Why It Matters

Mom’s Apple Pie’s self-titled debut might just be the coolest album in my stacks.  Not only were they a ten-piece funky band with lots of brass and a bad wah-wah who beat Foghat to market with their own version of “I Just Wanna Make Love To You,” but this is one of the greatest controversial album covers ever.

They don’t make music like this anymore.  I don’t mean that in a bitter old fart way; rather, music like this quite literally isn’t made anymore.  For one thing, the economics of a ten-piece don’t work.  That’s a lot of people with whom to split up the gate, not to mention its awfully hard to fit a group like that on a bar stage.  For another, big brass section, organ, and wah-wah simply aren’t in fashion, which is a shame.  Maybe it’s my seventies childhood talking, but to my ear this still rocks:

But in their day Mom’s Apple Pie managed to make the dollars work as openers for some huge names, including my beloved Bowie.  They must have been quite a sight jammed up there on the front lip of the stage, blowing it out.

Now, about that cover.  Mom’s pretty hot with her unbuttoned blouse, and that look on her face doesn’t seem appropriate for baked goods.  Speaking of which, why the heck is that pie dripping?  Why, I’ll just take a closer look at that missing slice, and…oh, you naughty little ragamuffins.

Warrant looks downright chaste in comparison.

The piegina was too much for retailers, so of course the cover was altered to save the children.  Given my proclivity for lace this version still wasn’t without its salacious merits:

The band squeaked out a second album, the appropriately titled Mom’s Apple Pie #2, with a cover cleverly designed to resemble the boxes in which reels of recording tape were packaged.  It’s a cool album, too, and features a funky version of Spirit’s “Mr. Skin”:

From there I’m not sure what happened, but that was it for Mom’s Apple Pie until a third album emerged last year.  The Suite was recorded along with the other two in the early seventies but never released.  It is now available as digital downloads from what appears to be the band’s official website.  You’ll also find some nice vintage photos there, but otherwise the site seems to be dormant.

Prices on vinyl copies of the Mom’s Apple Pie albums are all over the place, ranging from five to fifty bucks American.  Some of the music is a bit too early seventies to hold up (check out “Love Plays A Song,” for example), but overall these two are worthy of a place in your stacks.  Happy hunting.