Playlist: Beefheart Guitarist Gary Lucas' Mixtape

by Nate Cavalieri

Sneaking a listen from the earphones of Gary Lucas is exciting -- among his many accomplishments, the man was the former guitarist in Captain Beefheart's Magic Band and a collaborator of Jeff Buckley. We recently solicited a playlist from Lucas, which turned out to be an eclectic genre-hopping romp though acid jazz, folk singers and Afropop. You can listen to the playlist here, but equally illuminating was Lucas' track-by-track commentary, which we've included after the jump.

Outkast, "Hey Ya!"
"My favorite single of the naughty noughties to date. The impassioned vocals remind me of West Coast R&B from the '50s and '60s though Andre 3000 and Big Boi hail from Georgia."

Fela Kuti, "Sorrow Tears and Blood"
"This 1977 track from Fela's album Opposite People is Afrobeat at its best, a fusion of James Brown funk, John Coltrane-ish jazz and African Highlife rhythms direct from the original soul rebel of Lagos, Nigeria.  This song recounts a police raid on his Kalakuta Republic compound in Lagos, housing his nightclub The Shrine, where Nigerian military assaulted his wives, threw his 81-year-old mother out a window, and fractured Fela's skull, arm and leg. He survived to fight another day, gaining more and more world stature until his tragic death from AIDS. A hero and a martyr, and someone I respect so very highly for his message. Plus, you can dance to it!"

Van Morrison, "Caravan"
"If any artist can be said to be possessed of a voice with the power to move and heal you, it is Van the Man. He has produced an astonishingly broad and consistently excellent catalog over the years, but it is Moondance that I return to again and again. This song has the most resonance for me; it is the absolute essence of music as binding force, of music as community, of music shared with friends, of the way it feels to hear music come over the radio the first time when you fall in love with it instantly."

Yael Naim, "Shelcha"
"I'm partisan here too, for I've known this fantastic Israeli-French singer with the pure and incandescent voice for a long time. In fact, on 9/11, I was in Paris promoting my Edge of Heaven album and some of my French friends, Yael included, came over to my hotel to commiserate with me that night. We all cried together, watching the towers come down on CNN over and over again. A couple years ago, I was in Paris playing solo and Yael invited me over to record some guitar on an album she was making in her apartment, which sounded so mysterious and beautiful. Now 'New Soul' is a huge international hit and I am so proud of her. She struggled for years to have her music heard. This song is my favorite from that album, sung in Hebrew. It touches my soul deeply."

Laura Nyro,  "Stoned Soul Picnic"
"My all-time favorite female vocalist, this Russian-Jewish New York genius wrote all these amazing songs while she was still in high school ('Blowin' Away,' 'Stoney End,' 'Eli's Coming,' 'Wedding Bell Blues' and 'And When I Die' for starters). Some of those songs became big hits in the '60s for people like Barbra Streisand, The Fifth Dimension, Three Dog Night and Blood, Sweat and Tears. She belted them out on her own albums with a tough, streetwise, soulful voice that blows me away every time. She combines Tin Pan Alley and Brill Building smarts, girl group savoir-faire and classical music and jazz chops and then breaks all known songwriting rules. She rules in my universe."

The Incredible String Band, "Painting Box"
"I have frequently cited the album The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion as my number one 'Desert Island Disc' in various polls. It is a total cornucopia of inventive and fantastic songwriting and singing from two Scottish bards, Robin Williamson and Mike Heron, who seem to have stumbled onto all the secrets of the cosmos on their journeys round the world (Africa, India and Middle Eastern influences figure prominently). It's a witches brew of fantastic acoustic guitar strumming, sitar, exotic bowed instruments, finger cymbals, chanting and heroic voices reinforced by the delicate peals of their two female counterparts, Licorice and Rose. The present day Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is an unabashed fan as are spiritual seekers such as Robert Plant (Mick and Keith too, who met with Robin and Mike around the time this was released). This songs says it all -- a graceful love song radiating all the colors of the rainbow, and more. Fans of Devendra Banhart and the late Nick Drake should listen up."

Jeff Buckley, "Grace" (demo from Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas release, Song to No One) 
"Jeff Buckley was one of the finest vocalists and all around musicians I have ever been privileged to work with. This song began as my solo guitar instrumental titled 'Rise Up to Be,' which I gave to Jeff in the summer of 1991 while he was still living in L.A. We had met at a tribute to his father Tim Buckley in New York that spring. He came through NYC the following summer, bringing lyrics and a melody with him, and Grace was born. When we finished the demo at a little studio in Manhattan that August, Jeff came back to the producer's booth after delivering a stunning, titanic vocal, and sheepishly asked, 'Was I any good?' He was only 24 at the time. Any good? I walked out of the studio feeling like I had dynamite in my hands. I knew that this music would shake the world. And it did. MOJO magazine recently cited Grace as its #1 Modern Classic album. I am so proud to have been a part of it! The fact that people keep on discovering its beauty is a testimony to its timeless, enduring quality."

Captain Beefheart, "Ice Cream for Crow"
"I cut my rock 'n' roll teeth in Beefheart's Magic Band. The title track from the last Captain Beefheart album, 1982's  Ice Cream for Crow, was danceable, hummable and about as accessible as it gets. Yet the charming and whimsical video for this song was rejected by MTV as 'too weird.' (It's up on YouTube, folks -- go and seeketh now. That's me wearing the red cowboy hat which flies off my head mid-strum.) Avant-rock visionary Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) emerged out of the Mojave Desert in 1966 with the hit single 'Diddy Wah Diddy' under his belt and a dozen uncompromising albums of sheer artistic genius to follow, including his landmark surrealist masterpieces Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals Off, Baby. Beefheart made the cover of Rolling Stone then and was lionized by the press everywhere in the world, but the 'hip' alternative radio of the day refused to play him; and today, he remains a shadowy, stubborn, iconic figure who just happens to have changed the face of rock music as we know it. You don't have to just take my word for it; Bono, PJ Harvey, Robert Plant, Joe Strummer, Laurie Anderson, John Lydon, David Lynch, and a host of other celebrities have testified to the man's total inspiration. Today he is a successful avant-garde painter after ceasing to make music in 1984. Yet if any one individual deserves a hallowed seat in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it is Captain Beefheart."   

Miles Davis, "Right Off"
"Miles Davis morphed from Charlie Parker disciple to an early bop idol, and then to a post-Birth of the Cool icon with his legendary Quintet, which featured jazz luminaries Tony Williams on drums and Wayne Shorter on sax. He kept shapeshifting and morphing, Proteus-like, until he emerged in the early '70s with a rock/jazz/funk sound which stunned the world, and is still making waves. Miles took funk bass player Michael Henderson from Stevie Wonder's band, a young powerhouse of a drummer, Billy Cobham, and Scottish guitar star John McLaughlin and unleashed them live in the studio with very few changes worked out in advance. He told them to just find a groove. As you can hear from this track, Miles then entered the session on top, guns blazing, delivering a fusillade of supercharged notes to further spur on his collective's efforts, riding the vortex with an electronically modified trumpet. The sound rivaled both Jimi Hendrix and James Brown for sheer in-your-face sonic aggression. This is the main theme from his A Tribute to Jack Johnson album, which I covered on my Gods and Monsters album."

Yardbirds, "Stroll On"
"What can you say? This is the finest recorded evidence of the short-lived twin lead guitar attack of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. The absolute epitome of a British blues rave-up, the song is a thinly disguised rewrite of the Johnny Burnette Rock 'N Roll Trio's legendary rockabilly rumble "The Train Kept a Rolling," which had already been covered by The Yardbirds. Keith Relf, Jim McCarty and Paul Samwell-Smith are magnificent throughout, while Beck and Page duke it out to see which one can outdo one another in jaw-dropping flights of sheer fretboard and feedback bravado. Which axe god plays which part of the famous solo break, you ask? Wouldn't you like to know ... "

Pink Floyd, "Astronomy Domine"
"Here is a journey to the far edge of the cosmos encapsulated in a dark, hook-laden, anthemic four-minute pop song as it was conceived by the original mad genius of English psychedelia, Syd Barrett. Faint voices of a lecturer intermingle with fighter pilot radio static and a killer metallic blues riff. Also, there's the fantastic echoplex guitar glissandos and swoons, ethereal organ by Rick Wright, pulsating bass by Roger Waters, symphonic crashing drums by Nick Mason and a guitar solo break by Barrett. The whole thing  is skillfully woven into a sonic feverdream by the Beatles' engineer, Norman Smith, who sadly just passed away."

Suicide, "Ghost Rider"
"This charismatic duo of singer Alan Vega and keyboardist programmer Martin Rev virtually invented electro-punk in the mid-'70s with their first phenomenal album on Red Star Records, produced by Craig Leon (Blondie, Ramones). Here, they whip up a vortex of insistent, nervous energy out of the most minimal of elements -- a pounding drum machine keyed to a Bo Diddley beat, a three-note bass ostinato punctuated by repeated keyboard stabs and Vega's yelping, breathless vocals. The lyrics were as relevant then as they are now: 'Hey baby baby he's a screaming the truth/ America America is killing its youth.' This ain't no comic book."

The Doors,  "Peace Frog"/"Blue Sunday"
"One of the best one-two punches from one of the greatest groups of all time. Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore burst on the scene with a sound so fresh and sensual, a sound that still rocked like a motherf*ck*er. Jim Morrison gave Mick Jagger a real run for his money in the lead singer/shamanic rock-god department. The Doors' saga has been told repeatedly in books and films. I really liked Oliver Stone's biopic and so did Jeff Buckley. The Doors were one of the bands Jeff and I consciously took as a model for our prototype Gods and Monsters sound. But not all that many causal Doors fans have  gone deep into their catalog, which is consistently excellent. 'Peace Frog' is one of the best blood-lust-and-revolution anthems ever scored to a boogaloo beat. Then we're into the sheer beautiful release of 'Blue Sunday,' which soothes all worries and cares."

The Rolling Stones, "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?"
"The title says it all, a furious two finger salute up the establishment by the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band in this, one of  their finest singles ever. Its two minutes of defiance, rage, angst and beauty is an ecstatic over-the-top din of noise and cavernous Spectorian reverb that sounds like it was recorded in an abandoned airfcraft hangar. The great twang guitar and vocal intro is capped by brass band fanfare, and then Mick comes in to exert ultimate strutting authority with a lyric supercharged with Freudian overtones and innuendo. (The Stones posed in drag on the picture sleeve of the original single, remember?) Brian, Bill and Charlie help Mick lay out the charges against some poor soul, with neo-Wagnerian production flourishes by ace producer Andrew Loog Oldham. Capped by pounding piano in the background (Jack Nitzsche? Keith?), it makes this one of the most powerful of all '60s anthems."