Three Personalities of a Great Known for Wrong Reasons Musician or A Story Of John Mayer

When I ask people what they think of John Mayer I recognize two constantly repeating answers. The first is that he’s a great musician but to much of a pop singer and the second is that he’s great. It it’s different and the answer’s background often has to do with musical background or knowledge in music. What he really is and what we think of him is of course dependent on personal experience, but if we look behind and try to educate the unknowledgeable and not caring or if we try to explain to well educated what John Mayer is.

Mayer was originally schooled as a classical guitarist but always had a lot of love for the genre of blues. After a short time spend on Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mayer moved to Atlanta where he gained a lot roots and experience that started his early music career. He was a well known act in the nightclubs circuit of Atlanta and it was around this time that Mayer got signed by Aware Records and released his first full length album ‘Room For Squares’ with hits like ‘Neon’ and the grammy winning ‘Your Body Is A Wonderland’. It was first after his ‘Heavier Things’ in 2003 that Mayer considered his fame that big that he dared to change his concept which lead to the forming of ‘The John Mayer Trio’ in 2005.

About his past and background Mayer says following in his Live Concert/Documentary ‘Where The Light Is: Live in Los Angeles’ from 2008: ‘I come from playing guitar in alone in a room, that’s my story... I must have played alone in a room for eight years’. That’s the schooling that makes us understand the basic fundamentals of John Mayer. After his debut with the Trio where Mayer started to convey his musical roots into his music that he was making. When Mayer talks about the start of the Trio he says that it was an antidote that helped him get rid of the cornered feeling he felt that had gotten to with his pop melodies.

Shortly after the debut of ‘The Trio’, Mayer got back with his band and created ‘Continuum’ that was released in 2006. Keeping his pop sensibility, he brought on many of the influences from ‘The Trio’ and mixed it together to a mellow, blues, melodic critical success. During this time Mayer has shown us many sides of himself, an acoustic, a blues and a pop man hidden in the shy and mysterious personality of John Mayer. When Mayer talks about how he wants his career he simply says that he enjoys when you get something in your grasp, he says: ‘Once you caught it, you throw it back into the water and that’s really what I want to do my whole career’.

Mayer has pulled off everything from his own pop melodic love songs to Hendrix’s ‘Bold As Love’ and ‘Who Did You Think I Was’ including his last year acoustic cover of Tom Petty’s, ‘Free Falling’. Through all this Mayer has showed a calmer side and with his biggest hit ‘Waiting On The World To Change’, people of all musical circles always has something to say about Mayer and artists in all genres have worked with Mayer, including Hip-Hop Artist Kanye West to the blues legends Buddy Guy and B.B King.

Mayers blues influences and great interest to the world as far as politics goes is a growing subject matter for Mayer. With humor his personality has made the reputation of Mayer to be a perfectionist and sometimes a arrogant man, still inside the head of this man lies different music styles that only can be compared to the personalities of folk singer/songwriter or legend Bob Dylan. With a touch of humor Mayer claims that no one have seen all of him. Mayer likes to play with music and he is an explorer of importance as being one of few musicians bringing the heavier influences of Blues and Rock into the pop music today and as a better guitarist than singer he has really showed the basic fundamentals of being from the roots of great music pays off, he is a symbol to the instrumental, basics of learning and that’s why I choose to totally love the music of Mayer, together with his original sound, influences and depth.

The Records of John Mayer; 'Inside Wants Out' (1999), 'Room For Squares' (2001), 'Any Given Thursday' (Live), 'Heavier Things' (2003), 'Try! John Mayer Trio Live Concert' (2005), 'Continuum' (2006), 'Village Session' (2007) & 'Where The Light Is: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles' (2008).

Captain Beefheart, A Magical Band and The Story of A Revolutionary Man

This past week Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s first record ‘Safe As Milk’ was re-released. Who was this man? Captain Beefheart and what was his story because few of us might never have heard about the man influenced greats like Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, The Clash, Nick Cave and on long distances Rock & Roll icon Bruce Springsteen. We ask ourselves, when we think of the 60’s and 70’s, why do we never hear of Captain Beefheart. Why is he not one of greats. Because he choose not to be and that’s what signified his music to change the face of the music industry for eternity and so forth.

Captain Beefheart also known as Don Van Vliet was born in 1941 and was raised in Glendale, California. He was an artist of his time and rumors claim that he started sculpting at the age of 6. At the age of 13, Don Vliet was offered a full art scholarship to an Art School in Europe but declined and had his parents move with him to the Mojave desert in order to find a better environment for inspiration.

Frank Zappa was one of Vliet’s older friends and at this time Vliet formed a band called The Magic Band. In a tribute to his greatest idols, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Howlin’ Wolf he named himself Captain Beefheart. Vliet’s Beefheart went from pursuing art into shaping that element in music through inspiration the old past masters of blues.
Beefheart had tremendous blues voice and his band soon became local heroes and as former guitarist of the band Doug Moon states: ‘Don could capture the sound of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and recreate, not copy it. But recreate it to his own’. At this time the American Labels looked for a way to respond to the 'British Invasion' and they all saw potential in Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, but no one could recreate Mick Jagger in Don Vliet. Instead the band headed into a darker form of Desert Blues/Rock that later became the influences of what the impact of Homme’s, 'The Dessert Sessions' and Stoner Rock genre came to be.

The Band moved to Los Angeles and recorded their first full length album. The Legendary ‘Safe As Milk’ and on this production famous blues guitarist Ry Cooder had replaced Doug Moon. At this time the band headed even darker into influences and Cooder describes Vliet’s vision:
‘His vision was to take the raw blues elements of John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf’ and tear it down so raw that you just would have a sound. Just a grunt maybe and you would add something abstract. You would add the John Coltrane, crazy time signature free Jazz on a Coleman thing and then Hybridize it together, which was a great idea’.

At this time the record company had a large idea around Captain Beefheart and as a proof of their capability, the band was about to get introduced on the Monterey Pop Festival. A Festival that had helped Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding and Janis Joplin among others. Vliet, suffered from hard anxiety problems at this time and the concert ended in chaos and the commercial idea around Beefheart and his band was lost for a very long time.

It was at this time that Don Vliet and the Magic Band started to work on a new album. The audience was somewhat people rejected by hippies. The one’s who were to strange and they suited well into the Beefheart phenomenon. Don Vliet and his band was locked into a house for 8 moths rehearsing an album that came to be ‘Trout Mask Replica’ and the members of the band weren’t even able to go to the store to by food. It was a dictatorship in which the dictator or mastermind was Don Vliet’s Captain Beefheart composing an album that was recorded as a live session.

The ‘Trout Mask Replica’ was not just touching the brilliance it was among many musicians and fans in particular the best album ever made at this time. It had the best parts of all the genres Vliet tried to reach within; Blues, Rock and Jazz and the experiment did not stop with ‘Trout Mask Replica’ it continued with the controversial album called ‘Lick My Decals Off Baby’ which contained a tv-spot in an extreme artistic way that was refused by audiences. It was even asked to be taken off the air.
After ‘Lick My Decals Off Baby’, Captain Beefheart left the dessert and moved to Santa Cruz in California and this was the period where Don Vliet realized he did not make well profits from being a musician. People and the record labels never really counted on The Captain Beefheart albums to sell well, but they all loved it’s concept. In this transformation to an easier form of blues.

It was also at this time that Vliet started to market himself as a serious artist and establish himself as a painter through several exhibitions. He also declared a love for the Black/White Television medium and his art could be seen through his Cover Art. Captain Beefheart had reached it’s highest commercial break in the history of the band but many fans was dissapointed in Vliet’s later compositions.

After a long term of legal argues Captain Beefheart returned to the studio with a new version of younger musicians in his Magic Band and recorded the three albums that brought the brilliance back to Vliet’s vision. The three albums ‘The Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)’, ‘Doc At The Radar Station’ and ‘Ice Cream for Crow’ was the last pieces we got see with Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. It was after this commercial and critic success that Beefheart decided to transform himself into focusing more onto his art in order to be recognized as an artistic painter rather than a musician that paints.
Vliet is today a well recognized painter who has pursued great art and is well known in the art societies. It is also clear that Vliet suffers from some form of illness that has made him wheel cheer bound. Still Vliet’s music in form of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band lives on and has clearly been one of the greatest inspirations in experimental Jazz, Rock and most of all blues that has shaped many artists such as the alternative genres of Rock & Roll as it took it’s shape into become a mix of The Rhythm and Blues in the Rolling Stones as to the Stone Rock Universe of Josh Homme and later influenced Grunge/Rock artist Dave Grohl. As the BBC DJ, John Peel stated: "If there has ever been such a thing as a genius in the history of popular music, it's Beefheart…I heard echoes of his music in some of the records I listened to last week and I'll hear more echoes in records that I listen to this week."

Don Van Vliet or Captain Beefheart was driven by his musical vision. On a borderline between genius and imbalanced he composed together a new genre of Blues/Rock/Jazz that came to be the underground of Psychedelic Rock in 1960’s. He’s music is a source for the experimental greatness we all witness today and that’s why he’s worth his genius and the recognition above all.

Sources for this article comes from: ‘The Artist Formely Known As Captain Beefheart’ BBC Television Documentary from 1994, England, ‘Captain Beefheart Biography: Rolling Stone Encyclopedia Of Rock & Roll’ (Simon & Schuster, 2001) and Allmusic.com: Captain Beefheart: Biography.

Truth on ‘Already Free’ by The Derek Trucks Band

Vocalist and frontman of The Derek Trucks Band, Derek Trucks is fairly new to me, an in a positive way. In the companions new album ‘Already Free’ I am perfectly introduced to Derek Trucks and it’s somewhat mind blowing. ‘Already Free’ is a mix, just as claimed, Derek Trucks is as well. A mix of ‘feel good’ Rock/Rhythm & Blues with great influences from Bob Dylan, Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton. ‘Already Free’ is the bands 7th album released in a course of 12 years. According to critic’s the 2006 album ‘Songlines’ is the highlight of DTB’s discography, but I no nothing of that so I stick to ‘Already Free’, that’s what I know.

DTB is an original concept, easily mixed with great of greats and as one of few jam sessions bands in the field, the mixes between blues and rock with a touch of funk creates an original piece of music that is spiritual in a ‘feel good’ sense. The album is opened with an exceptional brilliant cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Down in The Flood’, an open interpretation with a funky guitar and strong vocals that only reminds me of a Buddy Guy. It’s an eternal sound so spiritual that it reaches up and above what ‘Mustang Sally’ made to me in ‘The Commitments’. It’s a pure stylish concept and as the album moves forward into the transitions of track 3, ‘Maybe This Time’ and ‘Sweet Inspiration’ comes to me I sense the rhythm and blues in somewhat a ‘soulish’ way that takes me to the brilliant of Stevie Wonder.
What I realize as I listen on for the second, third and fourth time is how The Derek Trucks Band reaches somewhat an emotional explosion into all their influences, mixing it into a pure true, funky blues version of greatness. Mellow essences of rock, blues, jazz and soul are all stirred together into a original touch that makes this one of the most unique albums I’ve ever sensed to come close to me. And at it’s middle peak it’s not even close to what I am about to say. The tension of some what sweet love melody ‘Our Love’ reaches me at a perfection, it’s exploding in a softness sense into my ears and totally blows my mind.

The emotional aspects of the album is something that I take onto me as somewhat personal and with ‘Down’ Don’t Bother Me’ and ‘Days Is Almost Gone’ is brilliant companions, the music is still breathtaking and as the albums closes with album title named song ‘Already Free’ I don’t really, fully understand what this mix of greatness in music has done to me. Forget greatness on all those guys I’ve been so terribly optimistic about, The Derek Trucks Band’s ‘Already Free’ is in it’s ace of brilliance. This is not great but rather magnificent and magical in the sense that I am captured into an album that changes my night, day and hopefully tomorrow. Gloriously!