Sunday, March 13, 2011

Bobby Farrell, Captain Beefheart

People from the world of music keep dying. I will now talk about two of them. Captain Beefheart gave up making music in the early 1980s but he was a key figure to those of us aware of his existence. Even if I was never an obsessive fan, I was very fond of his work and I would have to hail him as my first introduction to the world of weirdo music. He will always have a special place in my heart. If you have never heard of the good captain then check out this recording of him playing 'Electricity' with the Magic Band on beach in Los Angeles.


Unlike Beefheart, Bobby Farrell of Boney M had continued to perform right up until the night of his death. Boney M were almost ubiquitous at a key point in my youth. While Farrell did not sing on their records (something that even little Ian suspected), he did sing live and was very much the star of the
show when the band made TV appearances. Boney M were one of the great pop groups of my childhood and so Farrell's death probably means more to me that of Beefheart, but they will both be missed.

Boney M had been one of the first western bands to play in the USSR, which may have been linked to their having had a monster hit single with the song 'Rasputin'. By an odd twist of fate, Bobby Farrell died in St. Petersburg, on the very same date that the original Rasputin met his end in that city. My understanding is that Farrell died of natural causes after playing a concert, and was not poisoned and shot by Russian noblemen before being dumped in a river.



An inuit panda production

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