Captain Beefheart - Don Van Vliet, born in 1941 and now dead of multiple sclerosis, just one month short of his 70th birthday - was as much behind his time as he was ahead of his time. And then he wasn't. Almost definitely the greatest "outsider" artist in the history of rock 'n' roll (maybe the only great outsider artist, in a semi-popular/alternative-culture world that he unwittingly helped inspire that now makes pointless film documentaries out of every talentless trumped-up footnote), he was musically, in a lot of ways, a throwback - to Delta blues, Howlin' Wolf, maybe free jazz, although he was known to deny it. (In 1980, he told Lester Bangs that Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman didn't move him - at least not as much as a goose, "the way they blow their heart out for nothing like that.")Delta blues, as anybody who has ever listened to Charley Patton knows, was avant-garde music, not necessarily on purpose. And though he had no qualms about exploding Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues" into "Tarotplane" for almost 20 minutes, it was never easy, or even possible, to come close to figuring out what Beefheart's purpose was: He growled about Dachau and ashtray hearts and tropical hot dog nights and multi-coloured Caucasians, and he was clearly concerned about the state of the ecology, but he denied his songs were political allegories; he was just painting in colors, and the words were a canvas.
Punk rock, or at least post-punk (starting with Pere Ubu, Devo, the Fall, Public Image Ltd., Magazine) owed the world to him - at least until the indie rock that punk somehow eventually evolved into severed any connection to the rhythm and swing of the blues. Nowadays, he barely seems like he's in the music's DNA at all; well, maybe a watered-down pinch in Beck or Jack White. Captain Beefheart did start out as a garage-rocker, after all, with records like his 1966 West Coast mini-hit "Diddy Wah Diddy," which is probably the closest he ever came to commercial success. In retrospect, a lot of his music really isn't all that far from lots of '70s hard-rock boogie bands - say, Nazareth or ZZ Top. Or from Dr. John. Or even Johnnie Taylor, now and then. Except he was way weirder. Rock music never saw his likes before him, and will see nobody like him ever again, which really sucks, because he had something that rock music needs. We loved you, you big dummy. Consider the playlist below a meager, but heartfelt, tribute.
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beautifully heartfelt (and so so true), Chuck. as far as i'm concerned, Don was (is!) probably the greatest (only?) 20'th Century "popular" neo-primitive/avant-pop artist--regardless of how odd and almost other-worldly his rhythms/vocal mannerisms/etc. may have initially seemed--to warrant/reward repeated exposure to his work. by which i mean that his truly oh-so unique (for once) musical VISION never failed to gain in wit, passion, clarity and just plain old listenability the more time/effort you personally put into sorting out the Cap's "eccentricities" within your own perhaps dumbfounded mind. man, what may have first appeared as the work of nothing much more than some late-60s burned-out, simple-minded grotesquerie, proved to be the unfailingly exciting, expressive, and downright sensitive, offerings of a "true" artist (whatever that may mean) over the long haul. Don was the man, period.
RIP Cap.
Chuck Eddy's endorsement makes you never want to listen to a Beefheart record again.
BTW, why are pointless documentaries about trumped up footnotes, less honorable than rheems of inane commentary about the music your fifteen year old daughter likes this minute? There's no need to read about this stuff just go straight to X- Factor...