Don Van Vliet died Friday at the age of 69, apparently after years of suffering from multiple sclerosis. I say "apparently," because so much of Van Vliet's life for the past many decades has been cloaked in rumor and speculation. As Captain Beefheart, with an evolving crew he called the Magic Band, he spent just over 15 years from the mid '60s to the early '80s making music that is the closest equivalent rock has ever had to abstract art. (He was also a painter, not coincidentally.) Rooted in blues and free jazz, but not ever limited to anything, his songs had a structured abandon built to suit his wide-ranging wolfman voice--it could supposedly cover four and a half octaves--and his imagistic lyrics. "Lucid tentacles test 'n sleeved/ 'n joined 'n jointed jade pointed/ Diamond back patterns/ Neon meate dream of a octafish," goes one song on Trout Mask Replica, his 1969 double album produced by Frank Zappa. (Knoxville note: Another song on that record, "Ella Guru," inspired the name of Ashley Capps' now-legendary Old City club.)
Reminiscences and appreciations are proliferating online, as you'd expect, but here are a few links worth a look: a Rolling Stone story from 1970, when Beefheart was already being hailed as a neglected genius: a tribute by Chuck Eddy, who says, "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"; and over at KnoxBlab, AC weighs in. There are also plenty of video clips out there, including his deadpan Letterman appearances. But for a sense of his mindblowing combination of virtuosity and nutzoid invention, it's hard to beat this Magic Band live clip from 1971. Rest in peace, DVV.
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