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.
TORONTO: Hello, theatre lovers! The modern-day musical is back with `A Moveable Feast: Paris in the ‘20s.'
This sold-out performance is currently on at the Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto.
For those of you who like to see the unexpected, this is a marvel in the genre of musicals, seamlessly fusing theatre, music, art, literature and narrative documentary on stage. It is a complete theatrical experience never seen before as you relive the crazy years inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s namesake book about Paris. A Moveable Feast is a memoir by American author Ernest Hemingway about his years as a struggling young expatriate journalist and writer in Paris in the 1920s.
The experience begins with narration from Hemingway’s novel: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."
The musical then progresses with images, sounds and snippets, and cameos of life in the 20s — its art, culture and music of the artists of the Lost Generation. The term was coined by Gertrude Stein and popularized by Ernest Hemingway for a group of artists (like Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne) and poets and writers (including T.S Eliot, Scott F. Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound) who left the United States to take part in the free-wheeling popular culture movement in Paris and London in the1920s.
The presentation is interspersed with old and new French and English songs and the music is given a life of its own with the sounds of the 20s swing and jazz. The songs are cleverly curated as their lyrics are full of meaning and relevant to push the narration and story forward. A unique and brilliant rendition of My Generation (Pete Townsend –The Who) in English and French brought home the point of the rebellion going on and the whole Lost Generation theme. Other songs performed are ‘Changes’ (David Bowie), ‘Break on Through’ (The Doors), Past time Paradise (Stevie Wonder), Stayin’ Alive (Bee Gees) and many more familiar tunes.
All the songs were done to jazz, swing and Charleston music, reflecting what society did not expect from women – dancing to jazz music, smoking, putting on make-up and hanging out at music clubs looking for love.
The musical is also sprinkled with romantic French love songs popular at the time, about Paris, love lost and found, adding the Parisian touch and invoking memories of a time long gone by in the streets and cafes of Paris. The singers and musicians are par excellence and evoke great emotion through their voices and the harmony they create on stage. The live band is of a calibre far exceeding audience expectations.
The sets are minimalist but conjure up the art culture of the time through the paintings of Matisse, Cezanne and Picasso in the backdrop of dimly lit smoky music cafes where artists, painters and poets hung out to have clever conversations and brainstorm together. It clearly shows the audience that Paris moves through life with you and is not bound by conventional rules of time and space and these memories stay with you shaping and influencing you making them indeed a memorable feast.
A must see for those who want to experience the excitement and passion of Les Années Folles (The Crazy Years) of the 20s. This musical is without doubt a masterpiece for arts and theatre fans who want to capture the lost times in a post-war decade dominated by decadence, gay abandon, and joie de vivre.
The show goes on till September 23.
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