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The Legendary Marvin Pontiac - Cult Pick

Posted on 14. Apr, 2009 by Administrator in Music

The Legendary Marvin Pontiac, Greatest Hits

In 1999 oddball actor and musician John Lurie discovered the work of bluesman Marvin Pontiac and released The Legendary Marvin Pontiac: Greatest Hits through his Strange & Beautiful label. The album was a posthumous collection of Pontiac’s work and aside from the quirky songwriting and song titles like “I’m a Doggy”, it contained a biography of the reclusive eccentric. According to the biography, Pontiac was born to an African father and Jewish-American mother, moved to Chicago in his teens, and began to play harmonica. When another harmonica player beat him in a fight, he became a plumber’s assistant and recorded music sporadically. After several incidents, including a bank robbery, an alien abduction, refusal to record for a label unless its owner mowed his lawn, and a nude bicycle ride through his town (resulting in arrest), Pontiac was committed to a mental hospital and later hit by a bus. Although Pontiac, as it turns out, existed only in Lurie’s mind, and the songs were actually written by Lurie and members of his avant-jazz group the Lounge Lizards, that doesn’t mean it still can’t be enjoyed. There’s a distinct African flavor, the vocals smack of Tom Waits, and the songs sound like something Captain Beefheart could have penned. -Bill Dvorak 

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Tags: Cult Pick, Music Review, The Legendary Marvin Pontiac