Photos by Karolyn Veselka.
Started in 1995, and named after Graham Guest’s fifth-generation grandfather, Moses Guest is a Texas-based southern rock band that has just enough pop, jazz, funk, jam, and country in its veins to appeal to audiences of all stripes. The current line-up, formed in 1997, was voted Best Rock/Pop in the 2001 Houston Press Music Awards (“HPMA”). At the 2003 HPMA, Moses Guest and its members were nominated in three categories: Best Guitarist, Best Keyboardist, and Best CD.
Moses Guest has shared the stage with many great acts over the years, including Moe., Steve Miller Band, JGB, Willie Nelson, Los Lobos, Leftover Salmon, String Cheese Incident, Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise, David Nelson Band, Rebirth Brass Band, Jayhawks, Lisa Loeb, Colonel Bruce Hampton & the Fiji Mariners, and it played a HORDE Tour date in 1998 in Antioch, TN.
Nowadays, Moses Guest plays live shows every few months in Texas and in California and would be happy to play the larger summer festival circuit, but the band has largely been committed to working in the studio.
That studio focus is in evidence on their new album, Light, which marks the line-up’s twentieth anniversary and is their first album release since 2007’s Best Laid Plans. The super-tight, super-polished performances and arrangements hearken back to Moses Guest’s 2002 self-titled double-cd release. And the fact that Light was mastered by none other than Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios, London, does not hurt.
Light contains nine songs and features “Light” (the title-track), “Dawn,” “Emily,” “Free,” “Black Road,” and a rippingly Allman-esque revision of “California,” which revives the great southern rock anthem for us in epic fashion.
Light evokes a certain sophistication that can only come with twenty years of playing together, but the heart of the Moses Guest sound remains the same: it’s southern, it’s classic, it rocks, and it jams.
Rick Thompson: keys, vocals
Jeremy Horton: bass
James Edwards: drums, vocals
Graham Guest: guitar, vocals