- Vocalist, lyricist, instrumentalist and band leader of Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band.
- He was offered a scholarship to study sculpture at 13 years old in Europe but his parents forbade him.
- He gave up music in the mid-1980s to become a full-time painter.
- He is survived by his wife, Jan of Trinidad, California.
- His parents moved him to Lancaster, California in the Mojave Desert where he befriended Frank Zappa. He enrolled at Antelope Valley Junior College to study art in 1959 for one semester. He spent the early 1960s in Cucamonga, California in Zappa's studio.
- Famous for his collaborations with musician Frank Zappa.
- His death was announced late on Friday (17th December, 2010) by the Michael Werner Gallery in New York.
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