Page "Captain Beefheart" Paragraph 73

Personnel in the Magic Band for Beefheart's first album, Safe as Milk, were Alex St. Clair, Jerry Handley and John French.

Earlier meetings with the Rising Sons had also secured them the guitar and arranging skills of Ry Cooder, which also brought about input from Taj Mahal on percussion and guitar work from Cooder's brother-in-law Russ Titelman.

Further guests to this line-up included Milt Holland on percussion and the all-important and controversial theremin work on Electricity by Dr Samuel Hoffman.

It was perhaps this track, above the others, which caused A & M to view the band as ' unsuitable ' for their label with what was seen as weird and too psychedelic for popular consumption.

Thus, this album was recorded for Buddah, with the band signed to Kama Sutra, which left them close to penniless after extricating themselves from A & M.

A large proportion of the tracks on this album were co-written with Van Vliet by Herb Bermann, whom Vliet initially met up with at a bar gig near Lancaster.

Part-time Hollywood television actor and budding scriptwriter Bermann and his then wife Cathleen spent some time in Vliet's company prior to this release.

Bermann would later write for Neil Young and script an early Spielberg-directed television medical drama.

Gary ' Magic ' Marker ( the " Magic " added by Beefheart ) was involved in early session work for this release, and his involvement with Rising Sons was also instrumental in acquiring the skills of Cooder, upon an unfulfilled suggestion that Marker might produce the album.

Marker would later lay down two uncredited bass tracks for Trout Mask Replica before being replaced by Mark Boston.