Bob Mosley - History

History

Bob Mosley spent his adolescence in San Diego, where he graduated from Kearny High School. Mosley has had a varied musical career, including a prominent but interrupted role in Moby Grape during the 1967-1971 period, the commencement of a solo career in 1972, plus a period in 1977 playing with Neil Young in a band called The Ducks, which had a brief life and lamented demise.

Mosley's career has been plagued by the challenges of schizophrenia, as was the case with Moby Grape bandmate Skip Spence. Both musicians were homeless for several years. Mosley's schizophrenia was first diagnosed after he left Moby Grape in 1969, following the release of Moby Grape '69. Mosley shocked the remaining band members, in leaving the band to join the Marines. It was during basic training with the Marines that Mosley was first diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. He was discharged from the Marines nine months after basic training.

In 1996, three of Mosley's fellow band members, Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis and Don Stevenson, in part reformed Moby Grape with the objective of helping Mosley recover emotionally and financially. Bob Mosley describes the circumstances as follows: "In 1996, Peter Lewis picked me up along the side of a San Diego freeway where I was living, to tell me a ruling by San Francisco Judge Garcia gave Moby Grape their name back. I was ready to go to work again."

Unlike bandmate Skip Spence, whose musical output largely ceased within a few years of the onset of schizophrenia, Bob Mosley has been able to continue to write songs and record music for much of his life. His most recent solo release is True Blue, released on the Taxim label in 2005.