Moby Grape
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Moby Grape | |
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 Moby Grape in a photo used on their debut album cover. Back (l to r) Peter Lewis and Skip Spence, front (l to r) Jerry Miller, Don Stevenson and Bob Mosley.
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| Background information | |
| Origin | San Francisco, California, US |
| Genre(s) | Rock and roll, folk rock, garage rock, psychedelic rock |
| Years active | 1966 - 1971, sporadically thereafter |
| Label(s) | Columbia Records |
| Members | |
| Peter Lewis Jerry Miller Bob Mosley Skip Spence Don Stevenson |
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Moby Grape was an American rock group of the 1960s that was 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. Due to the strength of their debut album, several critics consider Moby Grape to be the best rock band to emerge from the San Francisco music scene in the late sixties.
[edit] History
The group was formed in late 1966 in San Francisco. (Although the origin of the name is uncertain, it is likely from the punch line of the joke "What's big and purple and lives in the ocean?") Frontman and rhythm guitarist Skip Spence (the original drummer for Jefferson Airplane), lead guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson (both formerly of the Frantics), rhythm guitarist (and son of actress Loretta Young) Peter Lewis (of The Cornells), and bassist Bob Mosley all wrote songs for their debut album Moby Grape (1967). Moby Grape has today achieved the status of a highly respected rock album. [1]
In a marketing stunt, Columbia Records immediately released five singles at once, and the band was perceived as being over-hyped. This was during a period in which mainstream record labels were giving unheard of levels of promotion to what was then considered counter-cultural music genres. Nonetheless, the record was critically acclaimed, and fairly successful commercially, with The Move covering its sardonic ode to hippiedom, "Hey Grandma." Spence's "Omaha" reached the lower rungs of the American singles charts in 1967, and Miller-Stevenson's "8:05" became a country rock standard (covered by Robert Plant, Guy Burlage, and others).
During the summer of 1967, the group appeared at the now legendary Monterey Pop Festival. Due to legal and managerial disputes, the group was not included in the D.A. Pennebaker produced film of the event, Monterey Pop. Moby Grape's Monterey recordings and film remain unreleased. In addition to the marketing backlash, band members found themselves in legal trouble for charges (later dropped) of consorting with underage females, and the band's relationship with their manager rapidly deteriorated.
The second album, Wow/Grape Jam, was generally viewed as a critical and commercial disappointment, even though the album charted at #20 in the Billboard Pop Albums charts, partially due to the unusual 2 albums for the price of 1 double-album packaging. Though Wow added strings and horns to some songs, their basic sound remained consistent from the debut album, featuring tight harmonies, multiple guitars, imaginative songwriting, and a strong level of musicianship. The Grape Jam LP was one of loose improvised studio jams with outside musicians; this detracted from the stronger tunes on Wow, such as the room-shaking shuffle "Can't Be So Bad."
Spence was supposedly never the same after ingesting large quantities of LSD (see also the biographies of Peter Green, Syd Barrett, and Roky Erickson). In the words of Miller: "Skippy changed radically when we were in New York. There were some people there that were into harder drugs and a harder lifestyle, and some very weird shit. And so he kind of flew off with those people. Skippy kind of disappeared for a little while. Next time we saw him, he had cut off his beard, and was wearing a black leather jacket, with his chest hanging out, with some chains and just sweating like a son of a gun. I don't know what the hell he got a hold of, man, but it just whacked him. And the next thing I know, he axed my door down in the Albert Hotel. They said at the reception area that this crazy guy had held an ax to the doorman's head." Spence was committed to New York's Bellevue Hospital; on the day of his release, he drove a motorcycle, dressed in only his pajamas, directly to Nashville to record his only solo album, with no other musicians appearing on it, Oar.
After the departure of Spence, the remaining four members released Moby Grape '69 in early 1969. Bob Mosley then left the group, and the remaining three released their final album for Columbia in late 1969 Truly Fine Citizen. The original five members re-united in 1971 and released 20 Granite Creek for Reprise Records. With Spence gone again, the remainder soldiered on for a few years, but, save for a reunion or two, essentially joining Miller's band in Santa Cruz, the group never returned to the level of excellence and popularity they enjoyed in the early Avalon Ballroom/Fillmore Auditorium days.
Bob Mosley and Jerry Miller, together with Michael Been on rhythm guitar and John Craviotto on drums recorded an LP at Larrabee Studios in Los Angeles circa '76 that was released on Polydor Records in Germany #2310-438 under the name of FINE WINE
The debut album and Wow/Grape Jam were first released on CD during the late 1980's by the San Francisco Sound label, a company owned by their former manager, Matthew Katz. These releases suffer from mediocre sound and poor quality packaging. As the group has never been properly compensated for recordings released by this label, these releases should be avoided. The 2 CD 1993 Legacy Recordings compilation Vintage: The Very Best of Moby Grape includes their entire first album and most of Moby Grape '69, selected tracks from Wow and Truly Fine Citizen, as well as studio outtakes and alternate versions, in much better quality. This compilation attracted new attention to the band and helped to re-introduce their music to a new audience. In 2005, the group was successful in a lawsuit against the former manager, and won back the legal ownership of their name, which they had lost in 1967.
Miller carries on today (2007) as the Jerry Miller Band, playing rockin' blues and the occasional Grape song. Homeless for years and suffering from long-term mental illness and a multitude of health ailments, the mercurial and brilliant Spence died in Santa Cruz, California, in 1999. In 2006, after three decades of court battles, the band finally won back its name from its much-hated (in the music industry) former manager Matthew Katz, and in celebration, announced a reunion show with all of its living members, bolstered by drummer Aynsley Dunbar (John Mayall, Frank Zappa, Journey) and keyboardist Pete Sears (Jefferson Starship), to be performed in January, 2007 at San Francisco's Fillmore. However, the reunion show did not take place due to scheduling conflicts. The Jerry Miller Band performed in Monterey for the 40th Anniversary of Monterey Pop in July of 2007. Finally, the reunited Moby Grape converged to perform a twenty-five minute set for over 40,000 fans at the Summer of Love 40th Anniversary Celebration in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in September of 2007.
In October 2007, Sundazed Records reissued the Grape's first five albums (with bonus tracks) on CD and vinyl . The following month, the label was forced to both withdraw and recall Moby Grape, Wow and Grape Jam from print on both vinyl and CD because of a new lawsuit by former manager Katz. Sundazed stated on their website that they were directed to withdraw the three titles by Sony BMG (inheritors of the band's original label, Columbia), from whom Sundazed had licensed the recordings.
Moby Grape was an example of a talented band that, through a combination of mismanagement and inexperience, unfortunately never fully realized its potential. Along with the Flamin' Groovies, they were somewhat of an anomaly in the San Francisco rock scene; their concision, and strong roots in country music and early rock and roll, seemed to work against them. In addition, perhaps because they were so versatile, their image was somewhat nebulous; as writer Robert Christgau put it, "All they really lacked was a boss, and what could be more American than that?"
[edit] Discography
- Moby Grape (1967)
- Wow/Grape Jam (1968)
- Moby Grape '69 (1969)
- Truly Fine Citizen (1969)
- 20 Granite Creek (1971)
- Great Grape (1973)
- Fine Wine 1976 Polydor German only with Bob Mosley, Jerry Miller, Michael Been, John Craviotto
- Live Grape (1978)
- Moby Grape '84 (1984)
- Vintage: The Very Best of Moby Grape (1993)
- Legendary Grape (2003)
- Cross Talk: The Best of Moby Grape (2004)
- Listen My Friends! The Best of Moby Grape (2007)
