From the sixties to the early eighties developed Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) a totally private and indefinable style full of elements from avant-garde, blues, free jazz and rock. He experienced some decline but with its raw and quirky sound was he affected many young musicians, Robyn Hitchcock to Tom Waits. Beef Hearts early work has still been fairly straightforward and pure blues but his
… music (assisted by his Magic Band) per album stranger and more complex, resulting in the masterpiece Trout Mask Replica (1969). Having Ice Cream For Crow (1982), the ever-inscrutable Van Vliet decided to retire from the music to fully concentrate on his painting.more