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Born
Don Vliet,
Captain Beefheart was one of modern music's true innovators. The owner of a remarkable four-and-a-half-octave vocal range, he employed idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist lyrics, and an unholy alliance of free jazz, Delta blues, latter-day classical music, and rock & roll to create a singular body of work virtually unrivaled in its daring and fluid creativity. While he never came even remotely close to mainstream success,
Beefheart's impact was incalculable, and his fingerprints were all over punk, new wave, and post-rock.
Don Vliet was born January 15, 1941 in Glendale, CA (he changed his name to
Van Vliet in the early '60s). At the age of four, his artwork brought him to the attention of Portuguese sculptor Augustinio Rodriguez, and
Vliet was declared a child prodigy. In 1954, he was offered a scholarship to study in Europe; his parents declined the proposal, however, and the family instead moved to the Mojave Desert, where the teen was befriended by a young
Frank Zappa. In time
Vliet taught himself saxophone and harmonica, and joined a pair of local R&B groups, the Omens and the Blackouts.
After a semester at college, he and
Zappa moved to Cucamonga, CA, where they planned to shoot a film, Captain Beefheart Meets the Grunt People. As the project remained in limbo,
Zappa finally moved to Los Angeles, where he founded
the Mothers of Invention;
Van Vliet later returned to the Mojave area, adopted the
Beefheart name and formed the first lineup of his backing group
the Magic Band with guitarists Alex St. Clair and Doug Moon, bassist
Jerry Handley, and drummer Paul Blakely in 1964.
In their original incarnation,
the Magic Band were a blues-rock outfit who became staples of the teen dance circuit; they quickly signed to A&M Records, where the success of the single "Diddy Wah Diddy" earned them the opportunity to record a full-length album. Comprised of
Van Vliet compositions like "Frying Pan," "Electricity," and "Zig Zag Wanderer," label president
Jerry Moss rejected the completed record as "too negative," and a crushed
Beefheart went into seclusion. After replacing Moon and Blakely with guitarist Antennae Jimmy Semens (born Jeff Cotton) and drummer
John "Drumbo" French, the group (fleshed out by guitarist
Ry Cooder) recut the songs in 1967 as
Safe as Milk. After producer
Bob Krasnow radically remixed 1968's hallucinatory Strictly Personal without
Beefheart's approval, he again retired.
At the same time, however,
Zappa formed his own label, Straight Records, and he soon approached
Van Vliet with the promise of complete creative control. A deal was struck, and after writing 28 songs in a nine-hour frenzy,
Beefheart formed the definitive lineup of
the Magic Band -- made up of Semens, Drumbo, guitarist
Zoot Horn Rollo (born
Bill Harkleroad), bassist
Rockette Morton (Mark Boston), and bass clarinetist
the Mascara Snake (
Victor Fleming) -- to record the seminal 1969 double album
Trout Mask Replica.
Following 1970's similarly outré
Lick My Decals Off, Baby,
Beefheart adopted an almost commercial sound for the 1972 releases
The Spotlight Kid and
Clear Spot. Shortly thereafter,
the Magic Band broke off to form
Mallard, and
Beefheart was dropped by his label,
Reprise. After a two-year layoff, he released a pair of pop-blues albums, Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams, with a new, short-lived
Magic Band; following another fallow period, 1978's
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) marked a return to the eccentricities of his finest work.
After 1982's
Ice Cream for Crow,
Van Vliet again retired from music, this time for good; he returned to the desert, took up residence in a trailer, and focused on painting. In 1985, he mounted the first major exhibit of his work, done in an abstract, primitive style reminiscent of Francis Bacon. Like his music, his art won wide acclaim, and some of his paintings sold for as much as $25,000. In the 1990s
Van Vliet dropped completely from sight when he fell prey to multiple sclerosis; however, releases like 1999's five-disc
Grow Fins box set and the two-disc anthology The Dust Blows Forward maintained his prominence.
Van Vliet died of complications from multiple sclerosis on December 17, 2010 in California; he was 69 years old. ~ Jason Ankeny