Captain Beefheart, a.k.a. Don Van Vliet, spent the better part of two decades making absolutely insane music with his Magic Band. His fusions of blues, avant-garde elements, and free jazz were more or less revolutionary in the 1960s. And yet, even diehard blues fans might be unfamiliar with his oddball name and persona.
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Musicians were getting more into avant-garde in the 1960s and 1970s. John Lennon is just one famous example. However, nobody was doing it quite like Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. The outfit’s debut 1967 album, Safe As Milk, features lyricism that contained very absurd elements, which was reflected in the unique instrumentation on each track. Even outside of music, Captain Beefheart always seemed to have something odd to say.
“[I have] a beef in my heart against society,” Van Vliet once said of the meaning of his name. “I was born with my eyes open, I didn’t want to be born, I can remember deep down in my head that I fought against my mother bringing me into the world. And I remember when the jerk slapped me on the fanny and I saw the yellow tile and I thought what a hell of a way to wake somebody up.”
Captain Beefheart Changed Rock Music in a Big Way
This sense of weirdness kind of sums up the vibe of many of Captain Beefheart’s releases. However, avant-garde leanings aside, Captain Beefheart was also a blues icon. Before Safe As Milk was released, he released a cover of the Bo Diddley classic “Diddy Wah Diddy”. That was enough for fans of blues and music critics alike to dub him the best “white blues musician” of the era.
Safe As Milk is more or less Captain Beefheart’s most accessible piece of work, but it also exists outside of the era in which it was released. Look at any other album released in 1967; the weight of the hippie era will likely be felt, no matter which album you pick. This is part of how Captain Beefheart changed music during his time as a musician. He was weird when it wasn’t entirely cool to be weird. He was enormously ahead of his time.
The 1969 record Trout Mask Replica would only add to his status as one of the most influential (and at times, controversial) songwriters of his generation. In a way, even Beefheart’s bluesy works could be seen as proto-punk years before punk was even a thought.
Today, it’s still wild to think that he didn’t get more famous. He famously said that music paid him very little, which led him to basically quit music to become a sculptor.
“I don’t even know what sound is, much less what it’s for,” Van Vliet once said. “It isn’t to make money that’s for sure. I’ve never made any.”
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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