Friday, May 07, 2010

Captain Beefheart: Safe as milk 1967




Born Don Vliet, Captain Beefheart was one of modern music's true innovators.
His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, which was active between 1965 and 1982, Van Vliet also occasionally played the harmonica, saxophone, bass clarinet, shehnai and keyboards. Often impossible to categorize,
Van Vliet's music blended rock, blues and psychedelia with free jazz, avant-garde and contemporary experimental composition


During his teen years in Lancaster, California, Van Vliet acquired an eclectic musical taste and formed "a mutually useful but volatile" friendship with Frank Zappa, with whom he sporadically competed and collaborated. He began performing with his Captain Beefheart persona in 1964 and joined the original Magic Band in 1965. The group drew attention and acclaim with their first album in 1967 on Buddah Records, the blues-rock-rooted Safe as Milk.



Zappa as a producer granted Beefheart the unrestrained artistic freedom to compose 1969's Trout Mask Replica, ranked fifty-eighth in Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Frustrated with a lack of commercial success after seven studio albums, and fed up with Van Vliet's abuse, paranoia and authoritarianism, The Magic Band disbanded in 1974.


Van Vliet is known for his enigmatic personality and relationship with the public

Van Vliet has also published works of poetry, and his critically respected paintings and drawings, variously described as abstract, neo-expressionist, modernist, figurative and primitivist, demand high prices and have been exhibited in several countries.

Safe as Milk is the debut album by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, originally released in 1967. It is a heavily blues-influenced work, but also hints at many of the features—such as surreal lyrics and odd time signatures—that would later become trademarks of Beefheart's music.

The album is also notable for the involvement of a 20-year-old Ry Cooder, who plays guitar and wrote some of the arrangements  Beefheart's first proper studio album is a much more accessible, pop-inflected brand of blues-rock than the efforts that followed in the late '60s which isn't to say that it's exactly normal and straightforward. Featuring Ry Cooder on guitar, this is blues-rock gone slightly askew, with jagged, fractured rhythms, soulful, twisting vocals from Van Vliet, and more doo wop, soul, straight blues, and folk-rock influences than he would employ on his more avant-garde outings. "Zig Zag Wanderer," "Call on Me," and "Yellow Brick Road" are some of his most enduring and riff-driven songs, although there's plenty of weirdness on tracks like "Electricity" and "Abba Zaba."

Side one

1. Sure 'Nuff 'n Yes I Do" (Don Van Vliet, Herb Bermann) – 2:15
2. Zig Zag Wanderer" (Van Vliet, Bermann) – 2:40
3. Call On Me" (Van Vliet)[10] – 2:37
4. Dropout Boogie" (Van Vliet, Bermann) – 2:32
5. I'm Glad" (Van Vliet) – 3:31
6. Electricity" (Van Vliet, Bermann) – 3:07 ( Τhis Track is Great )

Side two

7. Yellow Brick Road" (Van Vliet, Bermann) – 2:28
8. Abba Zaba" (Van Vliet) – 2:44
9. Plastic Factory" (Van Vliet, Bermann, Jerry Handley) – 3:08
10. Where There's Woman" (Van Vliet, Bermann) – 2:09
11. Grown So Ugly" (Robert Pete Williams) – 2:27
12. Autumn's Child" (Van Vliet, Bermann) – 4:02





BONUS TRAXS : AND DRUGS

13. Safe as Milk
14. On Tomorrow
15. Big black Body Shoes
16. Flower Pot
17. Dirty Blue Gene
18. Trust us
19. Korn Ring Finger





Musicians

Don Van Vliet – vocals, harmonica, bass marimba, arrangements

The Magic Band

Alex St. Clair Snouffer – guitar, bass, background vocals
Jerry Handley – bass, background vocals
John French – drums, background vocals

Additional musicians

Ry Cooder – guitar, slide guitar, bass, arrangements of "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do" and "Grown So Ugly"
Samuel Hoffman - theremin on "Electricity" and "Autumn's Child"
Milt Holland – log drum, tambourine
Taj Mahal – tambourine


Size : 173 MB
Bitrate : 320
MP3 Take it HERE
 

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