Barbara Mauritz is best known as the singer for Lamb, the intriguing San Francisco band of the late 1960s and early 1970s who put out three albums mixing jazz, folk, singer/songwriter pop, gospel, classical, and avant-garde styles. She also wrote much of Lamb's material, both alone and with fellow Lamb member Bob Swanson. Her strong vocals, shaded with blues and gospel, were crucial to the convincing delivery of Lamb's unusual lyrics, which often addressed poetic and mystical themes uncommon in pop music.

Lamb moved from their almost experimental beginnings to a more mainstream rock sound, while retaining strong elements of gospel up to the time of their third and last album, Bring Out the Sun. That record was co-billed as Barbara Mauritz and Lamb, and soon Mauritz started a solo career, putting out Music Box on Columbia. Moving into a far more mainstream rock sound than any of the Lamb albums, it was a disappointment in that it wasn't nearly as distinctive as what she'd done with her old band, though her bluesy vocals were undiminished. In fact, the majority of the material on Music Box was not her own, but were actually covers of songs by writers like Stephen Stills, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Link Wray, Chuck Berry, and Loudon Wainwright III. Too, the arrangements were cluttered by the use of (literally) dozens of session musicians, among them Anita Pointer of the Pointer Sisters, who covered Mauritz's River Boulevard on the 1973 album The Pointer Sisters. It was only on a few of Barbara's own songs that a more personal vision, and more of her non-rock jazz/gospel/classical influences came through. Certainly the move toward a more normal commercial sound didn't help her commercially, as the album didn't chart.

The failure of Barbara Mauritz to release more material on record after Music Box was an unfortunate loss to the music scene, although she continued to perform and write, composing music for many commercials. ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi