Mother Earth

The blues-rock group Mother Earth, active from the late 1960s into the early 1970s, operated under the direction of vocalist Tracy Nelson and produced multiple releases that received limited recognition at the time. Originally hailing from Madison, Wisconsin, Nelson was spotted by producer Sam Charters during her studies at the University of Wisconsin, which resulted in a contract with the Prestige imprint. Her first solo effort, the folk-oriented Deep Are the Roots, arrived in 1965; when commercial traction proved elusive, she shifted to San Francisco in pursuit of assembling a full rock ensemble. Mother Earth soon took shape on the West Coast, delivering sets at Fillmore West that placed the band in support slots alongside Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Burdon. A contribution to the 1968 film soundtrack Revolution, shared with the Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Steve Miller Band, preceded a deal with Mercury Records that yielded a consistent sequence of albums through the early 1970s.

Those titles encompassed Living with the Animals in 1968, Tracy Nelson Country and Make a Joyful Noise in 1969, Satisfied in 1970, Bring Me Home in 1971, Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth in 1972, and Poor Man's Paradise in 1973, after which Nelson launched a solo trajectory. A 1974 Grammy nomination arrived for the duet “After the Fire Is Gone” with Willie Nelson, and further solo projects continued until the early 1980s, when growing dissatisfaction with prevailing pop trends prompted a hiatus—though she supplied backing vocals for Neil Young during the mid-1980s, among them an appearance at the 1985 Live Aid concert. Nelson reentered recording in the 1990s, opening with In the Here and Now in 1993 and maintaining a schedule of solo releases, including the 1998 collaboration Sing It! with Marcia Ball and Irma Thomas that earned another Grammy nomination.