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.
Mala Sinha, the Pyasa actress says, she won't accept the Phalke award as she is upset about her name missing from the invitation card
By Subhash K Jha MUMBAI: Legendary actress Mala Sinha, who regaled generations of Hindi cineastes with her powerhouse performance in Guru Dutt’s Pyasa, B R Chopra’s Dhool Ka Phool and Gumrah and Ramanand Sagar’s Geet, is at the moment very angry and upset with the committee that has just conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Award on her. Speaking exclusively to this writer, Mala Sinha says, “They have done grave injustice to me. They have not even mentioned my name on the invitation card! When members of the Phalke committee, including their chairperson, came home to request me to take the award for being what they called a legendary artiste, I was happy to accept it. But when I saw the invitation card for the event, I was shocked. My name was not there with the other winners of award – Asha Bhosle and Pam Chopra (who is to receive the award on behalf of her late husband Yash Chopra). This is insulting. It would be better if they had straightaway slapped me physically instead of insulting me in this way.” Says Mala, “They had informed me that I was to get the award a month ago. Though I don’t go out too much these days, I did agree to come. They had a press conference in a small restaurant on Linking Road to announce the awards. None of their winners (Ashaji and Pam Chopra) came to the press conference. But I went there. They came home with the invitation last week. Only to insult me in this way. Forget my picture, they haven’t even put my name on the invitation card. I told them to pick up their invitation cards and leave. I don’t want their award. This is an insult to me as an artiste. I can’t tell you how upset I am about it. I agree Asha Bhosle and Yash Chopra are great artistes. But am I so small an artiste that my name should be left out? Then don’t give me the award. I don’t want it.” Looking back on her career, Mala says, “Just the other day I was watching Dhool Ka Phool which came out in 1959 and I was quite impressed by how ahead of its times it was …I’ve done some notable films…aur mere saath aisa anyaay! I’ve been around from the 1950s and I did films till the end of the 90s. Do you know I got two offers from Hollywood in the 1960s as the main lead? My father, who looked after my work, refused saying, ‘Our culture doesn’t allow our daughters to work in that atmosphere of intimacy that prevails in Western cinema. So please excuse us.’ That’s the kind of respect I got in Hollywood. And look at how I am treated at home! I think I was not given my due. Kya karoon? Jitna bhagya mein likha utna hi milega na?” Mala Sinha, now 76, lives a life of semi-retirement with her ailing mother and daughter Pratibha who played the lead in the 1980s in some films. The actress, whose beauty and talent wowed audiences in the 1960s, says softly, “My father used to look after my work. After his passing away, I lost interest in my career. But while he was around I only thought of my work. I knew nothing about the business side of cinema or about marketing myself. I was just a simple artiste who wanted to work work and work with all my life. I worked in the best of films and repeatedly with filmmakers like B R Chopra , Vijay Bhatt and Ramanand Sagar ” Says Mala, “Once an artiste, always an artiste. I do miss the arc lights. But one has to make sacrifices. I am happy looking after my mother. My daughter Pratibha (see the second video below for her role in Raja Hindustani) also lives with me. She now does social work. I cut down on my work when she was growing up, as I wanted to give my attention to my role as a mother and then as a daughter to my ailing mother. As for me, I’m open to roles provided they are not routine mothers’ parts. An artiste never dies. My last film was with Govinda and Juhi (Radha Ka Sangam). Daddy passed away. And I became responsible for the entire family. He used to look after the home and my career. Mummy is bed-ridden , so I can’t be too active outside the home. But I’d love to work again.” She singles out B R Chopra’s Gumrah and Dhool Ka Phool and Jahan Ara as her most memorable films. Mala Sinha says, “I won’t accept the Phalke Award. They have been discourteous and insulting to me. Is this any way to treat an artiste?”
