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Don Van Vliet was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as the Magic Band, he recorded 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1982. His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, rock, and avant-garde composition with idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist wordplay, and Vliet’s gravelly singing voice with a wide vocal range. Renowned as an enigmatic persona, Beefheart frequently constructed myths about his life and was known to exercise an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians. Although he achieved little commercial success, he sustained a cult following as an influence on an array of experimental rock and punk-era artists.
Trout Mask Replica is the third studio album by the American band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released as a double album on June 16, 1969, by Straight Records. The music was composed by Captain Beefheart and arranged by drummer John "Drumbo" French. Combining elements of R&B, garage rock, and blues with free jazz and avant-garde composition, the album is regarded as an important work of experimental rock. Its unconventional musical style, which includes polyrhythm, multi-octave vocals, and polytonality, has given the album a reputation as one of the most challenging recordings in the 20th century musical canon.
Blue Thumb Records was an American record label founded in 1968 by Bob Krasnow and former A&M Records executives Tommy LiPuma and Don Graham. Blue Thumb's last record was released in 1978. In 1995, the label was revived and remained active until 2005.
Buddah Records was an American record label founded in 1967 in New York City. The label was born out of Kama Sutra Records, an MGM Records-distributed label, which remained a key imprint following Buddah's founding. Buddah handled a variety of music genres, including bubblegum pop, folk rock (Melanie), experimental music, and soul.
John Stephen French is an American drummer and former member of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, where he was known by the nickname Drumbo. He was the principal drummer on several of Beefheart's albums, including 1969's Trout Mask Replica, for which he also acted as arranger. He later released several albums as a solo artist as well as with the collaborative group French Frith Kaiser Thompson.
Elliot Ingber is an American guitarist. In 1966, he joined Frank Zappa's band the Mothers of Invention and appeared on their debut album Freak Out!. He was fired from the band by Zappa following an incident onstage when he tripped on LSD and was unaware that his amplifier was not switched on. After that he co-founded Fraternity of Man, which released two albums. He then joined Captain Beefheart's Magic Band under the stage name Winged Eel Fingerling, given him by Beefheart. In the sleeve notes to The Spotlight Kid (1972), Beefheart likens Ingber to "a chrome black eyebrow / rolled out real long" and also "a paper brow magnifying glass / fried brown, edge scorched, yoked / like a squeak from a speaker / behind forehead of the time." In 1995, Ingber reformed Fraternity of Man with Lawrence "Stash" Wagner, the original vocalist and co-author of "Don't Bogart that Joint", to record and release a third album released under the Malibu Records label.
Strictly Personal is the second album by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. It was originally released in October 1968 as the first album on the Blue Thumb Records label. It was released nearly a year after the band had taken to the studio to record the follow-up to 1967's Safe as Milk, and was composed primarily of material intended for an aborted double-LP entitled It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper.
Safe as Milk is the debut studio album by American music group Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released in June 1967 by Buddah Records. A heavily blues-influenced work, the album features a 20-year-old Ry Cooder, who played guitar and wrote some of the arrangements.
Mirror Man is the fifth studio album by American band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released in April 1971 by Buddah Records. It contains material that was recorded for the label in 1967 and originally intended for release as part of an abandoned project entitled It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper. Much of the material from this project was subsequently re-recorded and released through a different label as Strictly Personal (1968). The tapes from the original sessions, however, remained under the care of Buddah, who took four of the unissued tunes and released them as Mirror Man. The album sleeve features an erroneous claim that it had been "recorded one night in Los Angeles in 1965".
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) is the tenth studio album by American band Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, released in October 1978 by Warner Bros. Records. The album emerged from production difficulties surrounding Bat Chain Puller, an album Captain Beefheart recorded for DiscReet and Virgin Records in 1976. DiscReet co-founders Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa feuded over the production of the album, because Cohen funded the production with Zappa's royalty checks. Captain Beefheart recorded a new album titled Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) after Zappa withheld the master tapes of the original Bat Chain Puller album.
The Magic Band was the backing band of American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Captain Beefheart between 1967 and 1982. Originally Beefheart had simply been the lead singer of the group, formed by guitarist Alex St. Clair, but eventually they morphed into a backing band for him. The rotating lineup featured dozens of performers, many of whom became known by nicknames given to them by Beefheart. Longtime members during the band's heyday included drummer/arranger John French, guitarist Bill Harkleroad, bassist/guitarist Mark Boston, percussionist/keyboardist Art Tripp, guitarist Jeff Cotton, and guitarist Elliot Ingber. Ex-members of the Magic Band formed the short-lived group Mallard in 1974. The Magic Band reformed in 2003, without Beefheart with artists like guitarist and bassist Eric Klerks.
The Lost Episodes is a 1996 posthumous album by Frank Zappa which compiles previously unreleased material. Much of the material covered dates from early in his career, and as early as 1958, into the mid-1970s. Zappa had been working on these tracks in the years before his death in 1993.
Alex St. Clair was an American musician.
Jeffrey Ralph Cotton is an American rock guitarist, known for his work as a member of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band.
Gary "Magic" Marker was an American bass guitarist and recording engineer, best known for his involvement in various psychedelic rock bands of the 1960s.
Robert Alan Krasnow was an American record label executive and entrepreneur who had a long and successful career in the music industry. He founded Blue Thumb Records, later became chairman of Elektra Records, and was a co-founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The following is a list of official releases by American musician Captain Beefheart. With various line-ups of musicians called The Magic Band, Beefheart released a total of 13 studio albums recorded between 1967 and 1982, after which he left music to concentrate on a career in painting, as Don Van Vliet. His catalogue has since been augmented with extra releases including an EP and various compilations of live material, studio outtakes and greatest hits releases.
I'm Going to Do What I Wanna Do is a live album from Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. In support of the US release of his album Shiny Beast , Beefheart and the band undertook a promotional club tour. On Saturday 18 November 1978 they performed at My Father's Place in Roslyn, New York. My Father's Place was located under a motorway bridge, held about 200 people and the patrons sat at long tables and could dine whilst listening if they wished. The show was recorded and mixed directly to two-track tape. The tape was used for a radio broadcast on WLIR-FM on 11 December 1978. Following a limited release on CD, Rhino Records made the tracks available for download. In April 2023, Rhino released the concert on a double vinyl LP, limited to 5000, for Record Store Day.
Brass Tacks Press, based in Los Angeles, has published over 50 books of poetry, prose, and comics since it was founded in 2002 by poets Robert Campbell, Pablo Capra, and Richard McDowell.
"Electricity" is a song by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, from their 1967 debut album Safe as Milk. Beefheart claimed that A&M Records dropped the band after co-owner Jerry Moss heard the song and declared it "too negative" for his teenage daughter to listen to; Safe as Milk would ultimately be released by Buddah Records. Beefheart's vocal performance shattered the microphone recording him.
References
- ↑ Barnes, Mike (2002). Captain Beefheart: The Biography. Cooper Square Press. p. 40. ISBN 9780815411901.
- 1 2 Bermann, Herb (2015). The Mystery Man from the Magic Band. Brass Tacks Press. ISBN 978-0-9820140-1-1.
- ↑ "The search for the mystery co-songwriter from 'Safe As Milk'". Captain Beefheart Radar Station. Retrieved December 19, 2017.
- ↑ Bunn, Susan (July 6, 2000). "The Mystery Man from the Magic Band". The Malibu Times . The Malibu Times. Retrieved 2015-10-31.
