Artist · chart history · #470 in indie & aaa artist polls
Captain Beefheart
Band Lancaster United States Active 1965–1982
Captain Beefheart formed in 1965 in Lancaster, United States and was active until 1982. Captain Beefheart has 6 chart appearances on 5 radio countdowns from 3 stations on RockLists, spanning 1976–2010. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Big Eyed Beans From Venus”, which appears on 2 lists with a best position of #13. The station that charted Captain Beefheart most often is John Peel (BBC Radio 1), with 2 appearances.
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band were never a band so much as a weather system. Guitarist Alex St. Clair started the group with Beefheart singing, and before long it had turned into his personal backing outfit, a rotating cast of dozens of players, many of them rechristened by the Captain himself: Antennae Jimmy Semens on slide guitar, The Mascara Snake honking on bass clarinet, Art Tripp pounding the drums, with Ry Cooder, Elliot Ingber, Gary Lucas and Eric Drew Feldman all passing through the ranks.
The records sound like the Delta blues got loose in a toy factory. Safe as Milk, in 1967, gave the world "Zig Zag Wanderer", a lopsided rave-up that shakes like a jalopy, and by Clear Spot in 1972 the Magic Band had tightened into a greasy, strutting machine; "Big Eyed Beans From Venus" is all jagged guitar needles and a groove that won't sit still.
Members peeled off in 1974 to form the short-lived Mallard, and the whole circus wound down in 1982. In 2003 the Magic Band regrouped without Beefheart, who died in 2010, and kept at it until 2017.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Captain Beefheart on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Big Eyed Beans From Venus | 2 | #13 | – | – | |
| 2 | Blue Million Miles | 1 | #574 | – | – | |
| 3 | Clear Spot | 1 | #1450 | – | – | |
| 4 | Zig Zag Wanderer | 1 | #647 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 647 | Zig Zag Wanderer | WXPN 885 Ultimate Road Trip Songs (2010) |
| 2006 | 473 | Artist ranking | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Artists (2006) |
| 2001 | 574 | Blue Million Miles | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2001 | 1450 | Clear Spot | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2000 | 13 | Big Eyed Beans From Venus | John Peel's All-Time Festive Fifty (2000) |
| 1976 | 18 | Big Eyed Beans From Venus | John Peel's All-Time Festive Fifty (1976) |
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