Moby Grape - Moby Grape' 69 1969,Psychedelic Rock, Blues Rock
Moby Grape is an American rock group from the 1960s, known for having all five members contribute
to singing and songwriting and that collectively merged elements of folk music, blues, country, and jazz together with rock and psychedelic music.
Mention the name Moby Grape to a roomful of rock critics, and you'll hear nothing but praise for the 1960s San Francisco rock band. But aside from fans and critics, few people today have ever heard of
Moby Grape. Why? Bad advice, bad breaks and bad behavior are three short reasons. Now that a label is trying to right these wrongs by reissuing the group's first five records, old problems still stand in the way. The name Moby Grape comes from an absurdist punch line: What's big, purple and swims in the ocean? But the band that influenced groups ranging from Led Zeppelin to The Pretenders was no joke. Neither was its 1967 debut, according to Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke.
"It's one of the few rock 'n' roll albums of any era that you can say, 'That is a perfect debut album.' The songwriting on it is memorable โ you take those songs with you wherever you go. The triple-guitar
orchestration... it's not just power chords. Everyone is playing melodies and counter-melodies and rhythms. Very funky, also very country, very punk, very surf. And they were all singers. "When other San Francisco bands were stretching out with long, psychedelic jams, Moby Grape was producing catchy three-minute songs that were composed, played and sung by each member. Moby Grape's drummer, Don Stevenson, calls the songwriting process a "collective consciousness.
Moby Grape '69 is the third album by the psychedelic rock band Moby Grape, released on January 30, 1969. It is the first album after the departure of co-founder Skip Spence. Spence nonetheless is heard on
one song, "Seeing", presumably from the Wow/Grape Jam sessions, and positioned as the final song on Moby Grape '69. Moby Grape '69 is concise enough -- most of the songs are under three minutes and the whole thing clocks in at a shade under a half-hour -- and the high points come close to recapturing the electric magic of the group's nearly flawless debut, especially the gritty groove of "Hoochie," the doo wop influenced boogie of "Ooh Mama Ooh," the beatific joy of "It's a Beautiful Day Today," the raucous celebration of one "Trucking Man," and the folk-tinged wisdom of "If You Can't Learn from My Mistakes." However, even though these sessions found guitarists Peter Lewis and Jerry Miller,
bassist Bob Mosley and drummer Don Stevenson playing and singing at the top of their game and writing fine songs, the absence of Skip Spence, who left the band after Wow, robs Moby Grape '69 of a significant share of the energy and drive that was the hallmark of their finest studio work. It's significant that the album's most striking cut, the closer "Seeing," was writ
