Product Review

Moby Grape followed the expansiveness of 1968's Wow with an unadorned, back-to-basics sound on this, their fourth long-player. Bob Mosley's understated vocal makes the ballad "It's a Beautiful Day Today" one of the great Grape tracks, Peter Lewis' stately "I Am Not Willing" is still a stunner and "Trucking Man" and "Ooh Mama Ooh" show that nobody could rock a shuffle like guitarist Jerry Miller and company. Most of '69 was recorded as a quartet, with Skip Spence having just left the band. His parting gift, "Seeing," is an alternately tender and tough tab of psychedelia that prefigures his rightly touted solo album, Oar.