A bit of Rock & Blues

New week, new posts, new music for some of you. Actually, this is going to be a quite short week for I’m going to be in Italy to be better… ops… the best…. well, the best man (at least the best you can imagine). Meanwhile, I’m here, waiting for the week to move on, resting from the long weekend mainly spent with my German friends but also with the groom and the bride.

Today we will enjoy something that I rarely put on this blog, some blues. To help us, we will host on this post the presence of a legend, Captain Beefheart.

This is clearly a pseudonym for the American musician and visual artist Don Van Vliet, California (I’m sure our Mel would recall this artist’s name). Between 1960 and 1980, he has been the leader of the so called “The Magic Band”. Within the band, Van Vliet was a singer and harmonica player, occasionally playing noisy free jazz-influenced saxophone and keyboards.

Now, I’ve always been reading on this artist for he’s usually mentioned on Rumore as a reference point, a model for some of today’s folk and rock music. I’ve listened to some of his songs and I found that musicians like Ben Harper and Jim Morrison have taken some inspiration from him. On the other hand, other straight-edge bands like McLusky or some punk scene has something in their sound that reminds me Capt. Beefheart’s style.
The band has been quite experimental for their times especially when releasing their best known album, Trout Mask Replica, which was produced by Van Vliet’s childhood friend Frank Zappa and is today regarded by some as a challenging but groundbreaking and influential masterpiece.

Well, let’s listen to this famous sick-rock-blues, with the song “Sure ’nuff ‘n Yes I do”, played live in Cannes in 1968:

Enjoy the week.

Domenico