Biography
Jimmy Carl Black (February 1, 1938 – November 1, 2008), born James Carl Inkanish, Jr., was a drummer and vocalist for The Mothers of Invention.
Career: 1960s–1990s
Born in El Paso, Texas, Black was of Cheyenne heritage. His trademark line was "Hi Boys and Girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black, and I'm the Indian of the group." The line can be heard several times on the Mothers of Invention album We're Only in It for the Money (for example, on the tracks "Are You Hung Up?" and "Concentration Moon"). He has been credited on some Mothers albums as playing "drums, vocals, and poverty".
He appeared in the movie directed by Frank Zappa, 200 Motels, and sings the song "Lonesome Cowboy Burt". Black also made a few more appearances with Zappa in 1975 and 1980, and also appeared as guest vocalist on "Harder Than Your Husband" on the Zappa album You Are What You Is (1981). The same year, 1981, he performed the very same song at the discothèque Aladdin, Oasen, Bergen, Norway, as part of The Grandmothers, after their release Grandmothers (1980), an anthology of previously unreleased recordings by ex-members of the Mothers of Invention.
Jimmy Carl Black on Frank Zappa:
I would have told him that I appreciated his friendship through the years and that I had learned a lot from him. I really loved Frank like you do a brother.
In the seventies he toured with Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band and with Geronimo Black, the band he founded with Mothers wind player Bunk Gardner. In the eighties Jimmy and Bunk and Don Preston performed under the name "The Grandmothers" along with a bunch of other ex-Zappa musicians, but the band soon disbanded. Then Jimmy moved to Austin, Texas, where he met English singer Arthur Brown. The duo recorded an album of classic R&B songs, Black, Brown and Blue, and performed live together.
In 1993 Jimmy moved to Europe, where he reformed The Grandmothers with original members Don and Bunk and with Dutch bass player Ener Bladezipper (stagename of René Mesritz) and Italian guitar player Sandro Olivia.
1990s- 2008
Black performed as a guest vocalist with the Muffin Men, a Frank Zappa tribute band based in Liverpool, England, and with Jon Larsen, on the surrealistic Strange News From Mars project, featuring several other Zappa alumni, such as Tommy Mars, Bruce Fowler, Arthur Barrow.
At Steely Dan's 2001 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Walter Becker asked the assembled if they remembered who the original Mothers of Invention drummer was. Becker has unsuccessfully lobbied the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for Black's inclusion as a founding member of the Mothers of Invention.
An autobiographical audio production with Jimmy Carl Black was recorded in 2007, called The Jimmy Carl Black Story, produced by Jon Larsen.
Black was diagnosed with lung cancer in August 2008, and died on November 1, 2008 in Traunstein, Germany. Benefits were held on November 9, 2008 at the Bridgehouse II in London and December 7, 2008 in Crown Valley, California. He is survived by Monika, three sons and two daughters.
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