PJ Harvey’s new album A Woman A Man Walked By, recorded with long-time musical collaborator John Parish, features former Magic Band member Eric Drew Feldman on keyboards.
John Parish and PJ Harvey are both Captain Beefheart fans and significant musical similarities to the work of Captain Beefheart have been noted by most reviewers. Even the publicity material for the album at PJ Harvey’s MySpace page flags the Beefheart connection.
In a video at Island Records website John and Polly can be heard talking about their musical influences. Polly explains how she first came to appreciate Captain Beefheart:
I’d heard Beefheart when I was really young through my father and my mother … they had all of Beefheart’s work, but when I was a child it just used to make me feel ill. I didn’t understand it. And then when I met John when I was sixteen / seventeen he introduced me to many things, one of which was re-introducing me to Captain Beefheart, and he gave me a cassette of Shiny Beast which I still have.