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.
Agencies
TORONTO: Dr Birinder Singh Ahluwalia, who came to Canada at the age of 26, has a success formula for every immigrant. He says people should `tether down’ and `focus.’
In a country where highly qualified immigrant doctors are often forced to drive cabs to survive, this doctor from Amritsar has successfully created a world-class medical business with few peers.
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In his Scarborough centre.[/caption]
His BSA Diagnostic Medical Imaging Centre, with three outlets in the Greater Toronto Area, perhaps treats more patients than other other medical centre across Canada.
``Barring some full-fledged hospitals, we serve more patients than any other centre in Canada. We have treated up to 62,000 people a year and done up to 300,000 procedures. Which is a record for a privately run centre. Now, I haven’t heard any centre in Canada doing 60,000 cases. Yes, hospitals do,’’ Ahluwalia points out as he takes you around one of his clinics in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough.
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In a relaxed mood at his home.[/caption]
"This clinic centre alone is worth 15 clinics...it’s that big. You get the very best (treatment) when you come here. We have state-of-the-art equipment and highly qualified doctors,’’ he beams.
Indeed, try talking to any of his patients, and they gush about his care and treatment.
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With a staffer.[/caption]
``When other clinics buy equipment that is worth $40,000, we buy the very best which could be worth over $150,000. And when the government is cutting investment in the health sector, we are investing in our clinics,’’ explains the suave doctor.
Ask him about the secret of his success in a country where thousands of immigrant doctors fall by the wayside, and the above-mentioned words `tethering down’ and `focus’ start rolling off his tongue.
``You know, every immigrant can succeed. It is all about tethering down - by which I mean deciding promptly what your priorities are. And then having a total focus on your goal. Moreover, you should love doing what you do,’’ he emphasizes.
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Dr Birinder Ahluwalia seen with family and friends at a Xmas party.[/caption]
According to him , most immigrant doctors come to Canada a little late in age. "It is difficult to succeed when you come here at the age of 40. You have a family to support and then there is no time to upgrade your skills.’’
But Ahluwalia was just 26 when he landed in Canada in 1986 after finishing his MBBS from Amritsar. However, like every immigrant, he too started at the bottom.
"My first job was that of a courier for a tax company and my role was to coordinate documents from there different offices,’’ he says.
He recalls his first pay cheque of $365. "Like a true Punjabi, we went out and ordered a big dinner,’’ he laughs.
But that job lasted only 15 days as he was feverishly applying to get into his profession.
"I joined the Toronto General Hospital as an associate to its director, Dr Roger Stronell. He saw my resume and said: If you are as good as your resume says, you will be in my chair in 15 days. And within 15 days I was in his chair - basically doing what he was doing.’’
After getting a thorough training in diagnostic imaging, Ahluwalia started the BSA Diagnostic Imaging Centre in 1989 on a very small scale. And there has been no looking back since then. His small clinic has grown into four full-fledged diagnostic centres today.
"Diagnostic Imaging was a fast evolving speciality at the time with significant advances in technology and I was at the right place at the right time to get trained in the speciality I enjoyed very much,’’ says Ahluwalia whose father, Dr Balbir Singh Ahluwalia, once served as head of forensic medicine at the Amritsar Medical College.
Twice, he goes to Amritsar to meet his mother and the family. "I am deeply attached to Amritsar and our culture,’’ he says.
Probably, that’s the reason why even his European wife Diana has one of the largest collections of Indian films. "My wife and daughters just love family dramas that Bollywood films are,’’ says Dr Birinder Singh Ahluwalia who is known for his lavish Christmas parties.
READ ALSO: Dr Inder Anand - from Rhodes scholar to America's high-flyer cardiologist
Birinder Sangha, Houston: Very Inspiring! Thank you for sharing his story.
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