Influential music iconoclast Captain Beefheart dead at 69
Gruff-voiced singer, who spent past 28 years as a painter, succumbs to multiple sclerosis
Friday, December 17, 2010 at 6:15 p.m.
Captain Beefheart, one of the most idiosyncratic and distinctive-sounding artists in rock history, died today at an undisclosed hospital in Northern California from complications of multiple sclerosis. He was 69.
Beefheart, whose real name was Don Van Vliet, last performed in San Diego on Feb. 16, 1978, at San Diego State University's now-dormant Back Door. He quit making music in 1982 to focus on his painting, an endeavor that brought him considerable acclaim -- and proved considerably more lucrative -- than his music.
But his music proved enormously influential, in particular his 1969 double-album, "Trout Mask Replica," which was produced by fellow music maverick (and former San Diegan) Frank Zappa. Beefheart and Zappa performed here together here in late 1975 at Golden Hall, followed by the joint album "Bongo Fury." The two met when both were attending high school in Lancaster in the Mojave desert, where Beefheart lived for many year with his wife.
Speaking of the 28-song"Trout Mask replica" in a 1999 interview with Spin magazine, former San Diegan (and new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee) Tom Waits said: "I don't see how you can listen to it and not come away with some sense of being changed, if you allow it in. You can't really get it yourself — figuring out Don's music is like trying to figure out the choreography of a bee. But it's there to behold and to wonder about, and to hopefully take some sort of the light of it away with you. He's a mighty kind."
The members of Beefheart's Magic band, whose lineup changed often, regarded him as both brilliant and dictatorial, an innovator and an appropriator. By all accounts, both assessments were accurate.
Drawing from primal rock, Delta blues, free jazz, beat poetry, vintage R&B, surrealism and more, Beefheart created music that could sound simultaneously intricate and chaotic, raucous and refined, earthy and exotic. Fueled by skittering rhythms, deviously interlocking melodies and Beefheart's otherworldly singing -- which rose effortlessly from a guttural growl to a falsetto shriek -- his songs profoundly influenced artists as varied as The Residents, Devo, Sonic Youth, Pere Ubu, the Edgar Broughton Band, The Minutemen, The Pixies, The Kills, Red Hot Chili Peppers and PJ Harvey leader and namesake Polly Jean Harvey, who befriended the reclusive Beefheart.
Although he abandoned music in 1982 to focus on his painting, Beefheart's impact continues to be felt. Among the artists who have recorded his songs in recent years are White Stripes, the Black Keys and Beck.
