Time and Place: Lee Moses

When is a gem most precious to us?

Lee Moses: Time and Place (Light in the Attic Reissue)

The first time I heard Lee Moses was after I bought the Time and Place reissue, sight unheard, during my first visit to Plaid Room Records in Cincinnati. I saw the Plaid Room Exclusive colorway for this LP and his singles and rarities album (How Much Longer Must I Wait) and scooped them up. If Plaid Room had an exclusive vinyl edition, I knew it was going to be for me. (Sidebar: this purchase also prompted my now-extensive Plaid Room colorway collection, but that’s another story.) From the baroque brocade framing his black and white portrait to the Maple Records label on the back cover, you could feel the deep soul contained within it. 

I had picked up another Maple LP (Gloria Barnes Uptown reissued by Colemine Records), and little did I know that the connective tissue between these two LPs extended beyond being labelmates. One, each record featured key members of the future Ohio Players. Two, both records would be albums that I routinely returned to throughout that first full year of living in Louisville. 

The fragmented history of the best cult artists used to pique the music geek/armchair sleuth in me, but I’m less concerned with making myth into flesh these days. While reading bios about Nick Drake or an oral history documenting Chris Bell’s life pre/post-Big Star are fascinating, I am simply happy to trade that research time for sinking into my speakers. What the needle reveals between the grooves is what ultimately matters most to me. Those pulses and pushes of beats and notes, screams and echoes, constantly rewrite and revise what it means to be alive. I can feel it carve meaning into my ribcage with every breath drawn and released. It’s like standing, ankle-deep, in the wake of the ocean on a clear morning. The elements are all there around you, and as you take them in, there are tiny transformations that extend moments into something more than an ever-present now. You are plugged into a continuum and artists like Lee Moses are your guides.

That’s the real secret of Time and Place. It’s not a title, it’s a reminder that those elements are only starting points, not a destination. 

Or time and place is context, and in this sense, Lee’s version of “Hey Joe” underscores another connection. He had worked with a young Jimi Hendrix, co-producing sessions with Maple’s Johnny Brantley. Lee’s “Hey Joe” coyly references Jimi throughout the rendition while delivering a vocal performance that replaces the guitar pyrotechnics with a gritty, raw, unvarnished earthiness missing from the more famous rendition. Spiritually, its nearly seven minute soul workout reminds me of Baby Huey’s psychedelic rendition of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.” 

Lee’s leather-lunged and world-weary beyond its years’ vocals give an equal heart and heaviness to “California Dreaming.” It’s interesting to think that Mama and Papa’s original became a deep soul cover standard in the 70s, and in many ways, Moses’ vocal performance is the standard for all other renditions to match. The bright brassy horns may feel like a summer’s day, but the heart and howl coming from Lee Moses’ voice rises from the midnight hour.  

While these covers would make a case for Time and Place’s reputation as an unheralded classic, it’s a pair of originals that give us both the southern funk and deep soul heartbreak sides of the Lee Moses coin. “Every Boy and Girl” has all the hallmarks of deep soul; the gospel organ, the high drama, and an earnest, yearning ache. “Got that Will” name drops contemporaries like Dionne Warwick, the Allman Brothers, and Sly Stone reminiscent of Arthur Conley’s “Sweet Soul Music” with one major difference — Moses aspires to join this constellation of stars rather than just admiring them from the earth below. 

Unfortunately, Time and Place would never reach escape velocity and success would remain elusive for Lee Moses career. That nebulous antihistory of missed connections and dashed dreams would just add another layer of obscurity to this record and add more mystery than myth. Lee would continue to play clubs as a guitarist and sideman throughout his hometown of Atlanta for the rest of his life. 

Time and Place isn’t about endings though, and it isn’t about discovery, or uncovering. Those aspects are really there for the listener to consider (or not) while spinning these sides. Not everything that catches light gets uncovered, and you already know about the glittering… for the rest of us, these records that shine the brightest aren’t vinyl gems, they are actually mirrors. What they reflect should also remind us that even when we connect with an amazing song, we are also looking for that same brilliance in ourselves.