Moby Grape (album)

''Moby Grape'' is the 1967 debut album by rock band Moby Grape. Coming from the San Francisco scene, their reputation quickly grew to immense proportions, leading to a bidding war and a contract with Columbia Records. The album peaked at #24 on the ''Billboard'' 200 albums chart in September 1967.

Production

Production began on ''Moby Grape'' in Los Angeles in March 1967.Moby Grape. ''Moby Grape'' (Sundazed Records, 2007). Produced by David Rubinson, it took just six weeks, and $11,000, from March 11 to April 25, to record all thirteen tracks. Another song "Rounder" was also recorded, but no lyrics or vocals were completed for it at the time.

The cover photograph is by noted rock photographer Jim Marshall. On the original release, Don Stevenson is shown "flipping the bird" (making an obscene gesture) on the washboard. It was airbrushed out on subsequent pressings, but the UK reissue on Edsel/Demon restored it.

The flag behind Skip Spence is actually a United States flag that Columbia Records decided to obscure through airbrushing, presumably due to the political climate of the times. On the original release, the flag is colored red. When the cover was revised to remove the offending finger mentioned above, the flag was changed from red to black, again presumably due to possible political interpretations (the association of the color red with communism). The Edsel vinyl (1984) and CD (1989) re-issues restored the photo to its original state, with Don Stevenson's displayed finger and an un-airbrushed United States flag. Other CD re-issues use the cover from the first pressing, with the finger intact and the flag tinted red.

Reception

Released on June 6, 1967, Columbia chose also to place ten of the thirteen songs on five singles released on the same day: "Fall on You"/"Changes", "Sitting By the Window"/"Indifference" (2:46 edit), "8:05"/"Mister Blues", "Omaha"/"Someday" and "Hey Grandma"/Come in the Morning". Of these five, only "Omaha" and "Hey Grandma" charted. All five records were issued with picture sleeves showing the same album cover photo.

Nevertheless, as Gene Sculatti and Davin Seay write in their book ''San Francisco Nights'', ''Moby Grape'' "remains one of the very few psychedelic masterpieces ever recorded." Justin Farrar considered that "(i)t's no understatement to hail the group's 1967 debut as the ancestral link between psychedelia, country rock, glam, power pop and punk." In addition, the 1983 ''Rolling Stone Record Guide'' said their "debut LP is as fresh and exhilarating today as it was when it exploded out of San Francisco during 1967's summer of love." In 2003, the album was ranked number 121 on ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and 124 in a 2012 revised listing. It was also voted number 98 in Colin Larkin's ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'' 3rd Edition (2000)''.''

The album was included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in '' Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies'' (1981). As reviewed by Mark Deming in AllMusic, "''Moby Grape'' is as refreshing today as it was upon first release, and if fate prevented the group from making a follow-up that was as consistently strong, for one brief shining moment Moby Grape proved to the world they were one of America's great bands. While history remembers the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane as being more important, the truth is neither group ever made an album quite this good."

In 2008, Skip Spence's song "Omaha" was listed as number 95 in ''Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". The song was described there as follows: "On their best single, Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis and Skip Spence compete in a three-way guitar battle for two and a quarter red-hot minutes, each of them charging at Spence's song from different angles, no one yielding to anyone else."''Rolling Stone''
The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time
/ref> Writing in 1967, shortly after the album's release, Crawdaddy! creator Paul Williams described "Omaha" as "the toughest cut on the album (and) one of the finest recorded examples of the wall-of-sound approach in rock. It surges and roars like a tidal wave restrained by a seawall."

2007 Sundazed reissue

On October 9, 2007, Sundazed Records released a remastered CD version of the album's stereo mix containing bonus tracks, some of which were previously unreleased. In addition, Sundazed also released the album's mono mix on LP, but with no bonus tracks. Both the CD and LP versions were taken out of print, along with ''Wow'' and ''Grape Jam'', on November 3, 2007, for reasons not officially stated. It has been widely circulated among the Moby Grape mailing list that former manager Matthew Katz, with whom the band has been in legal battles since the late 1960s, threatened to file a lawsuit against Sundazed claiming ownership of the album artwork.

Notable covers and soundtrack inclusions

Robert Plant covered "8:05" and "Naked If I Want To" as B-sides to 1993 singles; "8:05" is also included on the expanded reissue of his ''Fate of Nations'' album on Rhino Records. Robert Plant also performed "Hey Grandma" live when with his pre-Led Zeppelin Band of Joy, during the 1967-1968 period. The Move covered "Hey Grandma" on their self-titled first album, released in 1968. More recently, "Hey Grandma" was included in the soundtrack to the 2005 Sean Penn-Nicole Kidman film, ''The Interpreter'', as well as being covered in 2009 by the Black Crowes, on ''Warpaint Live''.

Cat Power has recorded two covers of "Naked, If I Want To" which appeared on her 2000 album ''The Covers Record'' and on the limited edition of her 2008 album ''Jukebox''.

"Omaha" has been covered by The Golden Palominos in 1985 on their '' Visions of Excess'' album, with Michael Stipe on lead vocal. The song has also occasionally been performed live in concert by Bruce Springsteen.

"Ain't No Use" has been covered by bluegrass band Long Road Home.

"8:05" appears on Christy McWilson's 2002 album ''Bed of Roses'', as a duet with Dave Alvin, and on the 2013 album ''Have Harmony, Will Travel'' as a duet by Peter Case and Carla Olson.

British band Diesel Park West have covered many Moby Grape songs both on record and live. From this album, they covered "Lazy Me" on their outtakes album ''Flipped'' from 1990. They have covered "Fall On You" live and based the opening track, "Charlotte, It’s All Over" from their latest album ''Do Come In, Excuse The Mess'' around the guitar riff.

In 2015, band member Peter Lewis's daughter Arwen recorded a track-by-track cover of the album. It released October 2, 2015.

Track listing

Personnel

;Moby Grape
* Peter Lewis – rhythm guitar, vocals
* Jerry Miller – lead guitar, vocals
* Bob Mosley – bass, vocals
* Skip Spence – rhythm guitar, vocals
* Don Stevenson – drums, vocals

Charts

Album - ''Billboard''

Singles - ''Billboard''

References

External links

''Moby Grape''
(Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)

{{Authority control

Moby Grape albums
1967 debut albums
Albums produced by Dave Rubinson
Columbia Records albums