{"id":27219,"date":"2024-05-12T05:30:07","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T09:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27219"},"modified":"2024-04-09T14:36:27","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T18:36:27","slug":"take-five-grand-funk-lives-and-covers-great-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/12\/take-five-grand-funk-lives-and-covers-great-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Grand Funk Lives! (And Covers Great Songs)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Grand Funk (also known as Grand Funk Railroad) were major hit makers of the 1970s. The Flint, Michigan band\u2019s brand of straight-ahead rock won them a dedicated fan base. Critics weren\u2019t as kind \u2013 in fact, many despised the group \u2013 but history has been kinder to the band, and today they\u2019re recognized as exemplars of their era. Grand Funk\u2019s original run was 1969-1976; starting out as a trio of Mark Farner, Mel Schacher and Don Brewer, they added keyboardist Craig Frost in 1973. The band\u2019s eighth album, <em>Shinin\u2019 On<\/em> was released 50 years ago, in March 1974. Farner went solo in 1998; today the founding rhythm section of Brewer and Schacher are still rocking as Grand Funk Railroad.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the band\u2019s songs were original compositions; guitarist Mark Farner was the sole writer in the group in its early days, and when drummer Don Brewer started writing, the band scored even more hits like \u201cWe\u2019re an American Band.\u201d But the choices of occasional covers in the group\u2019s body of work provided a sense of the musical foundation upon which the band was built. Here are five rousing cover tunes from Grand Funk (Railroad).<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cInside Looking Out\u201d from <em>Grand Funk<\/em> (1969)<\/strong><br \/>\nOriginally by The Animals, \u201cInside Looking Out\u201d was their first hit on its release in 1966. Though the songwriting is credited to band members, the tune has its roots in a prison work chant collected decades earlier by musicologist\/folklorist Alan Lomax. \u201cInside Looking Out\u201d is notable as Grand Funk\u2019s sole Top 40 hit in the U.K.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XO-KLQChID8?si=2u3dQIvPETWApR6I\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cFeelin&#8217; Alright\u201d from <em>Survival<\/em> (1971)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe original version of \u201cFeelin\u2019 Alright\u201d was featured on the 1968 debut album by Traffic. Songwriter Dave Mason also recorded the song himself on a few occasions; among the most well-known covers of \u201cFeelin\u2019 Alright\u201d is Joe Cocker\u2019s 1969 recording. By the time Grand Funk Railroad covered it, the song had also been cut by Three Dog Night, Lulu, Lou Rawls, Hubert Laws, The 5th Dimension and others; more than two dozen other artists would also record versions of the tune. GFR\u2019s single bubbled under in the U.S. at #54, but it went Top 20 in Canada.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7tvRj1wFeGg?si=KtVFDhP7-rV-GNTY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cThe Loco-Motion\u201d from <em>Shinin&#8217; On<\/em> (1974)<\/strong><br \/>\nWritten by the Brill Building hit songwriting team of Carole King and Gerry Goffin, this song was a 1962 smash for Little Eva, the couple\u2019s babysitter. More than a decade later, Grand Funk Railroad revived the tune with a super-heavy arrangement full of foot stomps and hand claps. The song was a #1 hit for Grand Funk Railroad and their first-ever Platinum single (at least one million units sold in the U.S.). It was a highlight of the <em>Shinin\u2019 On<\/em> album, the second in a row to be produced by Todd Rundgren.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FULmAxNS4hk?si=sgF3YOvycFHG050N\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cSome Kind of Wonderful\u201d from <em>All the Girls in the World Beware!!!<\/em> (1974)<\/strong><br \/>\nOriginally waxed by r&amp;b group Soul Brothers Six in 1967, this tune was written by John Ellison. Grand Funk Railroad\u2019s version was released as a single in 1974, and it soared to the #3 spot on the U.S. Top 40 singles chart. The song earned the band its second Platinum Award for a single release. \u201cSome Kind of Wonderful\u201d would be the group\u2019s next-to-last Top 40 single.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NiaVYUdfAow?si=W0ry-IJd650MTzEc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cCan You Do It\u201d from <em>Good Singin\u2019, Good Playin\u2019<\/em> (1976)<\/strong><br \/>\nFirst recorded by The Contours in 1964, \u201cCan You Do It\u201d was written by Richard Street, then lead singer of little-known Motown group The Monitors (he\u2019d later join The Temptations as lead singer). Co-credited as the song\u2019s composer is Thelma Gordy, former wife of Motown head Berry Gordy. GFR\u2019s spirited reading of \u201cCan You Do It\u201d was released as a single, and it nearly cracked the Top 40.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hLyGe0MSpyU?si=Y-l7SidqY7sOTOzF\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Grand Funk (also known as Grand Funk Railroad) were major hit makers of the 1970s. The Flint, Michigan band\u2019s brand of straight-ahead rock won them a dedicated fan base. Critics [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,62],"tags":[935,5256],"class_list":["post-27219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-rawk","tag-grand-funk","tag-grand-funk-railroad","cat-27-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27221,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27219\/revisions\/27221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}