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 BOLLYWOOD: Men in uniform have always fascinated our scriptwriters. Though we don’t see Akshay Kumar in uniform through most of Holiday, he never ceases to remind us that soldier is never off duty. Here’s saluting the men in uniform: 1. Amitabh Bachchan In Major Saab: As the stern no-nonsense Major Jasbir Singh Rana the Big B looked every bit as formidable in uniform as General V K Singh. The trademark beard that he refused to shave off did cause a bit of a controversy. But once the performance was out all the audience saw was a man with the steely determination to convert lazy soldiers like Ajay Devgn’s character, into men with a mission. 2. Madhavan in Rang De Basanti: Remember the sequence where Soha Ali Khan hears of her beloved air force officer’s death on television? It shattered all of us. Men so gallant don’t deserve to die.Madhavan cut a dashing figure . When his screen mom Waheeda Rehman wept to the sound of Lukka chuppi we wept for all the mothers who lose their sons in battle. 3. Akshaye Khanna in Border: Though other actors from Suniel Shetty and Sunny Deol to Puneet Issar and Kulbhushan Kharbanda played soldiers in this epic war film it was Akshaye in his post-debut film who wrenched hearts as the young inexperienced jawaan who leaves his blind mother Raakhee and sweetheart Pooja Bhatt back in the village in Punjab to fight and die in a battle he doesn’t understand. 4. Rajesh Khanna in Aradhana: Arguably the most memorable soldier ever in a Hindi film. Rajesh Khanna striding out of that fighter plane in his introductory scene instantly become the first superstar of Hindi cinema. 5. Hrithik Roshan In Lakshya: from a vagabond and a wastrel to a responsible solidier on duty fighting for his country Hrithik Roshan made the transition look like a vivid petition for youngistan to join the army. He carried off the uniform as though he was born for it. 6. Shahrukh Khan In Veera-Zara: As squadron leader Veer Pratap Singh who falls for a Pakistani girl ,Shah Rukh was every inch the consummate Indian soldier . Sadly there were no battle scenes in this film. It would have been a treat for SRK fans to see him amidst booming guns and exploding bombs. Instead director Yash Chopra made the soldier hero a prisoner of war.What a waste of charisma! 7. Saif Ali Khan in LOC Kargil: There were 12 leading heroes in uniform in J.P Dutta’s epic saga. But it was Saif who broke hearts. The sequence in which his body is brought to Kareena Kapoor was so moving Shabana Azmi she couldn’t stop crying. Saif fan Parineeti Chopra says she can’t bear to watch Saif’s character come home in a coffin. 8. Manoj Bajpai in 1971: One of our most underrated war films directed by Amrit Sagar about prisoners of war in the Indo-Pak conflict in 1971 Bajpai cut a very convincing figure in uniform .So did Deepak Dobriyal, Ravi Kissan and Manav Kaul. 9. Dharmendra in Haqeeqat: No one could carry off the army uniform with as much casual cool as Garam Dharam.As Captain Bahadur Singh during the Indo-China war Dharmendra wowed audiences and yes, there was a sizeable increase in the number of youngsters recruited into the army after the release of this film.Chetan Anand made a moist-eyed impact with the soldierly anthem Hoke mayoos tujhe usne bulaya hoga. 10. Vinod Khanna in Achanak: A very different soldier, and one who is shown to fight for his country and yet unable to fight off his anger when he catches his wife having an extra-marital affair. In a fit of rage he kills her and flees.Soldiers never had it so difficult on the battle front.
