Outsider Music - Notable Performers

Notable Performers

Outsider musicians range from unskilled performers whose recordings are praised for their honesty, to the complex compositions of avant-garde groups.

Harry Partch (1901–1974) was a composer who built his own instruments according to his own system of musical scales.

The Shaggs were a 1960s rock band of sisters with only rudimentary musical skill, whose ineptitude became semi-legendary. The band was formed on the insistence of their father, Austin Wiggin, who believed that his mother foresaw the band's rise to stardom. As the obscure LP achieved recognition among collectors, the band was praised for their raw, intuitive composition style and lyrical honesty.

Syd Barrett (1946–2006), psychedelic folk pioneer, was a founding member of Pink Floyd. He left the group in 1968 amidst speculations of mental illness exacerbated by heavy drug use. After he left the group, he completed 2 solo albums and then went into self-imposed seclusion for more than thirty years.

The Residents are a US dadaist, avant-garde music and visual arts collective who have maintained complete anonymity throughout their career. They released over sixty albums, created numerous musical short films, designed three CD-ROM projects and ten DVDs, and undertook six world tours.

Captain Beefheart (1941-2010) is the stage name of Don van Vliet, who performed noisy, free jazz-influenced blues in the 1960s and 1970s. His music, which used shifting time signatures and surreal lyrics, had a major influence on the punk rock, post-punk, New Wave and alternative rock genres.

Daniel Johnston (1961- ) is a Texas singer-songwriter with bipolar disorder known for recording music on his radio boom box. His songs are often called "painfully direct," and tend to display a blend of childlike naïveté with darker, "spooky" themes. His performances often seem faltering or uncertain; one critic writes that Johnston's recordings range from "spotty to brilliant." He also has a documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, centered around his life and music.

Lucia Pamela (1904-2002) was a St. Louis, Missouri-born multi-instrumentalist and former 1926 Miss St. Louis who, in 1965 recorded the album Into Outer Space With Lucia Pamela. The self-funded album (released in 1969) consisted largely of Pamela breathlessly telling listeners of her adventures in outer space where she meets intergalactic roosters, Native Americans and travels upon blue winds. Pamela (playing the accordion, drums, clarinet and piano) was nearly forgotten as a performer until 1992, when Irwin Chusid revived her legacy by producing a reissued version of the album. She is perhaps slightly better known as the mother of Georgia Frontiere, the former owner of the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams.

Other notable musicians who are identified with outsider music include:

• Hasil Adkins, a forerunner to psychobilly known for his morbid choices of lyrics
• The Cherry Sisters, an extremely poorly received vaudeville act
• Alvin Dahn
• Roky Erickson
• John Frusciante, former guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. His first two solo albums, Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt and Smile from the Streets You Hold are known for their extremely lo-fi production.
• Wild Man Fischer, best known for his a capella, almost sobbing songs and his brief association with Frank Zappa
• Bingo Gazingo, a spoken-word artist known for his often vulgar stream-of-consciousness rants
• Crispin Glover, character actor who extended his eccentric persona into music
• Grand Reefer, trio known for performing while on hallucinogenic mushrooms and coining the phrase "Outsider Metal"
• David Liebe Hart
• Icy Spicy Leoncie
• Abner Jay
• Jandek
• Florence Foster Jenkins, early 20th-century off-key soprano
• The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, another forerunner to psychobilly whose songs included incomprehensible yelling and random rhythms. Also known for launching the career of T-Bone Burnett.
• Steve Lieberman also known as the Gangsta Rabbi is a bipolar punk musician who performs Jewish-themed punk rock using only bass guitar and flutes
• Charles Manson, career criminal and commune leader, recorded a series of songs with his "family"
• Mrs. Miller, a warbling, self-trained, middle-aged housewife who reluctantly rose to stardom as a novelty act in the 1960s
• Jack Mudurian, nursing-home resident who recorded a 47-minute marathon of Tin Pan Alley tunes known as Downloading the Repertoire
• Moondog, blind street musician who fashioned his own instruments and dressed as a Viking
• R. Stevie Moore
• Weird Paul Petroskey
• Sondra Prill, late-1980s public access cable star known for her off-key renditions of popular songs, often with incorrect lyrics
• The Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra whose members were all novices at the instrument they played
• William Shatner's musical career, consisting almost entirely of spoken-word covers of popular songs.
• BJ Snowden, Massachusetts music teacher
• Skip Spence
• Shooby Taylor, scat artist who dubbed himself the "Human Horn" and dubbed his unusual scatting over all sorts of music
• Jan Terri
• Tiny Tim, a man who performed mostly Tin Pan Alley tunes with a ukulele in a falsetto voice; came to fame on Laugh-In.
• Bobb Trimble
• Wesley Willis, Chicago schizophrenic who would make stream-of-consciousness rants, many of which involve bestiality, accompanied by his keyboard to scare off his "demons"
• Gary Wilson, best known for his surreal 1977 album You Think You Really Know Me, which includes songs such as "6.4 = Make Out" and "Chromium Bitch"
• Peer Saer, obscure sounds with guitar and digital sounds, active since the 1970s under several names.