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  Don retired from the music business after 1982's Ice Cream For Crow album to concentrate on his then blossoming, and highly successful, painting career. The interviews that he gave after this big decision would suggest that he was doing what he had always wanted to do and was extremely happy at home with his wife, cat and canvasses. In the early Sixties Don Van Vliet moved to Cucamonga to be with Frank Zappa who was composing music and producing motion pictures. It was at about this time that Van Vliet and Zappa hatched up the name Captain Beefheart.  The band was an immediate sensation in Lancaster and very soon its fame began to spread throught southern California. Beefheart's brand of abrasive blues-rock was truly a novelty to young listeners in 1964. Record companies interested in the new sound began to take notice. In mid 1964 Beefheart entered into the first of a long series of disastrous agreements with record producers. The second break in Beefheart's career arrived in 1965 when producer Bob Krasnow of Kama Sutra agreed to release the same material that A&M had rejected. Beefheart reassembled the Magic Band and returned to record the twelve cuts of "Safe As Milk"  |
 The Band The original Magic Band was primarily a rhythm and blues band, led by local Lancaster guitarist Alexis Snouffer, along with Doug Moon (guitar), Jerry Handley (bass), and Vic Mortenson (drums), the last being rotated with and finally replaced by Paul Blakely, known as 'P.G. Blakely'. For the first A&M recording Mortenson had been called up for active service and Snouffer stood in on drums, with a recently recruited Richard Hepner taking up the guitar role. By the time the single was aired on a pop TV show P.G. Blakely was back in the drum seat. He then left for a career in TV and was replaced by John French by the time the band cut their first album, as the first release on the new Buddah Records label. Captain Beefheart came to
life in 1965
Don Van Vliet (January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) best known by the
stage name Captain Beefheart, was an American musician,
singer-songwriter and artist.
Van Vliet began painting and sculpting at age three. His subjects
reflected his "obsession" with animals, particularly dinosaurs, fish,
African mammals and lemurs. At the age of nine he won a children's
sculpting competition organised for the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith
Park by a local tutor, Agostinho Rodrigues. The sprawling park, with
its zoo and observatory had a strong influence on young Vliet, as it
was a short distance from his home on Waverly Drive. The track
"Observatory Crest" on Bluejeans & Moonbeams reflects this
continued interest. A portrait photo of the school-age Vliet can be
seen on the front of the lyric sheet within the first issue of the US
release of Trout Mask Replica.Van Vliet's artistic enthusiasm became so fervent, he claimed that his parents were forced to feed him through the door in the room where he sculpted. When he was thirteen the family moved from the Los Angeles area to the more remote farming town of Lancaster, near the Mojave Desert, where there was a growing aerospace industry and testing plant that would become Edwards Airforce Base. It was an environment that would greatly influence him creatively from then on. Van Vliet remained interested in art; his paintings, often reminiscent of Franz Kline's, were later featured on several of his own albums. Meanwhile he developed his taste and interest in music, listening "intensively" to the Delta blues of Son House and Robert Johnson, jazz artists such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor, and the Chicago blues of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12 studio albums. Noted for his powerful singing voice with its wide range, Van Vliet also played the harmonica, saxophone and numerous other wind instruments. His music blended rock, blues and psychedelia. Beefheart was also known for exercising an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians, and for often constructing myths about his life. Van Vliet developed "a mutually useful but volatile" friendship with Frank Zappa, with whom he sporadically competed and collaborated. During his early teenage years Vliet would sometimes socialize with members of local bands such as "The Omens" and "The Blackouts", although his interests were still focused upon an art career. The Omens' guitarists Alexis Snouffer and Jerry Handley would later become founders of "The Magic Band" and The Blackouts' drummer, Frank Zappa, would later capture Vliet's vocal capabilities on record for the first time. This first known recording, when he was simply 'Don Vliet', is "Lost In A Whirlpool" - one of Zappa's early 'field recordings' made in his college classroom with brother Bobby on guitar. It can be found on the Zappa Lost Episodes CD. After Zappa began regular occupation at Paul Buff's PAL Studio in Cucamonga he and Van Vliet began collaborating, tentatively as "The Soots". By the time Zappa had turned the venue into Studio Z the duo had completed some songs. These were "Cheryl's Canon", "Metal Man Has Won His Wings" and a Howlin' Wolf styled rendition of Little Richard's "Slippin' And Slidin". 
Captain Beefheart, Rolling Stone no. 58, May 1970 Buy This Allposters.com Further songs, on Zappa's Mystery Disc CD, "I Was A Teen-Age Malt Shop" and "The Birth Of Captain Beefheart" also provide an insight to Zappa's 'teenage movie' script titled Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People,[32] the first appearances of the Beefheart name. It has been suggested this name came from a term used by Vliet's Uncle Alan who had a habit of exposing himself to Don's girlfriend, Laurie Stone. He would urinate with the bathroom door open and, if she was walking by, would mumble about his penis, saying "Ahh, what a beauty! It looks just like a big, fine beef heart."[33] 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.[20] He would later claim in an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman that the name referred to "a beef in my heart against this society."[21] In the "Grunt People" draft script Beefheart and his mother play themselves, with his father played by Howlin' Wolf. Grace Slick is penned in as a 'celestial seductress' and there are also roles for future Magic Band members Bill Harkleroad and Mark Boston. 1962–1969
In early 1965 Alex Snouffer, a Lancaster rhythm and blues guitarist, invited Vliet to sing with a group that he was assembling. Vliet joined the first Magic Band and changed his name to Don Van Vliet, while Snouffer became Alex St. Clair (sometimes spelled Claire). Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band signed to A&M and released two singles in 1966. The first was a version of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy" that became a regional hit in Los Angeles. The followup, "Moonchild" (written by David Gates) was less well received. The band played music venues that catered to underground artists, such as the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. Safe As Milk
Many of the lyrics on the Safe As Milk album were written by Van Vliet in collaboration with the writer Herb Bermann, who befriended Van Vliet after seeing him perform at a bar-gig in Lancaster in 1966. The song "Electricity" was a poem written by Bermann, who gave Van Vliet permission to adapt it to music. Much of the Safe As Milk material was honed and arranged by the arrival of 20-year–old guitar prodigy Ry Cooder, who had been brought into the group after much pressure from Vliet. The band began recording in spring 1967, with Richard Perry cutting his teeth in his first job as producer. The album was released in September 1967. Richie Unterberger of Allmusic called the album "blues–rock gone slightly askew, with jagged, fractured rhythms, soulful, twisting vocals from Van Vliet, and more doo wop, soul, straight blues, and folk–rock influences than he would employ on his more avant garde outings". Retirement
After his retirement from music, Van Vliet rarely appeared in public. He resided near Trinidad, California, with his wife Janet aka his sometime song co-writer. By the early 1990s he had become wheelchair-bound and was suffering from multiple sclerosis. Associates such as his longtime drummer and musical director John French and bassist Richard Snyder have stated that they had noticed symptoms consistent with the onset of multiple sclerosis, such as sensitivity to heat, loss of balance, and stiffness of gait, by the late 1970s. One of Van Vliet's last public appearances was in the 1993 short documentary Some Yo Yo Stuff by filmmaker Anton Corbijn, described as an "observation of his observations". Around 13 minutes long and shot entirely in black and white, with appearances by his mother and David Lynch, the film showed a noticeably weakened and dysarthric Van Vliet at his residence in California, reading poetry, and philosophically discussing his life, environment, music and art. Environmentalist
Issues
Van Vliet often voiced concern over and support for environmentalist issues and causes, particularly the welfare of animals. He often referred to Earth as "God's Golfball" and this expression can be found on a number of his later albums. In 2003 he was heard on the compilation album Where We Live: Stand for What You Stand On: A Benefit CD for EarthJustice singing a version of "Happy Birthday to You" retitled "Happy Earthday". The track is 34 seconds long and was recorded over the telephone. Death
It was announced on Friday, December 17, 2010, that Van Vliet had died at a hospital in Arcata, California, weeks short of his 70th birthday. The cause was named as complications from multiple sclerosis. We recommend you visit The Captain Beefheart Radar Station website and/or Wikipedia for a more extensive Beefheart biography and discography Source : 95% from Wikipedia,
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to you.click HERE.
Beefheart Links Find out more about Don Van Vliet and "Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band" here. The Captain Beefheart Radar Station || Wikipedia || Home Page Replica - Justin C. Sherrill Grant O'Neill Beefheart articles : The Amazing Vanishing Spotlight Kid || The Spotlight Kid Revisited || Live from Carolside || Brave New Twirl || My Human Gets Me Blues  We recommend you visit The Captain Beefheart Radar Station website for a more extensive Beefheart biography and discography Advertisement Beefheart Discography Captain Beefheart Official Studio Albums Discography mouse-over album title to view album details
Live
Albums,
There wasn't a live album officially released during the lifetime of
the band. However, Mirror Man was recorded live (albeit in the studio)
and some shows were recorded with a view to releasing an album - the
1974 London and 1981 Reseda shows for example - but nothing official
came of it.
mouseover
title to see detailsThirty two years after the event Virgin finally decided to release their recording of the Drury Lane, London show of 1974. Otherwise the closest we have to official live albums are the Rhino release of the 1978 My Father's Place show or the 2006 release of Amsterdam '80 which had both been recorded for a radio broadcast. Apart from that there are only a few 'grey' releases (listed below) ... and, of course, the bootlegs
Compilation Albums All Captain Beefheart compilations, including numerous reorderings of Safe As Milk and Mirror Man.
Captain Beefheart & Frank Zappa Collaborations All Captain Beefheart compilations, including numerous reorderings of Safe As Milk and Mirror Man. No album information or song list are avilable for these albums.
Other Collaborations All Captain Beefheart compilations, including numerous reorderings of Safe As Milk and Mirror Man. No album information or song list are avilable for these albums.
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 Watch Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band   Listen to Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band  Beefheart's life as a musician began in the town of Lancaster nestled in the desert of Southern California. He had gone to high school there and become the friend of another notorious Lancasterian, Frank Zappa. In his late teens Don Van Vliet listened intensively to two kinds of music - Mississippi Delta blues and the avant-garde jazz of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor.  The one stage appearance of the first Beefheart ansemble was bizarre to the point of frightening. All members of the magic Band were dressed in black leather coats and pants with black high heel boots. The lead guitar player had a patch over one eye and long dangling arms that reached from his shoulders to half way bleow his knees. At a time that long hair was still a rarity, the Captain sported long dark locks down to his waist. It was simply outrageous.  Atomic Roosters' live albums are of invaluable importance to fans. However they were recorded from old cassette tapes, usually. Therefore these albums, or some songs on them are of very poor, even bootleg, audio quality. |
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