Album Review

They had the looks, the songs, the guitars (three of 'em) and the singing(five drop-dead, blues-angel voices) -- everything they needed to be America'sBeatles and Rolling Stones combined. Everything except the luck. Six monthsafter releasing their first LP, Moby Grape, in June 1967, bassist BobMosley, drummer Don Stevenson, and guitarists Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis andSkip Spence were a mess and a half, struggling to make music amid legalcrises, Columbia's misguided hype (issuing five singles at once) and Spence'sdescent into drug-fueled psychosis. It would be a classic rock-biz tale offucking up, except for two things: (a) The Grape never gave up (they still gigwith the electricity of yore) and (b) Moby Grape. Cut in three weeksfor $11,000, Moby Grape is one of rock's truly perfect debut albums anda pivotal document of Sixties rock in radiant midmutation. Funky country, folkrock, acid punk, frat-band R&B: They're all here, whipped into a thirteen-songfireball of wide-screen vocals and meticulous guitar sizzle.

Made by a band with deep experience (Miller toured with Bobby Fuller; Spencewas an early member of Jefferson Airplane), Moby Grape is high in drama, broadin dynamics: the lusty, Beatle-ized gallop of "Hey Grandma"; the hyper-Byrdsblast of "Fall on You"; the genteel melancholy of "8:05"; the eccentrictension of the tempo and key changes on "Indifference." Mosley was apowerhouse singer who could do Otis Redding and Brian Wilson in a singlemeasure; Lewis' finger-picking guitar was a rich backdrop for Miller'sroadhouse-honed leads. Spence was the Grape's visionary imp, a man of greatmelodic gift and playful, if prophetic, madness. "Omaha" is just two and ahalf minutes long, but the Grape turned Spence's song into a thing of powerand beauty, full of medieval-choir luster and high-gear guitars.

"Omaha" is also Moby Grape in microcosm, the glory of a mighty band atan early but untouchable peak. Moby Grape never became stars, but with MobyGrape, their legend is secure. (RS 805)

DAVID FRICKE