“I’d always thought music was too formal,” Don Van Vliet told one US critic in 1973. “So I thought, ‘I’ll get into this and fix it.’”
The fix, by then, was well and truly on. Four years earlier, Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, had released his masterpiece, the avant-rock behemoth that was Trout Mask Replica. Recorded with his Magic Band, it distorted Delta blues, Beat poetry and free jazz through the prism of his own absurdist imagination, creating a whole new musical dialogue. It was frenzied and disciplined, visionary yet tradition-bound.
The same contradictions came to define Beefheart’s entire career, in which an astonishing body of work was offset by an eccentric personality and tales of almost tyrannical leadership.
Born and raised in Southern California, Van Vliet’s first love was art – painting and sculpting from an early age. Jazz, blues and R&B provided the soundtrack to his teenage years, during which he bonded with fellow Antelope Valley High School pupil Frank Zappa. The pair began writing song parodies and B-movie scripts, one of these – Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt People – giving rise to a new alter ego.
In 1964, Van Vliet headed for LA with what became the first incarnation of his Magic Band. Debut album Safe As Milk landed three years later, foisting Beefheart’s octave-hopping voice and shamanic blues onto a largely unmoved public.
It was the beginning of a pattern that would frustrate and confound him throughout most of his musical life: adored by critics and fans, but shunned by the wider world. Conscious attempts to breach the mainstream – 1974’s Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams – were ill-advised.
In 1982 he retired from the business. In the years that followed, amid rumours of ailing health from his secluded enclave somewhere in the Mojave Desert, he devoted his time to painting.
“The way I keep in touch with the world is very gingerly, because the world touches too hard,” he declared in 1994. He died in 2010, but remains a toweringly influential figure. Among those who’ve acknowledged a debt are PiL, The Fall, Pere Ubu, Talking Heads, The Clash, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and The Black Keys.
As Tom Waits said: "Once you’ve heard Beefheart, it’s hard to wash him out. It stains, like coffee or blood."
...and one to avoid
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