Died On This Date (December 17, 2010) Captain Beefheart / Rock Legend
themusicsover Captain Beefheart (Born Don Glen Vliet)
January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010
Captain Beefheart was a respected, innovative, and highly influential rock musician who launched his 40-year career in 1964. A multi-instrumentalist with a powerful voice, Beefheart found himself at the top 1960s avant-garde rock heap. He was a high school classmate of Frank Zappa with whom he occasionally recorded and performed with. In 1969, Beefheart released his groundbreaking opus, Trout Mask Replica on Zappa’s Straight Records. Sonically, the album found itself somewhere in the middle of blues, psychedelia, jazz and rock. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine positioned it at #58 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. It is commonly cited as an influence on post-punk and alternative rock. Beefheart could count no less than Paul McCartney and John Lennon as fans – at one point they had planned to make him the first artist on their experimental label, Zapple, but the idea for the label was scrapped. Others he is said to have influenced are the Velvet Underground, the Residents, Throbbing Gristle, and arguably, the entire industrial movement. He retired from music in 1982 to put more focus on his talents as a visual artist. It has been reported that his paintings can command as much as $40,000. Captain Beefheart died on December 17, 2010 of complications from Multiple Sclerosis. He was 69.
What You Should Own
Philip Lithman, or as he was known professionally, Snakefinger was an English multi-instrumentalist who is best known for his collaborations with the Residents. Although he came out of the British blues scene, Lithman’s guitar fret work had more in common with Robert Fripp than John Mayall. In 1971, Lithman moved to San Francisco where he hooked up with avant-garde art rockers, the Residents to perform in their live band. Over the next few years would move back to the UK and then back to California where he shopped around a light rock album and eventually hooked back up with the Residents. In 1982, Lithman put together his own backing band called the Vestal Virgins. It was with this band that Lithman was performing in Austria on July 1, 1987. Midway during the show, Lithman died of a heart attack.