1001 Albums YouMust Hear Before You Die: 92. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band – Safe As Milk (1967)

 

Beefheart, real name Don van Vliet, is known to me as being somewhat Zappa-like (he and Zappa work together quite a lot), but this, his debut album, starts off fairly straightforward, with the hard rock/blues Sure ‘Nuff ‘n’ Yes, I Do, then onto more psychedelia rock with Zig Zag Wanderer and Call on Me. There’s more blues in Plastic Factory and Where There’s Woman. Since the album features a young Ry Cooder it’s perhaps not surprising that there are a lot of blues.

Dropout Boogie is much more like a Zappa track, a chant-like exaggerated vocal over a mix of hard grind and twinkly breaks. Like Zappa, it’s fundamentally a good tune that kind of satirises itself by going over the top – Beefheart has a slightly quavery voice like he’s putting on a silly voice, but I think this is his natural singing voice. As does I’m Glad, which is a kind of slow rock and roll/soul number. Electricity is a fun track featuring a theramin, and here Beefheart’s tight-throat vocals really work with the theme and overall sound of the song, rather than turning it into a farce of itself. There are some pretty good tracks and musicianship on display here, and unlike Zappa it feels like Beefheart isn’t deliberately being silly just for the sake of it, but just sounds a little odd because that’s how he sounds.

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