Mother's Finest is one of the few bands that successfully bridged "black" and "white" music -
if you accept that such a division really exists. It is a relation commonly supposed to have started with white British rockers discovering Blues and Soul, and bringing them back to America where radio was so segregated that each community stuck to its own station and had no contact with the other's music. That is, of course, an
oversimplification: African-American music could not have emerged from the slaves' communities without the appropriation of various European idioms: the folk ballad, marching band music etc. Anyway, sometime in the mid 60's the direction changed again: black musicians started including elements of rock and psychedelia which they borrowed from rock musicians who borrowed from the blues who borrowed from old European music who... Jimi Hendrix was one of the first, with the likes of Sly Stone and Funkadelic following. Even classic soul groups like The Temptations went psychedelic. Mother's Finest took Sly & The Family Stone's psychedelic soul and added some heavy metal guitar courtesy of Gary "Moses Mo" Moore - admittedly only the
second greatest guitarist bearing that name, but by a narrow margin. The band also featured two great soul singers in Joyce "Baby Jean" Kennedy and Glenn "Doc" Murdock and a super-funky bassist in Jerry "Wyzard" Seay. Apart from the first two, their albums are usually considered to be a hit-and-miss affair, but everyone agrees they were an explosive live band. This specific compilation, though, ignores the live recordings and eponymous 1972 debut and culls studio tracks from the next 5 studio albums. I will present them, as always with compilations, in chronological order: 1976's
Mother's Finest is their 2nd eponymous album, signifying the
real beginning of the band. Only two songs from this album, the hard rock dynamite "Fire" and funk rocker "Give You All the Love (Inside of Me)" are included. Too bad they didn't include the provocatively titled Southern Rock "Niggizz can't sang rock'n'roll". I know that
Southern Rock makes one think of Lynyrd Skynyrd and confederate flags, does the term sound weird appended to a predominately
black band?
Well, the band
did come from Atlanta, Georgia and
damn if thet don't sound like it. From 1977's
Another Mother Further (reviewed
here) we get "Baby Love", "Piece of the Rock" and disco "Dis Go Dis Way, Dis Go Dat Way". 1978's
Mother Factor puts hard rock aside to focus on the band's funk/soul side "Can't Fight the Feeling" and "Don't Wanna Come Back" are especially strong contributions, "Watch My Stylin'" is an overtly commercial dance tune. and "Thank You for the Love" a nice ballad with blues licks that remind me of that
other Gary Moore. On 1981's
Iron Age the band changed direction, embracing hard rock once again, as is evident in "Evolution", "Time" and "Movin' Out". It seems the band's direction changed in accordance with the directives of their company's A&R team pushing them towards funk or metal, depending on which was more commercially promising at the time. My impression is that they were naturally more inclined towards rock, as is evident from various band members' stints in such Southern Rock heroes as Molly Hatchett, Blackfoot, and the Outlaws. Too bad, than, that their company thought they could turn them into the American ABBA. Just a look on 1983's
One Mother to Another's
cover art is enough to grasp which audience they were aiming at: commercial disco music, with Moore fading into the background and co-vocalist Glenn Murdock disappearing - unless it's him credited with background vocals as "Male Ego". Baby Jean still sang (and looked) pretty well, but she's no Diana Ross and pop ballads like "Some Kind of Madness" and "Love Me Too" are not the best fit for her - not to mention the Euro-Disco of "Big Shot Romeo", "What Kind of Fool" and James Bond-ish "Secret Service". Why the compilers would choose to include half of the band's worst album in the CD beats me - especially when there are only 2 songs from "Mother's Finest" and nothing from 1979's "Live" which is commonly regarded as their finest hour. I considered dropping a
★ from my evaluation, but the fact is that there's still plenty of good stuff here.
***** for Fire, Baby Love, Give You All the Love (Inside of Me)
**** for Evolution, Don't Wanna Come Back, Thank You for the Love, Movin' On
*** for Dis Go Dis Way Dis Go Dat Way, Secret Service, What Kind of Fool, Can't Fight the Feeling, Piece of the Rock, Time, Some Kind of Madness, Watch My Stylin'
** for Big Shot Romeo, Love Me Too
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