Gary Lucas (born June 20, 1952) is an American guitarist, songwriter, and composer who was a member of Captain Beefheart's band. He formed the band Gods and Monsters in 1989.
Lucas has released more than 50 albums to date as a solo artist or band leader in a variety of genres, touring internationally.
Lucas has collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, Jeff Buckley, John Cale, Nick Cave, David Johansen, and Lou Reed. He has also worked with Chris Cornell, Najma Akhtar, DJ Spooky, Dr. John, Amanda Palmer, Bryan Ferry, The Future Sound of London, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Hammill, Warren Haynes, Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Geoff Muldaur, Bob Neuwirth, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Graham Parker, Van Dyke Parks, Iggy Pop, Yass Body, Roswell Rudd, Fred Schneider, Richard Barone, John Sebastian, Adrian Sherwood, Patti Smith, Peter Stampfel, Damo Suzuki, Steve Swallow, Bob Weir, John Zorn, Nona Hendryx, Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra, Hal Willner, Kip Hanrahan, Elli Medeiros, Haydee Milanes, Suylen Milanes, Los Van Van, and Alabama Three.
In 2020, instead of doing live performances, which was not possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lucas started a Pandemic Live Streaming every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 3pm EST on his Facebook page, which has gathered fans from all over the world.
Early life Lucas was born in Syracuse, New York.
According to his website, Lucas was encouraged by his father to try the guitar at the age of nine, while simultaneously studying the French horn, and played in jazz and rock groups during his teens in the 1960s.
He obtained a degree in English from Yale University (1974), before establishing his career in music first as a college DJ and then as music director at the college radio station, WYBC FM.
Career
Captain Beefheart During his last year in high school, Lucas played for the documentary film unit of the Upstate Medical Center and wrote the musical score on his first film assignment. In 1971, he traveled from New Haven to New York City to see his childhood hero Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) make his New York concert debut, and later became close friends. From being a Beefheart fan, he eventually became his co-manager in 1980 with his then wife Ling Lucas, and occasionally performed on stage all over Europe and the U.S. during the 1980–81 tours with Beefheart's band, performing the difficult and complex solo guitar piece "Flavor Bud Living".
After gaining his degree, Lucas played for a few years with the O-Bay-Gone Band in Taipei, Taiwan while working for his father after college. He played with them for a few years before gaining a significant step in his career during 1980–82, when he was engaged to record on two Beefheart albums released by Virgin Records, on one of which he was full-time lead alongside Moris Tepper. Lucas performed over a period of five years with the last incarnation of Beefheart's Magic Band. He performed as a special guest—his first appearance on an album—on Beefheart's 1980 Doc at the Radar Station, which had put him on the musical map with critics and fans. He also read one of Van Vliet's poems (“One Man Sentence” or “Untitled”), and joined the Magic band on guitar (“Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles”) and bass (“Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on My Knee”). On 1982's Ice Cream for Crow, he was a full Magic Band member playing twin lead guitar alongside Tepper. In 1982 he became Van Vliet's sole manager as well as a full member of Beefheart's Magic Band.
After Captain Beefheart retired in the 1980s, Lucas continued to be associated with the Magic Band's former members. Several of Beefheart's former band members reformed the group, touring as the Magic Band from 2003 to 2006. Their 2007 double album and DVD, 21st Century Mirror Men, followed up their debut album Back to the Front, which was chosen as one of the best albums of 2004 by The Wire. In 1988, Lucas performed at New York's Knitting Factory. Shortly after, he was invited to appear at the 1988 JazzFest Berlin.
In 2006 Lucas co-led with saxophonist Philip Johnston an all-instrumental Beefheart tribute band, Fast 'n' Bulbous: the Captain Beefheart Project etc. Their debut album Pork Chop Blue Around the Rind was profiled on NPR and charted on college radio in the United States. In Fall 2006, they toured Europe extensively, selling out shows at the London Jazz Festival, in Amsterdam's Bimhuis, as well as playing in Bern, Switzerland; Vienna and Schwaz, Austria; and Ljubljana, Slovenia. The group released its second album, Waxed Oop, on Cuneiform Records in 2008, and performed at the Zappanale in Bad Doberan Germany in 2012.
2017 marked the 50th anniversary of the release of Beefheart's album Safe as Milk, and saw Lucas engaged in numerous projects to mark the occasion. This included feature coverage in MOJO magazine that coincided with the Captain Beefheart Weekend in Liverpool, England, where Lucas served on a panel at the participating Bluecoat Gallery. In collaboration with Dutch DJ/producer Co de Cloet, the final interview given by Don Van Vliet was set to music composed by Lucas. Titled "I Have a Cat," it was commissioned by Dutch national radio NPS where it was first broadcast in 1993. Later the project was released digitally by OkayMusic, and the pair performed the work live at the Zappanale in Germany as well as at the BimHuis in Amsterdam.
On February 17, 2013, Lucas led the 65-piece Metropole Orchestra in a symphonic tribute to Captain Beefheart at the Paradiso Amsterdam, produced by Co De Kloet. Titled "The World of Captain Beefheart", the concert featured Nona Hendryx (Labelle) as well as Jolene Grunberg, Tom Trapp and other Dutch singers.
In September 2017, the scaled-down five-piece Captain Beefheart tribute ensemble, The World of Captain Beefheart, led by Lucas and Nona Hendryx, performed an album teaser performance at the Public Theater. The self-titled album was released in November 2017 on Knitting Factory Records. January 22, 2018 saw a special multimedia performance of The World of Captain Beefheart at City Winery, New York.
Jeff Buckley/Gods and Monsters In 1989, Lucas formed his band Gods and Monsters. He took the name from a line from the film Bride of Frankenstein: "To a new world of gods and monsters!" Originally an instrumental ensemble featuring two bass players, Lucas began writing songs and inviting singers to perform at an ad hoc basis in 1990. Lucas first met Jeff Buckley in New York at his father's, Tim Buckley’s, 1991 tribute concert, mounted by producer Hal Willner at St. Anne's Church in Brooklyn. Buckley stayed in New York and joined Gods and Monsters. Lucas composed solo guitar instrumentals for "Rise Up to Be" and "And You Will", which later became the musical templates for "Grace" and "Mojo Pin", which Lucas co-wrote with Buckley for his album, Grace.#1 Modern Rock Classic of all Time Mojo (magazine), 2006 Early collaborations can also be heard on the Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas album Songs to No One, which charted internationally with worldwide sales approaching 100,000. In the film Greetings from Tim Buckley (2013), Penn Badgely plays Buckley, and Tony Award winner Frank Wood plays Gary Lucas.
In May 2011, Lucas released a new studio album with Gods and Monsters, titled The Ordeal of Civility. Gods and Monsters celebrated their 25th anniversary in June 2014 with a special performance at (Le) Poisson Rouge.
Early in 2018, Lucas performed a special concert of the dozen songs he co-wrote with Jeff Buckley. He performed with Jolene Grunberg and other singers, was accompanied by the 65-piece Metropole Orchestra at the Paradiso Amsterdam, and the show was produced by Co de Kloet.
In the fall of 2019, Lucas released The Complete Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas Songbook (Esordisco) with Italian singer The Niro (Davide Combusti). The album was recorded in Rome at the end of 2018 and featured new studio versions of all 12 songs co-written by Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas including five never before officially released. By Christmas that year, the album was voted Best Album of 2019 by Classic Rock Magazine Italia.
Lucas has continued to operate Gods and Monsters on and off since 1989. Their last studio album was 2012's The Ordeal of Civility, which was produced by Jerry Harrison, who was also a group member for several years. The lineup also features Ernie Brooks (The Modern Lovers) on bass, Billy Ficca (Television) on drums, and Jason Candler (Hungry March Band) on saxophone. The full lineup has performed in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Austin Texas.
The Edge of Heaven Gary has a long history working with Chinese music, stemming back to two years working for the family business in Taipei Taiwan from 1975 to 1977. In 2001, an album titled The Edge of Heaven: Gary Lucas Plays Mid-Century Chinese Pop, was released on the French government sponsored Label Bleu to wide acclaim and received rave reviews in Rolling Stone, WSJ, Chinese newspapers, and on NPR, and reached number one on the World Chart. This album is a tribute to Shanghai pop music of the '30s and '40s. Lucas has performed live versions of this material all over the world, including well received concerts in Shanghai during the 2010 Expo Shanghai and also at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam.
In 2013, Lucas performed with his 1930s Chinese pop project, The Edge of Heaven, in a sold-out show at the Fishman Space at BAM with vocalists Sally Kwok and Mo Hai Jing and his group Gods and Monsters. The project was also performed as a trio featuring Lucas, Sally Kwok, and Mo Hai Jing at the 1930 Club in Shanghai. October also saw Lucas performing in Federico García Lorca's La Casa de Bernarda Alba at the Gaia Arts Center in Havana.
Lucas began working on a follow-up to The Edge of Heaven with vocalist Feifei Yang and saxophonist Jason Candler in late 2017, including a version of Lucas and Buckley's "Grace." At the annual Moon Festival, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Lucas and Yang performed with the 70-piece Asian Cultural Orchestra, including the debut of their duet of "The Moon Represents My Heart." In celebration of the Chinese New Year in February 2018, the new Edge of Heaven trio performed at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Yang and Lucas also served as judges on CCTV's Super Baby talent competition and a documentary about their collaborations is forthcoming on SinoVision.
Other collaborations In the mid-1990s Lucas performed with Richard Barone in series of duo shows and live radio broadcasts in which Barone played Mellotron. Barone also guested on lead vocals with Lucas in Gods and Monsters and appears on subsequent albums.
In 2003–2004 Lucas collaborated with Dutch lutist Jozef van Wissem on the Universe of Absence and Diplopia. They have performed live on Dutch national TV together.
In 2007, Lucas collaborated on an album with electronic producer James R Hunter's project The Dark Poets, produced by British label manager Stevo Pearce of Some Bizzare Records. The album, Gary Lucas vs the Dark Poets – Beyond the Pale, features an eclectic mixture of moody drum and bass, techno and rock tracks (notably "Prime Time", featuring vocals by Sarah Hilliard and James R. Hunter) as well as many early Lucas tracks and collaborations (including "Procuress from Karmelitska Street" featuring vocalist Pat Fulgoni of Kava Kava and original sketches of songs that went on to be used on Jeff Buckley's Grace album, including "Grace" and "Mojo Pin").
In 2009, Lucas collaborated on a world music collaboration with Indian vocalist Najma Akhtar. Their album RISHTE combines rock, blues, folk, and raga, on Harmonia Mundi/World Village. It was number 4 in the European World Music charts in 2009.
In 2009, he collaborated with Juan Galeano on his album El Peregrino, which debuted April 2010.