Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Electricity

Meaty selection of prime cuts from the Captain

There’s nothing new about the content here, but for completists this package’s principal attractions are the thorough session details and Harry Shapiro’s engrossing and informative essay. Despite misleading sleeve photographs, it focuses on selections from Safe As Milk, Strictly Personal (minus the psychedelic effects on the 1968 vinyl) and 1971’s Mirror Man, plus I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain’t Weird, a 1992 CD containing remaindered items from this period and neatly dovetailed backing tracks that stand tall as instrumentals in their own right, offering clues of what was to come on Trout Mask Replica.

While some might take exception to omissions such as Autumn’s Child or Mirror Man’s title piece, Electricity should serve admirably for beginners wishing to enter the Beefheart orbit gently. It works up from Zig Zag Wanderer, Dropout Boogie and other anthems that made him the toast of hippy Europe, to the 20-minute Tarotplane. If hinged on a medley of Robert Johnson and Willie Dixon, the latter is blues like no other, featuring as it does a free-form shawm (forerunner of the oboe) jolting rhythms beneath compulsively exquisite guitar interaction and, of course, the unadulterated blast of the Captain’s marvellous voice.

SPV | 42392 2 CD

Reviewed by Alan Clayson
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