![]() Today it's how much better you are than everybody else, you've got everything and they've got nothing. Imagine a rapper singing this today! Absolutely impossible. But what they ended up with was a number 3 on the Hot 100. But looking at the history of Grand Funk, I doubt the band would have come up with it. The Fantastic Johnny C, of "Boogaloo Down Broadway" fame, cut it the next year and had about the same level of success, which was not much, his version made it to #87.īut back before the chart was based on beats, when songs were everything, producers knew their history, they knew great numbers, they kept them in their hip pocked to rerecord at just the right time with just the right band.Īt least I think it was Jimmy Ienner's idea to record it. Which means most people in America never heard it. A band that reached the whopping number of 91 on the Hot 100 back in 1967. Yes, this is not the Goffin/King "Some Kind Of Wonderful," made famous by the Drifters, but a little known song written by John Ellison for his group the Soul Brothers Six. And he dug deep to find a track almost no one knew. Who knew how to make three minute hits from his tenure with the Raspberries. Especially if you're lucky enough to get a second wind, like Grand Funk. And if something works in rock and roll, you do it again. I'm not saying I loved it, but it did go to number 1.īut the formula was established. But somehow Grand Funk's rendition worked. Definitive in execution it was heresy to remake it. Little Eva's original was one of the very first singles I ever bought. Which is why on the next album, Todd went for a cover. What are the odds Grand Funk could write another hit song? ![]() Yes, "We're An American Band" was simple and dumb and that's what was so great about it! Furthermore, this was back before tech titans ruled the world, before we could watch our favorites on YouTube, the height of success was the rock and roll lifestyle, getting high, getting laid, and you went to the show to be close to the action, and try to score yourself.īut where do you go from here? Lightning rarely strikes twice. Make no mistakes, leave no fat, just make people want to hear it again and again and again. Wanna be remembered, forever? Capture magic in three minutes. ![]() But it was the cowbell, the drumming, the riff and Don Brewer's vocal exhortations. ![]() And this was the first time most white listeners had ever heard of Freddie King. And we loved hearing it! Come on, Sweet Connie became a legend, she single-handedly put Little Rock on the map, way before Bill Clinton. Hell, I don't know if anybody ever bought the single, never mind the album, "We're An American Band" was a radio track. And Todd delivered a killer track that sounded so right emanating from the car speaker. And sure, some make mistakes, the Beach Boys even went disco, but Grand Funk executed a masterstroke, they gave in to Rundgren and had the biggest hit of their career, "We're An American Band." And we LIKED IT! Yes, we were sick of hating the Detroit band, they'd been around long enough to have a sense of humor about themselves. Todd didn't labor over it, he just wanted to get it right, and get paid.Īnd no matter how big a star you once were, the smart ones realize when the whole enterprise is going in the wrong direction something's got to give. And that became his new career, producing albums. Still almost no one knew his work with his first band Nazz, but some had noticed he engineered the Band and was a wunderkind like McCartney, able to both play and record and produce everything. And then they hooked up with Todd Rundgren. Yes, as the seventies wore on, Grand Funk receded into irrelevance. Every album worse, especially the double live one. Come on, admit it, you like "I'm Your Captain (Closer To Home)." Especially when it slows down and gets moody.īut Grand Funk (they dropped "Railroad") still sucked. Spending no money.īut then, when the band had finally reached critical mass, they delivered something.listenable. That's what Capitol Records was famous for back then. Only to be followed up by something worse, the second album, "Grand Funk," with the cheesiest red cover of all time. Supposedly they stole the show at the Atlanta Pop Festival, in the wake of Woodstock, and this message was blasted into the hinterlands where no one ever heard any good music, and their initial album succeeded. Overpromoted by their manager/producer, former artist Terry Knight, they could not possibly live up to the hype. How many ways did we hate Grand Funk Railroad?
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