The excellent Moby Grape are one of those bands where you hear them and think to yourself, “How did this band not make the big time?” and you’d be forgiven for wondering the same about the group’s bassist, Bob Mosley‘s self-titled 1972 album, which feels rather like a lost classic. Well, I say ‘feels like’, but it actually is a lost classic.
When you delve further into the history of Moby Grape, it all starts to make sense, given the unfortunate circumstances and controversies that befell the members, not least their long-running legal disputes with their former manager, and, specifically in Mosley’s case, being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
There were many other factors that would take too long to go into here, but all of this just makes the brilliance of the vast majority of Bob Mosley’s debut long player all the more remarkable. Take the rip-roaring opening track ‘The Joker‘, which is a raucous romp that is akin to if future metal legends Motörhead decided to use Steppenwolf as a key inspiration. It’s a breathtaking, foot-to-the-floor driving rock anthem and an absolute blast of an opening gambit.
Even better is the pedal-steel guitar beauty of ‘Thanks‘, Bob’s powerhouse vocal a thing of beauty here, with heart-rending lyrics that begin “Thanks for stopping by the house last night / I was tired, and I felt so all alone“, which could easily have been directed at his bandmates, who clearly cared a lot about him and would, in future years, try to help him out of the homelessness he endured through much of his life.
Knowing all of this just gives the record an added emotional authenticity that is at once both stirring and, at times, defiantly buoyant. There’s the blue-eyed soul of ‘Gypsy Wedding‘ where Mosley appears to have taken his cue from greats like Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett, or the white knuckle thrill-ride of ‘1245 Kearny‘ which runs ‘The Joker‘ close in terms of rocking out. It’s a superb track, as a lot of the songs here are. Others veer closer to the likes of The Animals or The Moody Blues, or, in the case of the stunning ‘So Many Troubles‘, both. It’s no stretch of the imagination, either, to think that Soundgarden may well have been paying attention.
Sure, tracks like ‘Gone Fishin‘ are perhaps a little more throwaway, a toe-tapping country tune, but even that has a kind of nonchalant charm about it. It’s the rockier, more blues-infused numbers that really shine through here, though.
Some of these songs wouldn’t have even sounded out of place on the soundtrack to Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s 1967 musical Hair, which is a huge compliment indeed.
If you missed out on Bob’s debut album at the time, or weren’t born yet, I can heartily recommend it. It’s simply a great record that deserves a whole lot more acclaim.
Bob Mosley is out now on OMAD.
