Gary Lucas at a favorite Village haunt, Camine Street Guitars
Photo by Bob Krasner
We’re not sure if “unknown legend” is a compliment or not, but it seems to fit the brilliant guitarist Gary Lucas.
A resident of the West Village since 1977, Lucas has collaborated with a list of artists that is beyond impressive, including (but not limited to) Leonard Bernstein, John Cale, Nick Cave, Captain Beefheart, Lou Reed, Dr. John, Bryan Ferry, Allen Ginsberg, Graham Parker, Jeff Buckley, Iggy Pop, Van Dyke Parks, Patti Smith, Hal Wilder and more – much more.
Still, he’s not exactly a household name.
At age 20 — while still in college — the guitarist played in a performance in Vienna of Bernstein’s controversial “Mass,” earning the composer’s praise. “’Man, you were really wailing!’” Lucas recalled Bernstein telling him.
“I was high on that for the rest of the year,” Lucas recalled.
After graduating from Yale, where he was musical director and DJ at the college radio station, Lucas got himself a day job as a copywriter at CBS Records, where one of the perks was being able to make free long distance phone calls.
A new friendship with the enigmatic, decidedly non-commercial singer Captain Beefheart solidified as Lucas was able to call him every day from his Midtown office. Lucas slowly became his manager, a job that he looked at as more of a calling than a gig.
“Beefheart is one of the most important musicians of the 20th century,” Lucas declares. “I wanted to make him better known — I was on a mission. It was a mitzvah.”
He succeeded in getting the Captain onto Saturday Night Live, the cover of Musician magazine and back into the pages of Rolling Stone as well as talking him into doing a video that is now in the MOMA collection.
“Don Van Vliet (Beefheart’s given name) was my most important mentor,” he says. “Good or bad, he was a father figure. He would make 20 or more important observations every day. He taught me…
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