"The Winged Eel slithers on the heels of today's children." - Don Van Vliet, "Beatle Bones' n' Smokin' Stones"
Elliot Ingber (or Winged Eel Fingerling as he was known during his time with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band) has the distinction of being one of the only of celebrated guitarists who passed through the ranks of The Magic Band to enjoy total freedom—free reign, as it were—to improvise extended psychedelic guitar solos by Don Van Vliet, a band leader notorious for insisting that his musicians pretty much stick to the notes and forms laid down in their marathon rehearsals.
Elliot is probably best known on wax for his slithering, snaky psychedelic guitar lines on 11972's The Spotlight Kid album—especially on "I'm Gonna Booglarize You, Baby" and the instrumental "Alice in Blunderland." I had the unenviable task during my tenure in the first touring iteration of The Magic Band circa 2002-2003 of attempting to replicate—if not all of the notes (which would have been impossible, as Elliot was capable of producing a veritable geyser of bluesy note splatter at any given moment)—but at the least, the FEEL of this titan of blues guitar on our live shows.
I think I pretty much lived up to the challenge at hand, especially on the latter number, in my own style. To have tried to reproduce these solos exactly and in Elliot's own peculiar phrasing would have been sheer folly.
Elliot also has the distinction—along with Denny Walley—of being one of the only guitarists in the Magic Band to also play with Frank Zappa, and he can be heard all over Zappa's Freak Out album, where Frank affectionately describes him in his liner notes:
"Elliot digs the blues. He has a big dimple in his chin. We made him grow a beard to cover it up. He just got out of the Army. Lucky for the Army."
In fact, Elliot goes way back to the early rock 'n' roll recording days in LA. He was part of Phil Spector's inner circle at Fairfax High School in the mid-'50s—a group of far-reaching and far-ranging musicians and record people that included in their august ranks producer Lou Adler, drummer Sandy Nelson, Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, Canned Heat's bassist Larry Taylor, and The Wrecking Crew's saxophonist Steve Douglas.
Elliot was in the first band to have a song title about LSD back in 1961—the B-side of The Gamblers' first single, "Moon Dawg!"—their classic proto-surf instrumental, "LSD-25."
Elliot earlier was also a member of Kip Tyler and the Flips, a rocking teen combo that struck it big in Los Angeles in 1957 with the visionary single: "She's My Witch."
And he can be heard on the twangy guitar behind Phil Spector's own smooth Barney Kessel-inspired playing of Phil's instrumental single (released under the name Phil Harvey) 1959's classic, "Bumbershoot," which Elliot performed live at various sock hops and roller rink events with Spector:
Perhaps my favorite iteration of Elliot Ingber is with his own band, the trippy and adventurous beat combo The Fraternity of Man, for whom he penned, with lead singer Lawrence "Stash" Wagner, the immortal Floyd Cramer-ish song, "Don't Bogart That Joint," as famously heard on the soundtrack of Easy Rider.
Elliot is all over their first album for ABC-Dunhill, produced by Tom Wilson. My favorite track is "In the Morning," with its incendiary feedback rave-up double-time guitar break:
(Special mention goes to their second guitarist, Warren Klein; no slouch on guitar either).
I first saw him with Beefheart and the boys on Jan. 26th, 1971, on Night One of Don's historic three-night stand at Ungano's, a little club on Central Park West.
Elliot came out after the opening bass solo and absolutely ripped into "Alice in Blunderland," while the rest of the band came out and joined in one by one.
He wasn't in that lineup long, jumping ship shortly after this show on the grounds that he couldn't maintain his patented healthy food regimen while on tour.
A year later, on January 21st, 1972, I was lucky enough to speak with Elliot backstage at Captain Beefheart's concert at Yale University's Woolsey Hall.
Elliot was sitting by himself in the dressing room apart from the rest of the band, keeping still and peering into the cosmos with his patented spacy Thousand Yard Stare.
I began by complimenting him on his playing on The Spotlight Kid album and then asked him what he thought of Jeff Beck—then as now, probably my favorite guitarist.
Elliot looked up with his hawk-like profile, stared at me with his intense gaze… and then said in a low, measured voice:
"He released an album called Truth.
(long pause)
It was THE TRUTH."
Elliot then went out there with Don and the Magic Band (on that tour consisting of Bill Harkleroad, Mark Boston, and Artie Tripp)—and proceeded to KICK ASS on his Les Paul Junior when given his solo spots. He was particularly on fire on their closing number, "Alice in Blunderland," stretching out with a lengthy and incendiary guitar solo.
Elliot was even better a few weeks later at the Academy of Music on 14th Street in Manhattan, when Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band appeared sandwiched between an unknown solo Billy Joel (who we heckled—sorry!) and the headlining J. Geils Band.
That was the last I saw of Elliot live.
I heard he quit music and became a postman in LA. He lived a mainly solitary life in a small apartment in downtown Hollywood filled with stacks and stacks of old magazines and newspapers.
Don told me that Elliot called him once in his post-Magic Band phase and told him: "I've learned and can play every note of Trout Mask Replica, Don!"
But he never played with Don again, sad to say.
R.I.P. ELLIOT INGBER—YOU WERE ONE OF THE IMMORTALS!
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*Don Van Vliet's (Captain Beefheart) poem under his sketch of Winged Eel Fingerling on the back cover of the 1972 Beefheart album, The Spotlight Kid: