So where did this begin?
Don Vliet was born on January 15th 1941 in Glendale, California but in his early teens the family moved out to the small town of Lancaster way out in the Mojave Desert.
As a boy he had always been precocious, heavily immersed in art and sculpture to the point when, at the age of thirteen, he was offered a scholarship, all expenses paid, to a European college. Don’s father had a low opinion of art and artists and turned it down. This didn’t deter Don from being involved in art projects in his usual obsessive manner. Once, whilst working on a sculpture, he refused to come out of his room and demanded that food and drink be passed in to him. Don had a strange relationship with his parents, calling them by their first names and ordering his mother about as if she were his maid.
Don developed a great liking for blues music which was unusual for a white kid, particularly in a small desert town like Lancaster. He listened avidly to R&B radio stations and DJ Wolfman Jack’s radio station which pumped out the blues greats like Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker. Don’s own deep voice and great vocal range were perfect for a similar blues delivery.
At school he met up with Frank Zappa, who also had an interest in blues, R&B and doo-wop. They began collaborating.
Frank was similarly eccentric, experimental, rebellious and go-getting. Nothing was impossible. Imagination was the only limitation. The two of them became involved, listening to R&B and doo-wop, playing instruments and singing.
In 1963 Don left the restrictions of small-town Lancaster to team up with Frank in Cucamonga where Frank had set up a simple studio. The two of them began working on a number of ambitious projects. There was a doo-wop opera entitled ‘I Was A Teenage Maltshop’ and a film called ‘Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt People’ (Grunt People being their name for straight people). Some fragments of these pieces still exist and have been released on a number of albums.
Don adopted the persona of Captain Beefheart. He explained that the name came from one of his uncles who used to lewdly expose himself to Don’s girlfriend, boastfully gripping the end of his penis and saying ‘look at that! It’s a beef heart’.
The early collaboration with Frank came to an untimely end when the studio was raided by police and Frank was arrested for producing pornographic material. He had been offered $100 to make a sex tape – a sum he couldn’t refuse. So, Frank made a fake sex tape with one of the go-go dancers in his band. He handed over the tape, complete with grunts, squeals and squeaking bed springs and was immediately arrested. It was a sting. He had to plead guilty, went to jail for a week and the police used this as an excuse to ransack his studio. That signalled the end of their ambitious projects and Don went back to Lancaster.