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.
A close friend of renowned Punjabi singer couple K. Deep and Jagmohan Kaur, Chagger – who came to Canada from Ludhiana in 1975 – says he performs marriages as part of his social duties
The Canadian Bazaar
MISSISSAUGA: As minister of religion, Prithpal Singh Chagger of Mississauga has perhaps solemnized more marriages than anybody else in the 905 region.
“I have been solemnizing marriages since 1980 and my tally is almost touching the 2,000-mark,” laughs the 84-year-old Chagger, sitting in his cozy little office at his residence in Mississauga.
Plucking a register from a pile of documents and quickly flipping through its pages, he says, “Here is the first-ever marriage that I solemnized on November 1, 1981. I have filled five to six such registers documenting all the couples who tied the knot under my supervision.”
Also addressed as marriage registrar or the reverend, Chagger is one of the oldest marriage performers in the 905 area.
Why did this known community leader, who trained as an engineer but later become a successful financial professional, choose this unusual work of supervising marriages?
Explains Chagger, “I have been a community activist since I landed in Canada in 1975 and solemnizing marriages is part of my commitment to society. In the 1970s and 80s, I was in charge of five Punjabi schools in the County of Waterloo. At that time I also served as president of Sri Guru Singh Sabha in Cambridge as well as general secretary of the Golden Triangle Sikh Association in Kitchener.”
Over the decades, Chagger has solemnized all kinds of marriages – interfaith, interracial, love marriages and arranged marriages.
What is the most memorable marriage that he ever solemnized?
“I performed a very unusual marriage in July 1987. I was in Niagara attending the Knights of the Round Table Conference of Prudential of England when I got a call from Toronto from someone telling me that a boy was being deported to India. They wanted me to help stop his deportation by finding a suitable girl ready to marry him.”
Chagger says he drove from Niagara to Toronto to help that boy. “I spoke to a friend’s daughter and told her that this boy is being deported to India. He was doing law and I told the girl that he will be the most suitable boy for her. The girl agreed and I solemnized their marriage the very next day. The boy’s deportation was stopped. It turned out to be a great marriage as the couple have lived happily ever since in the GTA.”
And the most interesting marriage he solemnized?
“It involved a Sikh couple. The boy came dressed as a warrior with a sword and a dhal shield. It was some fun,” he says.
Chagger charges $250 for each marriage. “I solemnize marriages in gurdwaras, temples, churches, mosques, convention halls, or even at my place. I have married some couples at my place and also held marriage parties,” he says.
Did he get any certification to become a minister of religion?
“Yes, you need certification from the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. They vet you before giving this role.”
Chagger says his job involves filling up the form in the presence of the couple, seeing them garland each other and then getting their signatures.
What if something goes wrong during the marriage?
“Yeah, it happens. Sometimes parents want the marriage to be stopped at the last minute. But I tell them that it cannot be stopped.”
Post-marriage, he says he advises couples to get their priorities right. “The first thing I tell them is to become financially secure.”
A friend of the famous Punjabi singer K. Deep and his wife Jagmohan Kaur, Chagger says he is an accidental Canadian.
He says he and K. Deep ran a chit fund company – called Lalkar Financiers And Chit Fund Company – in Ludhiana and collected lots of money from people in the early 1970s.
“K. Deep wanted to use that money to make a film called Kudarat De Sab Bande. But I told him to be careful because it was people’s money. So he decided to get rid of me.”
How?
“K. Deep suggested that I should emigrate to Canada and he and his wife Jagmohan Kaur would follow me. I applied for immigration and got it in 1975. However, before leaving for Canada, I decided to end my partnership in the company. K. Deep gave me a plot of land in lieu of my share in the company. When I went back to India in 1980, Deep’s company had gone bankrupt but the value of my had plot tripled,” he laughs.
Chagger says April 11 in 1975 was the most defining day of his life when he landed in Canada.
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