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 Gurmukh Singh
TORONTO: The Dig (on Netflix) is an archeological period film. But it's not only for those interested in history and archaeology. It's also for the general public to appreciate our collective past and preserve it.
Directed by young Australian filmmaker Simon Stone, The Dig – with Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes in lead roles – retraces the 1939 unearthing of the British treasure trove called "Sottun Hoo find" from the sixth/seventh century Anglo-Saxon ship grave from a widow's property in Suffolk countryside in Britain. It's adapted from the same name 2007 novel by John Preston.
Termed "one of the most important archeological discoveries of all time," the excavation yielded gold and garnet artifacts – a helmet, shoulder clasps, and a golden belt buckle – which are now preserved at the British Museum.
Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) is a young rich widow with a little boy Robert (played by Archie Barnes) who senses that there is something buried deep inside her property mounds in Suffolk countryside. Why? Because she developed an avid interest in archeology in her teenage years by keenly following the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb by British Egyptologist Harold Carter in 1922. In fact, she was accepted for a university course in archeology, but her father stopped her from pursuing it. Though the mounds on her property have been picked over by people for centuries, her keen archeological sense drives her to find any secrets beneath them. It is 1939, and looming the Second Word War adds to her urgency to complete the excavation. So Edith Pretty hires amateur excavator Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) after a bit of haggling. The brilliant cinematography by Mike Eley opens the film with long shots of Ralph’s character getting off the boat and cycling his way to Edith’s house to discuss the excavation.The music is in keeping with the overall theme. The grey skies and RAF sorties hinting at a looming war provide subtle melancholy vibes and urgency to the plot. Brilliant.
But despite the urgency, director Simon Stone deftly never revs up the pace except when the throngs of people descend on the site after the discovery of the grave. The director also doesn’t allow the subplots to detract from the main story except for sequeezing in the budding romance between Peggy (Lily James) and Edith's cousin Rory (Johnny Flynn) during the digging.
Ralph Fiennes delivers a stand-out performance – slow, brooding, grubby, wise and spot-on with his archeological instincts (that his discovery belongs to 6th/7th century Anglo-Saxons, not the Vikings as claimed by `expert’ Charles Phillips). By the way, Ken Stott portrays Charles Phillips superbly.
As for Carey Mulligan, is she the right fit for the role of Edith Pretty? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably the director has allowed her past (caring for her ailing dad, late marriage and early widowhood) to hang a little too heavy on her character.
Their coming together makes Edith and Basil kindred souls. They have a shared love of archeology and they discuss it fondly. If there is any romantic embers burning in them, they never bubble up.
In the end, Edith Pretty's appreciation of the archeological and historic importance of the excavation from her property guides her to donate it to the place where they should rightly belong – the British Museum.A little bit more about the existential dilemma – that Basil and Edith discussed earlier – could have been an appropriate ending to the film. After all, The Dig is about graves, death, past and mortality.
