When Mother’s Finest takes the Miller Theater stage on Friday, Joyce “Baby Jean” Kennedy promises a party from the stage and a whole lot of fun.
“We’re going to have a good time with good music,” said the vocalist along with Glenn “Doc” Murdock, Jerry “Wyzard” Seay and Gary “Moses Mo” Moore are original performing members of the band founded in 1970.
Known for its fusion of sounds and genre, Mother’s Finest will bring favorites such as “Baby Love” and “Piece of the Rock” — two songs hardcore fans demand, Kennedy said.
“They get mad when you don’t play “Piece of the Rock’ and ‘Baby Love,’” she said.
To shake things up, Kennedy et al plan to throw in a Willie Nelson song although she was tightlipped about which one, and they’ve got some new songs to perform as well. Kennedy said band members were headed into the studio on Tuesday to record new tracks for an EP that should be released sometime next year.
A member of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, Mother’s Finest has rocked with artists in a wide array of genre, sharing bills with the likes of The Who, AC/DC and Black Sabbath as well as Parliament/Funkadelic, The Commodores and Ohio Players.
Members have been honored at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Band members went their separate ways for about six years to follow successful projects, but their tight bond brought them back together.
“We share life together in a way most bands don’t. We didn’t just come together all of a sudden. We came together in our teens. We lived together, and we stayed together, and we went through the whole drug era and came out of it together. And our decisions have always been made to make the band better because that’s what we want to do,” she said.
There’s something about their collective that Kennedy said is good for her spirit.
“Your spirit has to be serviced in a certain way,” she said.
While the music has evolved to stay fresh and relevant, Kennedy said it still has that same funky rock beat with bits of pieces of styles such as hip hop and jazz.
“We have so much to offer. The band is still musical; the new material is a little bit, I think a little bit more controlled than it used to be. It’s not all energy anymore. We don’t have the knees to jump off the drum riser anymore,” said Kennedy with a laugh. She added she’s also ditched her high platform heels for comfort. “We try to make it more listenable and memorable as possible because the memories are there, and we create new memories every time we play.”
Opening for Mother’s Finest is Augusta’s own Will McCranie who is excited to be part of the night.
“It’s an honor to have the opportunity to open for a band like Mother’s Finest, who’ve been burning down stages for 50 years, at the Miller. I’ve put together a band that is stacked with some of my favorite local favorites. Those gents are helping me take a trip down memory lane, diving through a lot of the songs I recorded/released during my time in NYC and working hard to recreate this studio arrangements. In a lot of cases, this will be the first time those songs have been performed live with those original arrangements,” wrote McCranie in a text.
The show starts at 7 p.m., and tickets are $39 to $59.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years and is a Georgia Press Association award winner. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
