Artists from California

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 196. Chapters: Captain Beefheart, Wally Hedrick, Ansel Adams, Theodore Lukits, Carl Eytel, Edward Weston, Edward Ruscha, Above (artist), Peter Seitz Adams, Paul Dougherty (artist), Don Hertzfeldt, Thomas Kinkade, Albert Henry Krehbiel, California Plein-Air Painting, Bruce Nauman, James Siena, California Art Club, Ralph Stackpole, John Baldessari, California Plein-Air Revival, Stephen William Shaw, Earl W. Bascom, John Duncan (artist), David Hockney, Cedric Wright, Colin Campbell Cooper, Clarence Major, David Fairrington, Barbara Morgan (photographer), Bruce Conner, Juan Fernando Bastos, David Choe, Mike Kelley (artist), Doug Aitken, Jean Wells (artist), Wynn Bullock, Jim Evans (artist), Dorothea Lange, Larry Bell (artist), Raymond Pettibon, John McCracken, Tim Solliday, Allan McCollum, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Drew Struzan, Matthew Barney, Junko Chodos, Claire Falkenstein, Mary Agnes Yerkes, Group f/64, Stephen Namara, James Turrell, Miles Regis, Walter Keane, Mark Vallen, Herman Bailey, Robert Williams (artist), John Lees (artist), Corey Smith (artist), William Stout, Chris Burden, June Wayne, Rinaldo Cuneo, Charles Fletcher Lummis, Frances Bean Cobain, Tony Duquette, California Tonalism. Excerpt: Don Van Vliet ( , born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 - December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter, artist and poet widely known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 13 studio albums. Noted for his powerful singing voice with its wide range, Van Vliet also played the harmonica, saxophone and numerous other wind instruments. His music blended rock, blues and psychedelia with avant-garde and contemporary experimental composition. Beefheart was also known for exercising an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians, and for often constructing myths about his life. During his teen years in Lancaster, California, Van Vliet developed an eclectic musical taste and formed "a mutually useful but volatile" friendship with Frank Zappa, with whom he sporadically competed and collaborated. He began performing with his Captain Beefheart persona in 1964 and joined the original Magic Band line-up, initiated by Alexis Snouffer, in 1965. The group drew attention with their cover of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy", which became a regional hit. It was followed by their acclaimed debut album Safe as Milk, released in 1967 on Buddah Records. After being dropped by two consecutive record labels, they signed to Zappa's Straight Records. As producer, Zappa granted Beefheart unrestrained artistic freedom in making 1969's Trout Mask Replica, which ranked fifty-eighth in Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 1974, frustrated by lack of commercial success, he released two albums of more conventional rock music that were critically panned; this move, combined with not having been paid for a European tour, and years of enduring Beefheart's abusive behavior, led the entire band to quit. Beefheart eventually formed a new Magic Band with a group of younger musicians and regained conte