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.
___________________
Patrick Moore is a freehand drawing artist and freelance music writer.
Maharaja Duleep Singh: `The Black Prince movie is an attempt to do justice to the last Sikh ruler wronged by British colonial empire'
By Gurmukh Singh TORONTO: Punjab-born film actor, director and writer Kavi Raz, who was the first Punjabi to enter Hollywood, is all excited about the release of his epic film The Black Prince about the last Maharaja of Punjab – Duleep Singh. Produced by Hollywood’s Brillstein Entertainment Partners - who were also behind the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave – the film hits the screens worldwide on July 21. Its dubbed versions in Punjabi and Hindi also release the same day. Kavi Raz says The Black Prince is his attempt to portray a wronger character who was put through so much tragedy in his life of 55 years. "Duleep Singh became the maharaja at five. The British took over his empire and imprisoned his mother Maharani Jind Kaur when he was eight. Then he was banished from his kingdom at the age of 11, converted to Christianity at the age of 15 and exiled to Britain at the age of 16,’’ says the Los Angeles-based filmmaker who was born at Dhugga village near Hoshiarpur and moved to the UK with his family when he was a little boy. "My film is an attempt to do justice to a character wronged by the British colonial empire. The colonial empire did every thing to make Maharaja Duleep Singh forget his Sikh identity and his lost kingdom. When he regained his Sikh identity and wanted his kingdom back, they did everything to stop him going back to Lahore and he died a pauper in Paris,’’ says Raz who has appeared in more than 250 films and TV serials. He says the audiences will be impressed by Punjabi singer Satinder Sartaaj in the role of Maharaja Duleep Singh. "Sartaaj looks so much like Duleep Singh. We put him through coaching in Mumbai and LA.’’ Interestingly, Shabana Azmi, who plays the role of Maharani Jind Kaur, is the only character in the film who speaks Punjabi. "We were in London looking for the cast when I met Shabana who was also in London for a play. She liked the script. When I told her that you will be the only actor in the film who will speak Punjabi, she said she doesn’t know Punjabi. But you will be amazed to see her speaking flawless Punjabi in the film.’’ Though the film is releasing globally, Pakistan will have its ``big-bang’’ opening, says Kavi Raz. ``There is a lot of interest in the film in Pakistan because Duleep Singh’s early life revolved around Lahore. So we are planning a very big release there.’’ Excited as he is about the release, Kavi Raz feels this small film still won’t do full justice to Maharaja Duleep Singh. ``So we have also shot a four-part serial which will be released after the film so that the audiences get the whole story of Duleep Singh.’’ This film has spurred his interest in similar Sikh historical characters, he says. "I am doing a film on Mewa Singh who shot dead a spying British Indian police officer in Vancouver about a hundred years ago. I am also planning a film on Shaheed Udham Singh and Gadar heroes,’’ says Kavi Raz who moved to LA in late 1970 to pursue a career in films. "As a student in San Francisco where my family had moved from Engalnd, I used to do small drama roles. Then I decided to move to the mecca of entertainment LA to pursue career in Hollywood,’’ Kavi Raz says. A sharpen his skills, he says he joined the world’s premier Lee Strasber Theatre and Film Institute in West Hollywood. "I was first south Asian to join it.’’ Even as he was a student there, Kavi raz set up his own theatre company called Wandering Players. ``I got into doing lots of theatre and TV.’’ He says he had to struggle a lot to get break into Hollywood films. "My biggest difficult was that I was an Indian trying to enter their world. Many times, even the Indian roles I had applied for went to white actors.’’ Ravi Raz vividly recalls how he once lost the role of a Pakistani doctor in a Hollywood movie to a light skinned black actor. "I was waiting in the studios of 20th Century Fox, thinking that I will bag this role, but they chose the light-skinned black guy for that role. It was so difficult in the early days for me.’’ But he got his big break finally when he got a role in the then celebrated TV serial St. Elsewhere. "It was my big break. The great actor Denzil Washington also got his first break on it. Then I started getting roles in more Hollywood films and TV serials.’’ Kavi Raz has not looked back since.(This article appeared in The Times of India on July 10)
