Farewell to Elliot Ingber

With Henry Kaiser's essay

The maverick guitarist Elliot Ingber died a couple of days ago. He was born in 1942, so he had a good run. Ingber was not someone I was familiar with until my esteemed colleague Henry Kaiser brought him to my attention. Henry wrote about him in my book, Pity the Genius. Here is a link to the book: "https://amzn.to/3B2QIyF

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Elliot was probably best known for playing with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. That right there tells you he was left of center. According to Henry he was the first person to ever use lyrics that referenced LSD on a recording. He was also one of the earliest white musicians to diligently try to cop the sound of the Black blues musicians and was an early surf music guy. Things were….so different in the 60’s, when much of what we take for granted today was percolating.

And this thought occurs to me…what solo changed my life? Maybe Wes Montgomery’s on “No Blues.” I knew almost nothing bout jazz, I just knew I had to figure out what was going on. It sounded magical, buoyant, drawing me in with its rhythm.

What solo changed your life?

Here is the essay, I hope you enjoy reading about someone that in all likelihood you have not heard of.

Elliot Ingber & The Guitar Solo That Changed My Life

By Henry Kaiser

Back in October of 1971, I went to see Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band at the Gymnasium at Tuft’s University in Medford, Mass. This gig was shortly prior to the early 1972 release of their THE SPOTLIGHT KID album. I was 19 years old and I had seen earlier incarnations The Magic Band of going back to 1967. I had all the Beefheart albums in my record collection, and I knew all the songs. Something was different at this show; there were new songs and there were unprecedented improvised blues-rock guitar solos on many of the tunes - from a guy with long hair and a bushy beard; who reminded me, in his looks, of a 1940’s image of King Neptune. This was Elliot Ingber, stage-renamed by Beefheart as Winged Eel Fingerling.

Stepping out of that time frame into now, I can tell you a bit about Elliot.

He was born in 1941, and lived in the Minneapolis area in his youth. Early on he was a master of American Chicago style electric blues, years before the idiom caught on in England. In 1959 he was on the very first recording of surf music: the single MOON DAWG by his band The Gamblers. The flip side of that single: LSD-25 is also the first mention of the psychedelic drug in American popular music. Elliot was in Zappa’s Mothers of Invention for their first album: FREAK OUT! He was also associated with early Little Feat and The Fraternity of Man. He spent a few years in different incarnations of Beefheart’s Magic Band.

Back in 1971, I was sitting on the floor of the gym, super-enjoying the show, when they suddenly played a 7 minute instrumental with a long solo from Elliot in it. This was ALICE IN BLUNDERLAND, a tune that had been played on previous tours with solos from Beefheart on sax, as well as shorter solos from Elliott and Zoot Horn Rollo (aka Bill Harkleroad). But at this show it was given over to one long very psychedelic solo from Mr. Ingber. The floor fell away from underneath me during his solo. I was transported to a music spaces and dimensions that I had never visited before. I was a fan of Bay Area psychedelic bands, Indian Music, Blues, African Music, post WW-II classical composer, Zappa, etc. But nothing had ever taken me to the place that Elliot’s improvisation suddenly moved me to. I was not a musician; I had never played any instrument. But at one moment during the solo I suddenly knew that I had to go buy a guitar the next day. Which I did: purchasing a black Fender Telecaster at nearby Tavian Music. Oddly enough, today I can listen to the live audience recordings of the show on YouTube and I can identify the exact moment when I realized my destiny to go purchase a guitar.