rocknroll_n_blues_queens | hidden gems - Joyce Kennedy of Mother's Finest (Reply)

Mother's Finest - Rocking

Mother's Finest @ROCKPALAST - Give it up (Encore)

Mother's Finest - Baby Love - live 1977

Mother' s Finest - Truth'll Set You Free 1978

And oh yes they went there:

Mother's Finest - Niggizz can't sang rock'n'roll (1976)

Mother's Finest is a funk rock band founded in Atlanta, Georgia by Joyce Kennedy and Glenn Murdock in the early 1970s. The group charted with the singles "Fire" (#93 Pop Singles), "Baby Love" (#79 Black Singles, #58 Pop Singles), "Don't Wanna Come Back" (#54 Black Singles), "Love Changes" (#26 Black Singles), and "Piece Of The Rock" in the mid to late 1970s.
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Joyce "Baby Jean" Kennedy of Mother's Finest:The Hippest Holy Roller Rock Music Has Ever Known

A super-cool act formed in Atlanta in the seventies, Mother's Finest made history as the first multicultural heavy metal band. But more specifically, Mother's Finest is considered the preeminent funk rock group, thanks in part to the woman who as co-lead vocalist sounded like quite the holy roller: Joyce "Baby Jean" Kennedy.

Lifting the spirits of funk rock fans to near-religious heights, Joyce Kennedy would part her lips at a microphone and something like a lightning bolt of soul struck a chord with all who heard her.

"Baby Jean" was born in a tiny Delta town called Anguilla, Mississippi, and was raised in Chicago. Which is where she met the man who would become her husband and co-lead vocalist, Glenn Murdock. Together, Joyce and Glenn embodied the next generation of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, but with a decidedly, hardcore rock 'n roll spirit. Joyce surely delivered the spine-tingling vocals for which Tina was known. But something of Joyce's voice also possessed the honey-drenched warmth of Gladys Knight, too.

Too out-of-the-box for black radio, too black for rock radio, Mother's Finest found -- and absolutely still has -- a loyal, cultish following.
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