Musicians - Captain Beefheart

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	Musicians - Captain Beefheart

Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet on January 15 1941 in Glendale, California), is a retired musician and practicing painter, best known under the pseudonym Captain Beefheart. Van Vliet's musical output was rooted in blues and rock music, but his idiosyncratic, diverse approach largely defies classification. Much of his work was conducted with a rotating assembly of musicians called the Magic Band during the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. In spite of describing his working class family as lacking interest in art, Van Vliet has also received attention for sculpting in his teens and abstract painting after the end of his music career.

Van Vliet was mainly a singer, but was also a capable harmonica player, and occasionally played noisy, untrained, free jazz-influenced saxophone. After a handful of singles, Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band released their first album, Safe as Milk in 1967. Two years later, they released the groundbreaking, experimental and influential album Trout Mask Replica. By the end of Van Vliet's music career in 1982 the band had released a total of twelve albums. Van Vliet returned to painting, a childhood talent, after the end of his recording career. Other members of the Magic Band reformed the group in 2003 and once again perform on tour. Among the most important of "underground rock" musicians, Captain Beefheart's legacy is one of poor record sales, critical acclaim, and a devoted following. The Captain Beefheart material has been the subject of documentaries, books and other critical analysis, and had an "incalculable" 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, 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 he met the teenage 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 and in possession of a "remarkable" four-and-a-half octave vocal range

Later music

Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) continued in a similar experimental vein — by then Art Tripp III had joined (from the Mothers of Invention). He played drums and marimba. The next two records, The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot, both released in 1972, were much more conventional. In 1974, immediately after the recording of Unconditionally Guaranteed, The Magic Band, which had by then coalesced around the core of John French, Art Tripp III, Bill Harkleroad and Mark Boston, decided they could no longer work with Van Vliet, who was by all accounts a severe taskmaster. They left to form Mallard. Van Vliet quickly formed a new Magic Band, which had a much slicker, more mainstream sound, and who therefore were referred to (by unkind fans) as the Tragic Band. 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, 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). Also 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 had been fans for years, and had learned his music from records before being given auditions.

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Musicians - Captain Beefheart

Later music

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