My wife and I took a "rock and roll" tour of Toronto in 2012 and it was the most fun I'd had in a very long time. Growing up near SF I saw Moby Grape a few times when I'd go to the Fillmore and Avalon with my big brothers. From what I’ve heard Don moved to Toronto to be closer to other family that had relocated there and he’s doing OK. He appears to have discovered in Toronto what I would describe as being the closest thing to the SF music scene from the era around 1966-1967. They currently have some great young singer songwriters such as Jerry Leger, Ron Sexsmith and many others some of whom Don has been making music with. I imagine he is having a great time. I would move to Toronto in a heartbeat if it weren’t for those cold winters!
Next time I am in Toronto you know I will be headed to Osgood station to play a little tribute myself to Don. Id sit there all day and listen. What a treasure. So sad people have no idea who he is. Maybe thats why he did it who knows. All I know he can play anywhere and I can't. Hope I run into him there. Cheers.
I really don't know how to take this video. Is Don destitute, is this some sort of experiment? It would blow my mind to be walking along and see Don Stevenson and have the chance to hear him play. He looks healthy, sounds great. I hope for the best for him.
Don is too cool for school, like all my Moby Grape buddies. It wasn't mentioned in the video (I don't think), but he was the drummer in Moby Grape, what a fine drummer he is. I like his new expressions here, too.
Don was an amazing drummer and co-wrote many songs for one of the greatest San Francisco bands of the 1960s, Moby Grape. What a band! Moby Grape's first album is right up there with Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow" as one of the great albums of that time and place. (Buffalo Springfield copied Moby Grape's sound and three-guitar attack.) It's great to see that Don's still playing and enjoying it.
Heavens above, its Don Stevenson, the very talented drummer, singer and songwriter of the legendary Moby Grape - and he played a little guitar with the band, too, on one or two of his songs. I did not expect to see this. I do hope he is OK financially and is not busking solely because he has to do so for the money! As should be more widely recognised, Moby Grape was a truly great band (musically perhaps the very best of all the major San Franciscan bands (with the possible exception of the Quicksilver Messenger Service) but the music business at large (and especially their dastardly manager) did not serve them at all well (and may even have driven at least one band member to mental breakdown) and they never made it to the 'big time' despite some really excellent music across a number of albums (I loved their albums - the absolute classic 'Moby Grape', but also the underrated 'Moby Grape 69' and '20 Granite Creek', in particular). But the fact that I, like many others fans from way back, not only still remember the band fondly but also regularly listen to their albums after 50 years tells you that the group created something of permanent value with their music.
Don is my uncle he was married to my moms sister Melissa he was a super uncle to have as a kid growing up I would love to talk to him now it has been at least 30 years
