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.
Raghunandan Yandamuri, who comes from Andhra Pradesh, killed his neighbour 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna and her 10-month-old grand-daughter Saanvi Venna in King of Prussia in Montgomery County of Pennsylvania in 2012
Agencies NEW YORK: Indian American techie Raghunandan Yandamuri, who has been sentenced to death for killing two people, will be executed by lethal injection on Feb 23, 2018. If the sentence is carried out, he will become the first Indian American to be executed. Raghunandan Yandamuri, 32, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, was sentenced to death in Oct 14, 2014, for killing his neighbours 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna and her 10-month-old grand-daughter Saanvi Venna in King of Prussia in Montgomery County of Pennsylvania in 2012. Yandamuri, who came to the US on H-IB visa in 2010, kidnapped the baby for ransom to pay his $35,000 gambling debt. Yandamuri and his wife Komali were friends with the victims who lived in the same apartment building in King of Prussia. Komali, of Gantur who was pregnant at the time, had just come to the US after marrying Yandamuri. During the trial, Yandamuri narrated how he entered the Vennas’ apartment on the morning of Oct. 24, 2012, while baby Saanvi’s parents - Venkata Konda Siva Venna and Latha Chenchu Punuru Venna - were away at work. He stabbed 61-year-old Satyavathi and kidnapped the 10-month baby with the intention of getting $50,000 in ransom from her parents. He also stole some jewelry and left a ransom note. The ransom note read, ``Shiva your daughter has been kidnapped. If you report it to cops your daughter will be cut into pieces and found dead.†The note added that the baby would be released only after her mother Latha paid Yandamuri a ransom of $50,000 at a nearby restaurant that same evening. After kidnapping the baby, he gagged her mouth with a rag piece and smuggled her out in a suitcase. The suitcase was left in a basement gym in the apartment complex where the baby died because of suffocation. When police and the local community launched search for the missing baby, Yandamuri too joined them and even distributed flyers about the missing baby. Police got clues about the murder from the ransom note which addressed the baby's parents by their nicknames. Police now knew that only close friends and acquaintances could know their nicknames. Yandamuri and his wife were among those who knew the victims. [caption id="attachment_74771" align="alignnone" width="800"]
Venna family which became victim of Raghunandan Yandamuri. The grandmother holding her grand-daughter were both killed by Yandamuri in October 2012 for ransom. Photo courtesy WFMZ TV.[/caption]
Four days after the crime, police found Yandamuri at a gambling casino in the nearby Valley Forge Casino Resort.
Yandamuri denied his involvement in the crime, saying that he was at home having lunch with his wife at the time of the crime.
His wife, who had just come to the US after marrying Yandamuri after six years of courtship, was also questioned by another police officer at her home. She said that her husband was not home at that time. She told cops that she had asked for his permission to have lunch as he was away at that time.
Yandamuri admitted to his crime after a few hours of questioning and told the cops where the body of the missing baby was.
In his initial confession, he told the cops that he was in debt of over US $50,000 because of gambling at various casinos in San Jose in northern California. He said he had also made cash transactions of US $26,268 using his nine credit cards just within one year.
His court-appointed attorney said at the time, ``The statement filed before US Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of California on March 6, 2012, shows that he was a big-time gambler and had suffered huge losses of over $50,0000. In order to overcome these mounting debts, he tried to kidnap Saanvi for a ransom.’’
In his initial confession, Yandamuri also told the investigators that he stabbed the grandmother when she tried to protect the baby. He then stuffed cloth in the baby’s mouth and took her out in a suitcase. He left the suitcase in a bathroom of the apartment complex where the baby died due of suffocation.
But he later recanted his confession, saying that police got it out of him under force and said that two other men had committed the crime.
The killer had a tragic upbringing because he lost his policeman father to Maoist violence in Andhra when he was a little boy.
Yandamuri’s mother, Padmavathi Yandamuri, narrated this during his sentencing. The mother said son had a traumatic childhood because his father Surendranath Yandamuri, a policeman, was killed by Maoists in 1997. She said her son never got over his father’s death and twice tried to commit suicide - once by drinking kerosene at the age of 11.
A clinical psychologist also confirmed during the trial that Yandamuri was the victim of bi-polar depression and psychotic thoughts.
As for the victim family, the 10-month baby victim was their first child. The baby’s grandmother had come from India to see her and was supposed to return in January 2013. But she never returned to India.
However, Yandamuri may be spared the lethal injection for the time being as the Pennsylvania Governor put a moratorium on the death sentence in 2015.
It is a tragic story of Raghunandan Yandamuri and the victim family.
