Following a spectacular Europe-wide
Rockpalast television gig in the late seventies, they ruled the world in Europe for a few years. They simply smoked that one night in 1978 and brought an original mix of funk and rock to European living rooms. I remember seeing it at the time and thinking: "Wow, how energetic and smart is this?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmbaHaiIldA&feature=relatedPeople loved them and their record sales soared. But then they began to lose their way: Following their live album, they felt they should lean more towards disco funk with the next release - this at a time when the sound of contemporary black music was pretty much defined by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, Mother's Finest wanted a share of that cake - it alienated rock fans. Then they reversed things with a very metal album in the early eighties - without the funk influence, however, they lost what made them special. I think the fact that their great keyboarder left/was fired, had a lot to do with it. While Mother's Finest can still entertain, the two guitar line up they sport today never sounds as elegant to me as that slightly jazzy keyboard playing they had in the
Rockpalast night. It was the icing on the cake.
They tend to lay the blame for not breaking the US on format radio: Too black for rock radio, too rock for black radio. There might be some truth to that, but it doesn't explain why they failed to sustain their success in Europe (after a spectacular start, reaching tens of millions of rock fans in one night and blowing them away), where many of their songs from the late seventies era became radio staple and the race mix was part of their appeal. Seems more like bad management and band politics to me.
Uwe
