If there’s one contemporary composer whose influence is nigh impossible to ascertain, it’s the artist once known as Don Van Vliet – more familiarly, Captain Beefheart.
The music Beefheart released between his 1967 debut Safe A Milk and his last album, recorded almost 30 years ago, Ice Cream For Crow, is so original, unique and, let’s face it, ‘out there’, that any attempt to catalogue those who inspired its strictly organic creation, is a task few would relish. But, there are two central themes that do run through Beefheart’s repertoire, two themes that were also, according to those closest to him, representative of the music he was most likely to listen to throughout the time he was recording and releasing music; these being Blues and Free Form Jazz.
This compilation brings together the records it is known Captain Beefheart was listening to prior to making his own music [often in the company of school chum Frank Zappa] and throughout his musical career. Records that have been partly responsible, in their own way, for establishing a recording style whereby experimentation is de rigeur and following whatever came before is forbidden.
1 Slim Harpo – I’m a King Bee (Moore)
2 Lightnin’ Slim – My Starter Won’t Work (West)
3 Richard Berry – Louie Louie (Berry)
4 Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown – Midnight Hour (Brown)
5 Howlin’ Wolf – Somebody In My Home (Burnett)
6 Bo Diddley – Diddy Wah Diddy (Dixon, McDaniel)
7 Ornette Coleman – Eventually (Coleman)
8 Robert Johnson – Terraplane Blues (Johnson)
9 Blind Willie Johnson – You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond (Johnson)
10 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – Hot Little Mama (Watson, Davis, Taub)
11 One String Sam – I Need a Hundred Dollars (Wilson)
12 Jimmy Reed – Little Rain (Reed)
13 Muddy Waters – Rollin’ ‘n’ Tumblin’ (part 1) (Trad, Arr Waters)
14 Al Simmons with Slim Green and The Cats From Fresno – Old Folk’s Boogie (Green)
15 Mississippi John Hurt – Candy Man Blues (Hurt) 16 Lead Belly – Red Cross Store (Roland)
17 Louis Armstrong – St. James Infirmary (Trad, Arr Primrose)
18 John Lee Hooker – Crawlin’ King Snake (Hollins)
19 John Coltrane – The Invisible (Coleman)
20 Sunnyland Slim – Goin’ Back To Memphis (Luandrew)
21 Bukka White – Parchman Farm (White)
22 Sonny Boy Williamson – Don’t Start Me Talking (Williamson)
23 Little Walter Jacobs – Key To The Highway (Broonzy, Segar)
24 Howlin’ Wolf – Smokestack Lightnin’ (Burnett)
25 Blind Willie Johnson – Mother’s Children Have a Hard Time (Trad, Arr Johnson)