Hey brothers and sisters! Wow, kinda quiet in here. Anyways, Mr.
Get Your Ass in the Groove and Move talks a bit about "the lost
years" (that's my feeling), the heartbreaking (no pun intended) GFR
back in action musical moves of 1981-83. I was actually too young to
be a part of the original Grand Funk phenomenon that concluded
in '76, but boy was I thrilled when Mark, Don & Dennis (damn it, no
Craig Frost!) put out the LP's Grand Funk Lives and What's Funk?
The "Lives" LP was definitely sledgehammer rock as Mark Farner
described the band's music in a Hit Parader interview at the time.
Hit Parader was actually the only magazine back then that paid much
attention to GFR at the time, unfortunately. I remember Circus just
barely gave them a mention at all, and Creem (they shoulda been on
the cover of THAT magazine) gave them a poorly written record review
(The guy was like thrilled that GFR had went back into the studio,
but, it was like he wasn't completely high on the record, liked it
but, well...)
The follow-up, What's Funk? again got the band some coverage in Hit
Parader, Mark very pleased about Dennis's vocal abilities. It was
also mentioned that Don Brewer was playing drums for Bob Seger, but
Mark insisted that (Don) was still the drummer for Grand Funk. Andy
Cavaliere(sp), their manager, suddenly died and that was just about
that, in fact, it was. What's Funk? had some good pop (always a
Farner strength), and a great cover of "This Is Man's World." But
the band just disappeared again with the media not really noticing.
Hey, did anyone else think that "No Reason Why" was Mark's feelings
about the John Lennon tragedy? I certainly did.