More Beefheart

Bye Bye Beefheart

Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart died yesterday aged 69. Unbeknownst to some, the cult musician was also a practising artist.  Van Vliet increasingly turned his attention to painting in the 1980s following the advice of a New York dealer who claimed that he would never be taken seriously as an artist unless he gave up songwriting.  Van Vliet went on to enjoy a moderate degree of success as a neo-expressionist painter, but Leg of Lamb reckons his ultimate legacy is his baffling, mysterious music.

(Watch the second half of Anton Corbijn’s documentary about Captain Beefheart here).