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Peter's music has been heard on hundreds of radio stations and has been on SiriusXM rotation for over a decade. As a multi-award winning artist, Peter's music has also topped Billboard's Classical and Crossover charts.
For Captain Beefheart, a maverick-artist-musician, who was not just a complicated man but highly demanding and by most accounts very difficult to deal with. It was appropriate that Beefheart's Magic Band was to prominently feature a bassist as accomplished, bold and adventurous as Mark Boston, a.k.a Rockette Morton.
Born on July 14, 1949, Mark began life in the small town of Salem, Illinois before his family moved out to Lancaster, California when he was 13. With a bassist and steel player for a father, Mark gained a great appreciation for country and bluegrass along with the R&B and rock’n’roll that was on the rise. Within a year of the Boston clan moving out to Lancaster, Mark befriended a young guitarist by the name of Bill Harkleroad.
At a time when the bass guitar was seen as the dummy’s instrument, Mark left quite an impression on Bill with his talent and equipment, leading to the two joining forces to form BC And The Cavemen. With Mark’s mother sewing some outfits for them, the band developed a decent reputation, and the two would also play in a band with Jeff Cotton and John French known as Blues In A Bottle. And then a local hero came calling. Or perhaps screaming and howling!
In that same Lancaster scene, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band were making a big splash as a top flight blues rock outfit, with 'Safe As Milk' having made a strong impression and 'Strictly Personal' being a strong record as well. But even with a sound that was speaking to people, one that perhaps would have been a more pragmatic one as far as a career goes, Don Van Vliet just wasn’t meant for conventional norms.
The Captain had all these ideas, ideas far too out for many, including early members. He needed new musicians, younger and more impressionable ones that wouldn’t object to his ideas. Already having John and Jeff in the band, now 'Drumbo' and Antennae Jimmy Semens, he then recruited Bill, dubbed Zoot Horn Rollo. And on bass, he found Mark Boston, who took the name Rockette Morton due to his love of outer space. And the classic Magic Band was born.
Trout Mask Replica (TMR) wasn’t an easy album to make. Yet even with all the bizarre ideas and the difficulty in preparing those ideas into music, Mark was a total champ through it all. The Beefheart sound is one of great dichotomy, and Mark can capture all of it. He’s so tight and precise, and yet there’s this raw grit and dirt. He’s highly intelligent and sophisticated in his playing, and yet there remains this childlike sense of wonder and curiosity.
He takes after all the great traditional American music, yet out into a whole other realm of time and space. The bass traditionally serves the role of grounding the harmony while locking in with the drums to provide a foundation, yet Mark’s playing often serves as another melody line in the music. In a lot of ways, he’s like a third guitarist that just happens to be playing bass.
The TMR on its own is a legacy few can compete with, and yet Mark contributed to more classic records like "Lick My Decals Off, Baby", "The Spotlight Kid", and "Clear Spot". There on Decals, you get the equivalent of Godfather II. With Mother Art Tripp on marimba and drums rather Jeff on guitar, you get an album that captures a great deal of TMR's brilliance while being brilliant in its own unique way.
Then you get to 'The Spotlight Kid', with bass godliness on cuts like “When It Blows Its Stack”, resulting in a bass solo that often opened shows, yet Mark proves himself just as talented on traditional in-the-pocket styles as demonstrated on cuts like “I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby”. And that thing about bassists being failed guitarists? In the 'Clear Spot', with Mark taking guitar and the rhythm section now being a mini Mothers reunion of Art and Roy Estrada, yet nobody missed a beat. Throughout the record, Bill and Mark’s kinship really shines, their weaving right there with what Bill and Jeff had done, or what was done with Alex St Clair early on.
Of course, dealing with Don was quite a task of its own, so it’s inevitable that Mark and the others would all end up departing by 1974. He and Bill soon formed a group of their own called Mallard. For two albums, the first with Art and having some writing help from John French 'Drumbo', Mallard showed itself a pretty decent blues rock outfit. And giving that it was Mark who finally had a chance to create something that was truly his own rather than helping some achieve their vision, it’s understandably the work that he takes pride in. And over time, he’d end up making a solo record and create some cool artwork of his own, as well as performing with 'Drumbo' in the reformed Magic Band, allowing the music to live and breathe on stage again.
If you’re a Beefheart fan, how can you not love Rockette Morton? Not only a uniquely talented bass player but such a great stage presence full of joy, along with a lovably quirky personality and such a sweet guy. Easily one of my favorites from Magic Band members, you can’t help but smile when thinking about Mark. He’s been through some rough weather, including his health scares, and yet he’s still the same Mark we’ve known and loved all the years.
Happy birthday Mark! Thank you for all you have given us and look forward to more.
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Patrick Moore is a freehand drawing artist and freelance music writer.
News Grille
XXVIII. I . XXI
Biden-Modi Openings
By Rajiv Sharma
The 'Howdy Modi' event in October 2019, followed by 'Namaste Trump' in February 2020 gave an impression even to the seasoned diplomats that New Delhi might be putting ‘all eggs in one basket'. And a Plan B would have to be spelt out by India in the event of a Democrat winning the elections in the US.
The day Joe Biden took oath as US President, the 'sensex' (India's stock market index) soared to breach 50000 point barrier for the first time in its entire history. With this, India conveyed to the world - loud and clear that it is prepared to deal with the US under President Biden.
President Biden is by no means charismatic like Bill Clinton nor are his oratory skills captivating like those of Barack Obama. But his rise to the most powerful post in the world has come as a fresh breeze to India. His unassuming demeanour in sharp contrast to that of the loquacious President Trump, his commitment to democratic ideals and his promise to heal a badly torn America has endeared him to many.
Notably, the foreign policy watchers would recall Joe Biden’s role in co-sponsoring “Naval Vessels Transfer Act, 2005”, that allowed India to acquire the first US built warship. Later, he played a crucial role as a Chairman of ‘Senate Foreign Relations Committee’ in 2008 to clinch the famous Nuclear Deal between India and the US, albeit under a Republican President.
The perception created by his past engagements with India as senator as well as Vice President of America was strengthened, when the Press Secretary Jennifer Rene Psaki affirmed, “President Biden, of course, has visited India many times, (he) respects and values the long, bipartisan, successful relationship between leaders in India and the United States and looks forward to continuation of that”. The broad contours of some of the policies of the Biden Administration policies pronounced later augur well for a strong and a mutually rewarding Indo-US alliance.
There is little doubt that the United States now considers India as its preferred strategic partner. In a recently declassified policy document “Indo-Pacific Framework” developed in 2017-18 by the National Security Council of the US, the growing assertiveness and threat of China, which it described as a ‘Revisionist Power”, was acknowledged with concern. The document stated that a partnership with like-minded countries in the region would act as a force multiplier to achieve peace, deterrence and interoperable war fighting capabilities to counter China. In the same context, the document recognised India as a capable and reliable ‘preferred partner’ and a ‘net security provider’ in the region and accepted India’s crucial role in meeting the geo-strategic goals of the US.
The Indo-Pacific framework of 2018 needs to be seen in conjunction with a major global policy shift announced by President Biden. Dumping the Trump’s “America first” policy, which led to a significant shrinking of its role as a world leader, President Biden has vowed to restore America’s place back at ‘the head of the table’ and build a new world order. Both the countries are aware that countering China’s threat and ensuring a free and open Indo-pacific is the first and foremost step to achieve this objective.
Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC feels that Indo-US strategic relations in last 30 years have been largely shaped by the rise of China. “The US is convinced that only India is capable of countering China in the region but needs Geo-political partners, Economic allies, technological associates and partners in global governance institutions to do so”, she further states. Undoubtedly, the scope of developing mutual co-operation and alliances between the two great democracies is unlimited.
Apart from this, the inclination shown by President Biden to engage with Iran and re-negotiate the nuclear deal should please New Delhi. India has been badly hit by the international sanctions imposed on Iran, which could change soon. Further, his recent telephone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin to explore the possibilities of extending ‘New Start Nuclear Arms Treaty’, that is expires on February 5, this year, should bring some smiles here. A workable relationship between these two countries is always in India’s interests.
With President Biden at helm in the US, India can look forward to dealing with a President, who is traditionalist, values alliances and partnerships and engages through institutionalized framework rather than through unpredictable personal diplomacy subservient to whims and fancies of someone like a maverick Donald Trump.
However, a word of caution; India cannot be oblivious of the fact that the Democrats are determined to use America’s foreign policy as an instrument to bring about and promote what they call “the values”, the world over. Many Democrats are critical of India's legislations like Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir.
It is to be seen to what extent a prudent and sagacious US President will allow his realistic geo-strategic goals to be altered at the altar of idealistic ethos in an ever-changing world.
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