Peter's music has been heard on hundreds of radio stations and has been on SiriusXM rotation for over a decade. As a multi-award winning artist, Peter's music has also topped Billboard's Classical and Crossover charts.
For Captain Beefheart, a maverick-artist-musician, who was not just a complicated man but highly demanding and by most accounts very difficult to deal with. It was appropriate that Beefheart's Magic Band was to prominently feature a bassist as accomplished, bold and adventurous as Mark Boston, a.k.a Rockette Morton.
Born on July 14, 1949, Mark began life in the small town of Salem, Illinois before his family moved out to Lancaster, California when he was 13. With a bassist and steel player for a father, Mark gained a great appreciation for country and bluegrass along with the R&B and rock’n’roll that was on the rise. Within a year of the Boston clan moving out to Lancaster, Mark befriended a young guitarist by the name of Bill Harkleroad.
At a time when the bass guitar was seen as the dummy’s instrument, Mark left quite an impression on Bill with his talent and equipment, leading to the two joining forces to form BC And The Cavemen. With Mark’s mother sewing some outfits for them, the band developed a decent reputation, and the two would also play in a band with Jeff Cotton and John French known as Blues In A Bottle. And then a local hero came calling. Or perhaps screaming and howling!
In that same Lancaster scene, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band were making a big splash as a top flight blues rock outfit, with 'Safe As Milk' having made a strong impression and 'Strictly Personal' being a strong record as well. But even with a sound that was speaking to people, one that perhaps would have been a more pragmatic one as far as a career goes, Don Van Vliet just wasn’t meant for conventional norms.
The Captain had all these ideas, ideas far too out for many, including early members. He needed new musicians, younger and more impressionable ones that wouldn’t object to his ideas. Already having John and Jeff in the band, now 'Drumbo' and Antennae Jimmy Semens, he then recruited Bill, dubbed Zoot Horn Rollo. And on bass, he found Mark Boston, who took the name Rockette Morton due to his love of outer space. And the classic Magic Band was born.
Trout Mask Replica (TMR) wasn’t an easy album to make. Yet even with all the bizarre ideas and the difficulty in preparing those ideas into music, Mark was a total champ through it all. The Beefheart sound is one of great dichotomy, and Mark can capture all of it. He’s so tight and precise, and yet there’s this raw grit and dirt. He’s highly intelligent and sophisticated in his playing, and yet there remains this childlike sense of wonder and curiosity.
He takes after all the great traditional American music, yet out into a whole other realm of time and space. The bass traditionally serves the role of grounding the harmony while locking in with the drums to provide a foundation, yet Mark’s playing often serves as another melody line in the music. In a lot of ways, he’s like a third guitarist that just happens to be playing bass.
The TMR on its own is a legacy few can compete with, and yet Mark contributed to more classic records like "Lick My Decals Off, Baby", "The Spotlight Kid", and "Clear Spot". There on Decals, you get the equivalent of Godfather II. With Mother Art Tripp on marimba and drums rather Jeff on guitar, you get an album that captures a great deal of TMR's brilliance while being brilliant in its own unique way.
Then you get to 'The Spotlight Kid', with bass godliness on cuts like “When It Blows Its Stack”, resulting in a bass solo that often opened shows, yet Mark proves himself just as talented on traditional in-the-pocket styles as demonstrated on cuts like “I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby”. And that thing about bassists being failed guitarists? In the 'Clear Spot', with Mark taking guitar and the rhythm section now being a mini Mothers reunion of Art and Roy Estrada, yet nobody missed a beat. Throughout the record, Bill and Mark’s kinship really shines, their weaving right there with what Bill and Jeff had done, or what was done with Alex St Clair early on.
Of course, dealing with Don was quite a task of its own, so it’s inevitable that Mark and the others would all end up departing by 1974. He and Bill soon formed a group of their own called Mallard. For two albums, the first with Art and having some writing help from John French 'Drumbo', Mallard showed itself a pretty decent blues rock outfit. And giving that it was Mark who finally had a chance to create something that was truly his own rather than helping some achieve their vision, it’s understandably the work that he takes pride in. And over time, he’d end up making a solo record and create some cool artwork of his own, as well as performing with 'Drumbo' in the reformed Magic Band, allowing the music to live and breathe on stage again.
If you’re a Beefheart fan, how can you not love Rockette Morton? Not only a uniquely talented bass player but such a great stage presence full of joy, along with a lovably quirky personality and such a sweet guy. Easily one of my favorites from Magic Band members, you can’t help but smile when thinking about Mark. He’s been through some rough weather, including his health scares, and yet he’s still the same Mark we’ve known and loved all the years.
Happy birthday Mark! Thank you for all you have given us and look forward to more.
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Patrick Moore is a freehand drawing artist and freelance music writer.
By Subhash K Jha MUMBAI: Admittedly, at the moment there is no bigger star in the country than Mohit Suri whose ongoing performance as Lord Shiva in Devon Ke Dev Mahadev has the entire nation bowing to this soft-spoken bewildered Kashmiri. Mohit Raina seems shell-shocked by the reverence and adulation. A self-confessed Mama’s Boy, Mohit lives in Mumbai with his mother. Cutting down talk of being involved with his co-star Mouni Roy and of a marriage proposal from Priyanka Chopra's aunt, Mohit says he is single. ``There is no real-life Parvati in my life. There has been talk of my link-ups. But seriously, there is no time. All I do is shoot and go to the gym. My mother lives with me after my father passed away two years ago. She is inundated with requests to meet me. ‘Bhagwan ke darshan kara do,’ they tell her. But my mother doesn’t take me seriously. She doesn’t think I am a good actor. She thinks I am over-rated, doing just-about okay.” A screen-god, who is the nation’s sex symbol, sure sounds contradictory. Laughs Mohit, “It surely is. Well, I guess people people are looking at me in a way they’ve never looked at screen gods before. I am happy and grateful for that. The kind of attention I get is way beyond my comprehension. I know they’re reacting to Shiva Bhagwan and not to Mohit Raina. But still the attention is disconcerting. I guess it’s because every Hindu household has a picture-calendar of Shiva, Parvati and Ganesh.The serial brings alive the calendar-image. That’s the USP of the serial. Whenever I meet people they feel they know me. There is an accessibility to Lord Shiva. He’s a people’s God.People love me.I couldn’t ask for more.” Fans and admirers from all over the country want a darshan of this home-medium’s Shiva. But Mohit, who shoots for the serial round the clock, has a a one-point contact address with the outside world. “To be very honest I am not a very outgoing person. I don’t party or socialize. Not only because I can’t(considering my image). But because I don’t want to.This is a lifetime opportunity for me.Even if I was tempted to socialize and womanize, I would have given up the thought for this role. But I am not that kind of people. But I have to go to the gym to be able to expose Shiva Bhagwan’s torso in every episode. People have gotten to know that I visit the gym every day. They are there to meet me every day. And there’s no particular age group of fans seeking to meet me. I have 7-year-old girls, 57-year-old aunties and 85-year-old grandparents desirous of a darshan. The other day, 70-plus ladies from Nagpur showed up at the gym with roses. They didn’t know what else to gift me. I was touched.” For Maha Shivratri this year, Mohit couldn’t perform Shiva Puja at home. “My mother was very upset. She couldn’t understand that I had to play Shiva even on Shivratri. I had requested for a holiday on Shivratri. My producers laughed their heads off. That’s when I realized I am really seen as some kind of a God. On Shivratri they prayed to me rather than to the Shiva idols. That zapped me. I made sure I performed Shiv Puja after I returned home shooting. But I can’t complain. I love what I am doing. I am quite happy being Mahadev. But Mahadev is completely separate from Mohit Raina.” Mohit has a formula to get out of character every day after shooting. “Initially I didn’t know how to switch on and off. In due course, I’ve discovered a 15-minute meditation and breathing exercise that I do every day after shooting. That helps me to come out of character.” Going back to the beginning of his journey, Mohit says, “I am from Jammu & Kashmir. I always wanted to be part of Mumbai’s enterainment world. I participated in Grasim’s Mr India contest in 2006. That’s how it all started for me. I came to Mumbai and I was modeling for a while. Soon I realized modeling was not my cup of tea. I wanted to try my hand at acting. I started with some serials like Chehra that didn’t do well. I also did film Don Muthu Swamy with Mithun Chakraborty.I tried my luck here and there. Finally I got Devon Ke Dev Mahadev. I was destined to play Lord Shiva. And now people know who Mohit Raina is , albeit as Lord Shiva.” As a Shiva devotee, Mohit found it easy to slip into character. “Initially I wasn’t sure if I could play God. But the makers saw their Mahadev in me. That fact that my father was a Shiv Bhakt helped me to get into character. We are Kashmiri Pundits. When we were in Kashmir my father would take me to the Amarnath temple.People will remember me as Mahadev for as long as possible. I am giving my life to the show. We’ll continue telling the story of Lord Shiva till the time when the story keeps going and the love keeps flowing. Some supreme power wanted me to play Shiva. And I am doing what HE wanted me to. I will continue playing Shiva until the Supreme Power wants me to. At the moment I do nothing else.” After 17 hours of work when Mohit heads home he can’t have his mother’s cooking. “Unfortunately I can’t have my mother’s rich ghee-laden food. Because Shiva has to have a great body non-stop. Being a foodie,it’s hard. But I can eat all my mother’s food when I am no longer playing Mahadev. At the moment I get so much happiness when people tell me their lives have changed because of the serial. People listen carefully to what I say as Mahadev. If my presence in a 22-minute serial can change lives why would I miss the small pleasures of life?” About desisting from love involvements, Mohit quips, “A real-life Parvati would demand time and attention. I can’t give her time, I am sure in the future I will have a Parvati in my life. And the Ganesh and Kartik (the kids) will follow. It’s not easy being God. But it’s exhilarating. I tell people not to touch my feet because I am not God. It started with a guy who travelled all the way from Himachal. He insisted I bless him. Since then I realized who am I to deprive people of hope?” READ ALSO: 1: Devon Ke Dev Mahadev 2: Priyanka Chopra's aunt says Mohit Raina is suitable boy for her
