Amid the hubbub of the past week, some of us recognized that we lost another one of a kind musician: Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart. I was just listening to "The Spotlight Kid" and "Clear Spot" for the first time in a long while, and since I have been concentrating more on harp than guitar these past few months, I noticed that there was a lot of tasty harp played by the good Captain on those records. He's no Little Walter, but he does have his own style, which I dig a lot. Anyone else like Captain Beefheart's harp playing? Also, I've read a few stories about Beefheart. One is that a piano was quickly procured for the Captain's use for a concert, but it needed tuning. A piano tuner was called in and he spent a few hours tuning it. When he finally finished, he asked Beefheart, who was standing nearby, how it sounded. The Captain stepped over and pounded his forearm down on the keys a few times and said, "Perfect!" Another one: The day after Lennon was shot and killed in NYC, Beefheart and the Magic Band had a show somewhere in the city. Before the concert started, Beefheart came out on stage with his soprano sax and proceded the blow an intense 15 minute solo. When he finished he told the silent and stunned audience: "That was from John to Sean through Don." What a guy! Any other Beefheart stories would be nice to hear, if you have them.
I popped in Zappa's Bongo Fury after hearing the sad news. Luckily I had a C harp in the car, because all the songs with harp were in G. Needless to say, I played along.
"Anyone else like Captain Beefheart's harp playing?"
*raises hand*
His playing style was definitely idiosyncratic (especially rhythmically), to the point where a lot of purists wouldn't even place it within the Blues genre. This sounds pretty bluesy to me, though:
I still think he deserves an honorable mention on the "greats" page here. He took the Blues as a starting point and created a new sound, one that was unmistakably his. Isn't that kind of a running theme here at MBH?
I bet there has been a lot people listening to Captain Beefheart this past week. It is sad that he's gone but he left a lot behind & is definitely one of the biggest influential artist in modern music - Thanks Don!
