Alex St. Clair

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Alex St. Clair
Birth name	Alexis Clair Snouffer
Born	(1941-09-14)September 14, 1941
Died	January 5, 2006(2006-01-05) (aged 64)
Genres	drums, trumpet
Years active	1959–1970s

Alex St. Clair (born Alexis Clair Snouffer; September 14, 1941 – c. January 5, 2006)^[1] was an American musician.

Twice guitarist for Captain Beefheart, St. Clair was a contemporary of Frank Zappa and Beefheart at Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, California, where St. Clair played trumpet and Zappa played drums. They bought their first guitars within days of each other.

St. Clair joined his first band, the Omens, around 1959; Vliet (Beefheart) did occasional vocals with them. St. Clair went to work around

was formed. It was around this time that Snouffer changed his name to St. Clair and Vliet changed his to Van Vliet. St. Clair claimed, "We changed our names because the police were after us for smuggling sponges into Nevada."

St. Clair played on the band's first two albums,

, before leaving again.

St. Clair returned to music in Denny King's Boogie Band and appears on their album Evil Wind Blowing. He rejoined the Magic Band after the departure of

Winged Eel Fingerling, and was with them for the Clear Spot tour of North America and Europe. St. Clair again left the band due to financial problems, as did Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morton

and Ed Marimba.

St. Clair was found dead of a heart attack in his apartment at the beginning of 2006.[1]

The Captain Beefheart song "Owed T'Alex", which was written in the mid 1960s, though it was unreleased until the 1978 album Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), was written about St. Clair's trips to Carson City to visit his mother.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Alex St Clair". The Independent. 2 April 2009. Archived from the original on 2016-08-31. Retrieved 29 December 2020.

External links

• Obituary by Steve Froy