1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 91. Moby Grape – Moby Grape (1967)

 

The next batch of albums feature three artists I’ve never heard of, and one that I have heard *of* but (aside from a collaboration with Frank Zappa), I’ve never heard (Captain Beefheart).

But first, Moby Grape, part of the San Francisco sound, and maybe a little like Jefferson Airplane in sound, but more towards country rock and less psychedelic. And they’re good, by gum, when they’re good. I’m picking up a bit of Wishbone Ash as well, which is unsurprising perhaps as both groups have multiple inter-weaving lead guitars. Maybe a little like another overlooked group, Fanny (yes, British readers, that was their name).

The trajectory of Moby Grape is a sad one, because they could have been much bigger than they were, could easily have been a familiar name like many of the other groups arising from the Summer of Love. But they were beset with mental illness, legal and money problems, lengthy disputes with a grasping manager, but they somehow limped on into the start of the twenty-first century, so full marks for perserverence.

Most of the tracks are quite short, especially the whimsical Naked If I Want To. Omaha features a fast driving rhythm and hot guitar licks over the top, Changes is a classy track and probably the most complete feeling tune on the album; as a whole it builds and grows on you, what seems like some fairly typical country/folky hippy rock suddenly makes you sit up and take notice at the skill going on. Apart from them maddeningly sounding like something else that I can’t quite work out. My first thought was the overlap in a Venn diagram of The Rolling Stones and The Eagles, but that doesn’t do them justice. They are just Moby Grape.

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