When I became involved with Ted Nugent’s recording, I spent quite a bit of time in Atlanta. We were recording at The Sound Pit, a nice little studio in downtown Atlanta owned by a man named Mike Thevis, who apparently had something to do with pornography, and who also apparently spent some time in prison as a result. I never met Mr. Thevis, but I did become very friendly with the house engineer, Tony Reale. Tony was a great engineer with a very agreeable personality. Aside from engineering my early records with Ted, he also mixed the Johnny Nash hit “I Can See Clearly Now.” To a visitor like myself, Atlanta in the Seventies had the feeling of a boom town – we were told that women outnumbered men three to one, and the population was young. There was a buzz about the town, and a festive atmosphere. Anyone who grew up in the South and had a dream seemed to be drawn to Atlanta in order to realize that dream.

The Omni Hotel complex was brand new at that time, and it became my home away from home. My room overlooked the indoor ice rink, and the restaurant on the ground floor (Mimi’s) served great food and was moderately priced (as, it seemed, was everything in Atlanta). The Omni complex also housed the Omni Center, which was the largest indoor sports facility in Atlanta, and which became the largest concert hall in town, as well. When Ted headlined the Omni just after the release of our second album, Free For All, it was the first time I heard “Cat Scratch Fever.” I called my boss in New York the next morning and announced that Ted had finally written a hit single. While CBS Records was having one of its winter mini-conventions in Atlanta, Gregg Geller and I went over to see a band that had been recommended to me. They were called Mother’s Finest, and they were appearing at another major venue in town at the time, Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom.

I think it’s fair to say that this band, about whom we knew nothing in advance, fairly incinerated the stage. Fronted by a tiny package of dynamite named Joyce Kennedy and her husband Glenn, this was basically a black hard rock band, years before the days of Living Colour. The bass player, Wizard, went on to play bass for Stevie Nicks. He was a tall, grinning man whose physical dominance made the bass guitar appear as a toy in his giant hands. He just slapped that instrument silly. The drummer and lead guitar player were white, but in this band, the music was really dark gray – their main influence was Zeppelin, but with a very high funk quotient. (more…)