http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/dec/18/captain-beefheart-don-van-liet-obituary
Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet, who has died at the age of 69, was one of the most influential American musicians of the 1960s and early 1970s. His status was always cult rather than commercial, and for most of his career he was broke.
Yet he remained a hero to most of the musical avant garde – the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and the Mothers of Invention in America; Roxy Music, Hawkwind, Jethro Tull and Edgar Broughton in England. He was John Peel's favourite artist, and the DJ did much to promote Beefheart by playing his records when no other radio programme would touch them.
In 1964 Beefheart formed the Magic Band, the first of many line-ups under the name.They sounded pretty discordant, but due to Beefheart's extraordinarily mesmeric presence as frontman, a four and a half octave vocal range, his eccentric ability with lyrics, and his inexplicable one-liners to interviewers, the band was unforgettable.
Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet, who has died at the age of 69, was one of the most influential American musicians of the 1960s and early 1970s. His status was always cult rather than commercial, and for most of his career he was broke.
Yet he remained a hero to most of the musical avant garde – the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and the Mothers of Invention in America; Roxy Music, Hawkwind, Jethro Tull and Edgar Broughton in England. He was John Peel's favourite artist, and the DJ did much to promote Beefheart by playing his records when no other radio programme would touch them.
In 1964 Beefheart formed the Magic Band, the first of many line-ups under the name.They sounded pretty discordant, but due to Beefheart's extraordinarily mesmeric presence as frontman, a four and a half octave vocal range, his eccentric ability with lyrics, and his inexplicable one-liners to interviewers, the band was unforgettable.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
