Walt Whitman wrote about the spirit that Trout Mask inherited some seventy years before it was made. "A perfect writer would make words sing, dance, kiss, do the male and female act, bear children, weep, bleed, rage, stab, steal, fire cannon, steer ships, sack cities, charge with cavalry or infantry, or do any thing, that man or woman or the natural powers can do," Whitman wrote in An American Primer. Trout Mask dances and weeps and bleeds and sacks cities by integrating free form verse, the urban blues of Howlin' Wolf, the gospel blues of Blind Willie Johnson, and the free jazz of Ornette Coleman. The record was so dissonantly original that it annoyed more people than it attracted. People even heard it in records that weren't Trout Mask.
A friend of mine once bought one of John Coltrane's more wildly improvisational records (John Coltrane in Seattle) only to call me later to complain, "This isn't Coltrane. It's Beefheart!" But to understand the shock and disbelief surrounding the release of this 1969 landmark, a wildly original (and unsurpassed) experimental leap in popular music, one that defied all the reasons why we listen to popular music, you have to first consider the music already on the airwaves, or perhaps about to arrive there.
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Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter, artist and poet known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work..
Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter, artist and poet known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work..
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