Moses Guest
The current lineup formed in 1998, was voted "Best Rock/Pop Band" in the 2001 Houston Press Music Awards, and have won numerous Battle of the Bands contests. The band has been selling out shows in Houston since 1999, and concentrating hard on winning over their region, with frequent tours through the South and West. On the recording end, the band has self-produced four CDs, and one EP, on its own record label, Aufheben Records. Their last effort, a double, self-titled, studio disc set, "Moses Guest" was released in 2002, and is currently still being played by everyone who bought one. Moses Guest has shared the stage with many great acts in the past few years (and ain't that the truth), including Moe (twice), Steve Miller Band, JGB Band, Willie Nelson, Los Lobos, Leftover Salmon, String Cheese Incident, Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise, David Nelson Band, Rebirth Brass Band, The Jayhawks, Lisa Loeb (acoustic), and Colonel Bruce Hampton and the Fiji Mariners (on H.O.R.D.E. 1998 sidestage in Antioch, TN).
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.