,
Steve Reich,
gospel music,
conformity.
Although the album was effectively recorded live in the studio, Van Vliet recorded much of the vocals whilst isolated from the rest of the band in a different room, only being in partial synch with the music by hearing the slight sound leakage through the studio window.
Van Vliet used the ensuing publicity, particularly with a 1970
Rolling Stone interview with
Langdon Winner, to promulgate a number of myths which have subsequently been quoted as fact. Winner's article stated, for instance, that neither Van Vliet nor the members of the Magic Band ever took drugs, but guitarist
Bill Harkleroad later discredited this. Van Vliet claimed to have written all of the songs for
Trout Mask in one marathon eight-hour writing session, but we now know the band did much to shape them during the 8 months they were rehearsed. Van Vliet also claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and bassist Mark Boston to play their instruments from scratch; in fact the pair were already accomplished musicians before joining the band.
Later music
Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) continued in a similarly experimental vein. The LP sees the addition of
Art Tripp III to the band, who had joined from the Mothers of Invention, playing drums and marimba.
Decals was the first record on which the band were credited as "
The Magic Band", rather than "
His Magic Band"; journalist
Irwin Chusid interprets this change as "a grudging concession of its members' at least semiautonomous humanity."
Unconditionally Guaranteed and its follow up
Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974) have a completely different, almost soft-rock sound to any other Beefheart record and neither was critically well received.
The friendship between Frank Zappa and Van Vliet over the years was sometimes indistinguishable from rivalry (Zappa had called Beefheart, a year before their collaboration on Bongo Fury, "an asshole") as musicians drifted back and forth between Van Vliet and Zappa's groups. Their collaborative work can be found on the 1975 album
Bongo Fury, along with Zappa rarity collections
The Lost Episodes (1996) and
Mystery Disc (1996). Particularly notable is Beefheart's vocal on "Willie the Pimp" from Zappa's otherwise
instrumental album
Hot Rats (1969).
From 1975 to 1977 there were no new records (the original version of
Bat Chain Puller was recorded in 1976 but has never been released). In 1978 a completely new band was formed (consisting of Richard Redus,
Jeff Moris Tepper,
Bruce Fowler,
Eric Drew Feldman and Robert Williams). These were from a younger generation of musicians eager to work with him and extremely capable of playing his music. In several cases they'd been fans for years, and had learned his music from records before being given auditions.
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978) was largely regarded as a return to form, featuring once again the innovative and eccentric style of the earlier albums.
Doc at the Radar Station (1980) helped establish Beefheart's late resurgence as possibly the most consistently creative period of his musical career. In this period, Van Vliet made two appearances on
David Letterman's television program and also performed on
Saturday Night Live.
The final Beefheart record,
Ice Cream for Crow (1982), was recorded with
Gary Lucas (who was also Van Vliet's manager), Jeff Moris Tepper, Richard Snyder and
Cliff Martinez. This line-up made a video to promote the title track which was rejected by MTV for being "too weird." However, that video was included in the Letterman broadcast on NBC-TV. Soon after, Van Vliet retired from music and established a new career as a painter.
Current life and painting
Van Vliet currently lives in northern
California, and is bed-ridden. He was initially dismissed by some critics as "another rock musician dabbling in art for ego's sake". Gordon Veneklasen, director of the
Michael Werner Gallery in New York City, describes Van Vliet as a "really incredible painter" whose work "doesn't really look like anybody else's work but his own"
Many artists have cited Beefheart as an influence, beginning with the
Edgar Broughton Band, who covered "Dropout Boogie" (mixed with
The Shadows' "Apache") as early as 1970. More notable were those emerging during the early
punk movement such as
the Clash and
John Lydon of the
Sex Pistols.
Beefheart's influence on the post-punk bands was demonstrated by the tribute album
Fast 'n' Bulbous - A Tribute to Captain Beefheart in 1988, featuring the likes of
Sonic Youth,
The Membranes and
XTC. More recently,
Franz Ferdinand cited Beefheart's 1980 album
Doc At The Radar Station as a strong influence on their second LP,
You Could Have It So Much Better.
Punk rockers
The Minutemen (1980–1985) were great fans of Beefheart's music, and were arguably among the few to effectively synthesize his music with their own, especially in their early output, which featured disjointed guitar and irregular, galloping rhythms—
Mike Watt's basslines with the group were often very reminiscent of the bass guitar work in Beefheart's bands. Michael Azerrad describes early Minutemen as "highly caffeinated Captain Beefheart running down
James Brown tunes", and notes that Beefheart was the group's "idol".
Discography
Further Information
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