March 23, 2009

Mod-A-Day: Mother Earth

Combining jazz, funk and sixties R&B into a meld of dancable rock was a mainstay of the acid jazz scene of the early 90s, and none did it better than Mother Earth. For some reason they never seemed to get the acclaim or the popularity of similar acts, most notably Corduroy and JTQ, but the band perservered to deliver four solid albums. Thier first, the People Tree was hailed as pretty much of a straight ahead jazz record, but the band seemed to not want to stay only in the jazz genre. This track, "Very Together," combines organs and guitars in a rousing bit of bluesy soul. Coming on their second release, You Have Been Watching and appearing along with a blistering hot cover of "Wham Bam Thank You Mam" it propelled the band more towards the sixties R&B and soul music than had been the case on their first album.

Mother Earth -- Very Together