During the height of their popularity, Grand Funk Railroad lived up to the title that they had anointed upon themselves as the American Band. Although they were almost universally despised and reviled by music critics the world over, to their legion of fans, GFR personified the restless spirit of the first generation of post- flower children and the growing angst and fist pumping rage that was brewing within the youth culture.
With their chunky, heavy metal-lite power chord anthems and wild, almost spastic, stage presence, Grand Funk stomped their way into the popular consciousness almost immediately and rode the wave for several years before the tides of popularity shifted once again.
Like so many bands of the era, Grand Funk was formed from the left over parts of several marginal bands. Initially, a local dee-jay, Richard Terrance Knapp, decided to leave radio and get into the music business. After spinning records at a few gigs with a local band by the name of The Jazz Masters (Don Brewer – drums, Bob Caldwell - keyboards and Herman Jackson – bass), Knapp spun a tale to try an impress the group.
He told them that he was close personal friends with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. With his so-called friendship with the Stones and his radio connections, the group invited Knapp to join the band as their lead singer. Knapp immediately changed his name and began calling himself Terry Knight. The group then changed their names to The Pack in an attempt to sound more "hip".
The group began to gather a following and even scored a #46 hit with "I Who Have Nothing." When bassist Jackson was drafted into the Army, he was immediately replaced by a young guitarist by the name of Mark Farner. Knight eventually moved on to other ventures and the band continued on without him.
In 1968, Brewer and Farner decided to leave the band as well and form up their own venture. They recruited Question Mark? and The Mysterians bass player, Mel Schacher and created Grand Funk Railroad. The band was named after the Grand Trunk Railroad, the main rail line that ran through Flint, Michigan. By this time, Knight had hooked up with a position at Capitol Records in New York but accepted an offer to become the bands manager.
The bands first professional gig was in Buffalo, New York in March of 1969. Four months later, the band played (for free) in front of over 100,000 people at the Atlanta Pop Festival. The high energy set was so well received by the fans that the band was asked to play each of the remaining days of the festival. More importantly it was seen by Capitol Records executives who immediately signed them to the label.
With Knight taking the role as producer, Grand Funk released their debut album On Time by fall of 1969. By 1970, On Time had gone gold. That same year, the band released their second album, the self titled Grand Funk (also known as the red album). Although neither album spawned radio gold for the band, there was a continued growing interest in the band among youthful record buyers.
The band was starting to come together with a loose, power trio format with a more than a casual nod to their admitted influences like The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream although they were not nearly as technically proficient nor as adept at lyric writing as either band.
1970 was a huge year for Grand Funk Railroad. Following up Grand Funk, the band released Closer To Home which contained their first certifiable hit, the title track "Closer To Home/I'm Your Captain." In what has become somewhat of a legend in music marketing lore, Knight allegedly spent $100,000 for a full-sized billboard in Times Square in the heart of Manhattan to promote the album and single.
It worked. Despite panning by the rock press, the album was certified multi-platinum and Grand Funk hit with #22 with the single. According to Mark Farner, the song came to him in his sleep. He claims that he woke one night with the lyrics in his head. He jotted them down and fell back asleep. When he woke up in the morning, he grabbed his guitar and was strumming a new melody. He had forgotten about the lyrics he had written in the middle of the night but when he saw what he had written, the song essentially completed itself.
The band finished up 1970 in what would become a tradition in the 70's by releasing a double-live album, titled simply, Live Album.
In 1971, the band released two more albums, Survival and E Plurbis Funk and then went on to set a record for selling out two shows at New York's Shea Stadium in less than 72 hours, faster than even The Beatles had done. This record, according to available records, stands today.
By late in the year, the band began to have misgivings about Knight's fiscal and managerial styles, resulting in Knight being fired from the band in early in 1972. This act launched a protracted legal cat fight where Knight sued the band for breach of contract. This battle mired the band in the courts for quite some time and resulted in GFR buying out Knights contract for several million dollars.
By 1972, GFR added another dimension to their band by inviting keyboardist Craig Frost to join up. However Frost was not their first choice for a new member. Initially Farner and company had tried to attract Peter Frampton to join since he had recently parted ways with Humble Pie. Frampton had to decline the offer due to his having signed a solo deal with A&M Records. The addition of a keyboard player helped change the overall sound of the band from that of a power trio to a more rhythm and blues approach.
Their sixth album, Phoenix, released in 1972 showed a marked maturity in the songwriting skills of Farner and Brewer. The album produced one Top 40 hit, "Rock and Roll Soul" and did peak at #7 on the Billboard charts.
Following Phoenix, the band was looking to refine their sound a little further and hired famed producer Todd Rundgren for the next few albums. It proved to be a fortuitous move – with Rundgren at the production helm, the band created, according to many critics, their finest albums in We're An American Band in 1973, All The Girls In The World Beware in 1974 and Shine On also in 1974.
The single "We're An American Band" was their first Number #1 single with "The Loco-Motion" (originally a number one for Little Eva) also reaching #1. The success with "The Loco-Motion" was one of the rare times in charted music when two artists had number #1 hits with the same song.
According to rock critic and historian Dave Marsh in his book "The Heart Of Rock And Soul", the creation of the song "We're An American Band" was the result of a bar room argument between the members of Grand Funk and Humble Pie. Apparently the bands were relaxing after a show. The bands began to argue over the differences and relative worthiness between British and American rock and roll. GFR's drummer, Don Brewer, caught up in the heat of the argument, leapt from his chair, stared down the members of Humble Pie and proudly slurred "We're an American band…" Shortly thereafter, Brewer approached the members of the band with the lyrics for the song and with the help of Rundgren, GFR made the leap to superstardom.
Despite having achieved incredible popularity and success throughout the early to mid-70's, by 1975 tension and arguments over their future musical direction began to take its toll on the band. The decision to call it quits had been made but contractual obligations forced them to stay together.
To fulfill a contract with Capitol, the band went out on tour and recorded a double live disc. However Capitol refused to allow them out of their contract since the live disc contained "previously released material" and pushed the band back into the studio. They cut Born To Die, to barely a yawn from the public and continued mistreatment by critics.
However by 1976, the band had reunited and recorded Good Singing, Good Playing with Frank Zappa handling the production chores. But the tensions resurfaced again even during the re-mix of the disc and the band officially disbanded again in 1977.
Mark Farner continued on as a solo act for two albums, Mark Farner in 1977 and No Frills in 1978, this time not only dismissed by critics but by most of his fans. The remaining former members of GFR returned home to Michigan and continued to perform as a new outfit, calling themselves Flint. They recorded two albums, one released to little fanfare and the second remains sitting in a vault somewhere, unreleased.
In 1981, Farner, Brewer and recently added keyboardist Dennis Ballinger reformed the GFR once again and recorded two albums, What's Funk and Grand Funk Lives. Neither album did much on the charts and the band, again discouraged, disbanded.
Farner went onto to record three Christian albums, earning himself a DOVE nomination with the Beland composition "Isn't It Amazing?" In 1994 – 1995, Farner toured with Ringo Starr's All-Stars and again reunited with Brewer and Schacter for a handful of Grand Funk reunion dates. The limited dates went so well, the band officially formed up again and toured heavily from 1996 through 1998 including a benefit for Bosnian orphans in 1997. But in keeping with their track record throughout the years, again, they disbanded.
At this point Brewer and Schacter continue to tour under the label of Grand Funk Railroad although Farner continues to fight them legally for the use of the name.
For a band that was a very popular target for grousing critics (Rolling Stone Magazine once called their music "wretched") and fellow musicians, Grand Funk Railroad created some memorable tracks that continue to catch airplay on classic rock radio and are near perfect fodder for garage bands everywhere.
In the space of a few short years, a group of twenty something's went from practically nothing to very wealthy musicians, selling out stadiums around the world and holding a catalogue of million selling records.
Not bad for a band that Rod Stewart once described as "pure white noise".
[FONT=Tahoma]"All I can do is be me ... whoever that is". Bob Dylan [/FONT]
