| The Grass Roots | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Folk rock, psychedelic folk, psychedelic rock, pop rock |
| Years active | 1966–present |
| Labels | Dunhill, ABC, Haven, MCA, Gusto, RFG, Cleopatra |
| Website | the-grassroots.com |
| Members | |
| Mark Dawson Joe Dougherty Dusty Hanvey Larry Nelson |
|
| Past members | |
| See Members | |
The Grass Roots is an American rock band that charted between 1966 and 1975 as the brainchild of songwriting duo P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri.
In their career, The Grass Roots achieved two gold albums, one gold single and charted singles a total of 21 times. Among their charting singles, they achieved top ten 3 times, top twenty 3 times and top forty 8 times.[1][2] They have sold over twenty million records worldwide.[3]
Early member Rob Grill and a newer lineup of The Grass Roots continued to play many live shows each year.
Contents |
The name "Grass Roots" originated in late 1965 as the name of a band project by the Los Angeles, California songwriter and producer duo of P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri. Sloan and Barri had written several songs in an attempt by their record company, Dunhill Records (owned by Lou Adler) to cash in on the budding folk rock movement. One of these songs was "Where Were You When I Needed You," which was recorded by Sloan and Barri and a now forgotten line-up of studio musicians. Sloan provided the lead vocals and played guitar. The song was released under "The Grass Roots" name and sent, as a demo, to several radio stations of the San Francisco Bay area.
When moderate interest in this new band arose, Sloan and Barri went to look for a group that could incorporate The Grass Roots name. They found one in a San Francisco group named "The Bedouins" and cut a new version with that band's lead vocalist, Willie Fulton. In late 1965, the Grass Roots got their first official airplay on Southern California radio stations, such as KGB(AM) in San Diego and KHJ in Los Angeles with a version of the Bob Dylan song, "Mr. Jones (Ballad of a Thin Man)". For some months, The Bedouins were the first "real" Grass Roots — but the partnership with Sloan and Barri broke up when the band demanded more space for their own more blues rock-oriented material (which their producers were not willing to give them). Willie Fulton, Denny Ellis, and David Stensen went back to San Francisco, with drummer Joel Larson the only one who remained (he was to become a member of a later Grass Roots line-up as well). In the meantime, the second version of "Where Were You When I Needed You" peaked in the top 40 in mid-1966; an album of the same name sold poorly, probably because there were no Grass Roots anymore to promote it at the time of its release.
Still looking for a group to record their material and promote it with live dates, in 1966 Sloan and Barri offered Wisconsin-based band The Robbs (for whom they produced some early material) a chance to assume the identity of The Grass Roots, but the group declined.
Coincidentally, the L.A.-based band Love at one point in 1965 also used the name "The Grass Roots". However, this group had no other connection to Sloan and Barri, and immediately changed their band name to Love once they became aware of the existence of Barri and Sloan's Grass Roots.
The group's third — and by far most successful — incarnation was finally found in a Los Angeles band, called The 13th Floor (not to be confused with the 13th Floor Elevators). This band consisted of Creed Bratton, Rick Coonce, Warren Entner, and Kenny Fukomoto and had formed only a year earlier before submitting a demo tape to Dunhill Records.[4] Rob Grill was recruited into the band when Fukomoto was suddenly drafted into the army. The band was offered the choice to go with their own name or choose to adopt a name that had already been heard of nationwide.
In the beginning, they were one of many U.S. guitar pop/rock bands, but with the help of Barri and their other producers, they developed a unique sound for which they drew as heavily on British beat as on soul music, rhythm and blues and folk rock. Many of their recordings featured a brass section, which was a novelty in those days among American rock bands, with groups like Chicago just developing.
The bulk of the band's material continued to be written by Dunhill Records staff (not only Sloan and Barri). The Grass Roots also recorded songs written by the group's musicians, which appeared on their albums and the B-sides of many hit singles.
As The Grass Roots, they had their first Top 10 hit in the summer of 1967 with "Let's Live for Today", an English-language cover version of "Piangi con me", a 1966 hit for the Anglo-italian quartet The Rokes. "Let's Live For Today" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.[5] With Rob Grill as lead singer, they recorded a third version of "Where Were You When I Needed You." The band continued in a similar hit-making vein for the next five years (1967–1972).
The Grass Roots played at the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival on Sunday, June 11, 1967, in the "summer of love" as "Let's Live For Today" was at #15 and climbing. This music festival is important because it occurred just days before the Monterey Pop Festival but did not have a movie to document it for the ages (see List of electronic music festivals). On Sunday, October 27, 1968, they played at the San Francisco Pop Festival as their hit "Midnight Confessions" was peaking at #5 and then played at the Los Angeles Pop Festival and Miami Pop Festival in December 1968.
In 1969, Creed Bratton left and was replaced by Dennis Provisor on keyboards and vocals, plus rotating lead guitarists Terry Furlong and Brian Naughton to form a quintet — the first of many line-up changes that the band was to be subject to.
The Grass Roots with their new members played at Newport Pop Festival 1969 at Devonshire Downs, which was a racetrack at the time but now is part of the North Campus for California State University, Northridge. The group played on Sunday, June 22, 1969, a week before their hit "I'd Wait A Million Years" reached the Hot 100. In Canada, they played at the Vancouver Pop Festival at the Paradise Valley Resort in British Columbia in August 1969 (see List of electronic music festivals).
In 1971, both of the band's alternating lead guitarists, Terry Furlong and Brian Naughton left, leaving the remaining the group a quartet for their latest album, Their 16 Greatest Hits, and the single, "Sooner or Later." However, drummer Rick Coonce and keyboardist Dennis Provisor left the following year (although Provisor was featured on the band's 1972 Move Along album) and were replaced by Reed Kailing, Virgil Weber and original member Joel Larson. The singer/songwriter/guitarist duo of Warren Entner (later a successful heavy metal manager with groups such as Rage Against the Machine and Quiet Riot) and Rob Grill remained the point of focus in all these years.
The group's songs during 1967-1972 include "Let's Live For Today (U.S. #8)" and "Things I Should Have Said" (U.S. #23) (1967); "Midnight Confessions" (U.S. #5, their biggest hit) (1968); "Bella Linda" (U.S. #28), "Lovin' Things" (a cover of a UK hit by Marmalade the previous year) (U.S. #49), "The River Is Wide" (U.S. #31), "I'd Wait A Million Years" (U.S. #15), and "Heaven Knows" (U.S. #24) (1969); "Walking Through The Country" (U.S. #44), and "Baby Hold On" (U.S. #35) (1970); "Temptation Eyes" (#15), "Sooner Or Later" (U.S. #9), and "Two Divided By Love" (U.S. #16) (1971); "Glory Bound" (U.S. #34) and "The Runway" (U.S. #39) (1972).
Follow-up singles sold disappointingly or failed to chart. The 1976 single "Out In The Open" became their swan song, with the band having disbanded the previous autumn. The 1978 14 Greats album by Gusto Records featured Rob Grill, but none of the other original members, and consisted of 1978 versions of their hits.
Rob Grill remained in the music business and launched a solo career in 1979 (assisted on his solo album by several members of Fleetwood Mac). When interest in bands of the 1960s began to rise again in the 1980s, Grill reformed The Grass Roots and toured the United States and Japan. He continued to lead the band into the current millennium as The Grass Roots sole owner and made special appearances with the band until his death.
In 1982, The Grass Roots performed an Independence Day concert on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., attracting a large crowd and setting a record for attendance at an outdoor concert.[6][7] However, in April 1983, James G. Watt, President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, banned Independence Day concerts on the Mall by such groups. Watt said that "rock bands" that had performed on the Mall on Independence Day in 1981 and 1982 had encouraged drug use and alcoholism and had attracted "the wrong element", who would mug people and families attending any similar events in the future.[7] During the ensuing uproar, Rob Grill stated that he felt "highly insulted" by Watt's remarks, which he called "nothing but un-American".[7]
Since 2005, Creed Bratton can be seen as "Creed Bratton", Quality Assurance Officer, in the American NBC television situation comedy The Office.[8] He continues to write songs and has released several solo albums, including Chasin' the Ball, The '80s, Coarsegold, Creed Bratton, and Bounce Back.[9]
In 2006, former manager Marty Angelo published a book entitled, Once Life Matters: A New Beginning which has numerous stories about his life on the road with Rob Grill and The Grass Roots back in the early 1970s.
Former drummer Rick Coonce died on February 25, 2011, and Rob Grill died on July 11, 2011.
During of summers of 2010 and 2011, The Grass Roots had heavy touring schedules throughout the U.S. both on their own and as part of the Happy Together: 25th Anniversary Tour, along with Flo & Eddie of The Turtles, Mark Lindsay, The Buckinghams, and Monkees member Micky Dolenz (2010 only).[10] The 2011 Grass Roots line-up featured lead vocalist and bass player Mark Dawson, with Dusty Hanvey on lead guitar, Larry Nelson on keyboards and Joe Dougherty on drums.
| Release date | Title | Flip side | Record label | Chart positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Billboard | US Cashbox | UK | |||||
| 1966 | Mr. Jones (Ballad of a Thin Man) | You're A Lonely Girl | Dunhill | 121 | |||
| Where Were You When I Needed You | These Are Bad Times | Dunhill | 28 | 33 | |||
| Only When You're Lonely | This Is What I Was Made For | Dunhill | 96 | 77 | |||
| 1967 | Tip Of My Tongue | Look Out Girl | Dunhill | ||||
| Let's Live for Today | Depressed Feeling | Dunhill | 8 | 5 | |||
| Things I Should Have Said | Tip Of My Tongue | Dunhill | 23 | 36 | |||
| Wake Up, Wake Up | No Exit | Dunhill | 68 | 61 | |||
| 1968 | Melody For You | Hey Friend | Dunhill | 123 | |||
| Feelings | Here's Where You Belong | Dunhill | |||||
| Midnight Confessions++ | Who Will You Be Tomorrow | Dunhill | 5 | 5 | |||
| 1969 | Bella Linda+++ First pressings mistitled as "Della Linda" |
Hot Bright Lights | Dunhill | 28 | 20 | ||
| Melody For You | All Good Things Come To An End | Dunhill | |||||
| Lovin' Things | You And Love Are The Same | Dunhill | 49 | 35 | |||
| River Is Wide, The | (You Gotta) Live For Love | Dunhill | 31 | 16 | |||
| I'd Wait A Million Years | Fly Me To Havana | Dunhill | 15 | 12 | |||
| Heaven Knows | Don't Remind Me | Dunhill | 24 | 13 | |||
| 1970 | Walking Through The Country | Truck Drivin' Man | Dunhill | 44 | 30 | ||
| Baby Hold On | Get It Together | Dunhill | 35 | 25 | |||
| Come On And Say It | Something's Comin' Over Me | Dunhill | 61 | 39 | |||
| Temptation Eyes | Keepin' Me Down | Dunhill | 15 | 16 | |||
| 1971 | Sooner Or Later | I Can Turn Off The Rain | Dunhill | 9 | 12 | ||
| Two Divided By Love | Let It Go | Dunhill | 16 | 8 | |||
| 1972 | Glory Bound | Only One | Dunhill | 34 | 22 | ||
| Runway, The | Move Along | Dunhill | 39 | 29 | |||
| Anyway The Wind Blows | Monday Love | Dunhill | 107 | ||||
| 1973 | Love Is What You Make It | Someone To Love | Dunhill | 55 | 32 | ||
| Where There's Smoke There's Fire | Look But Don't Touch | Dunhill | 88 | ||||
| We Can't Dance To Your Music | Look But Don't Touch | Dunhill | 97 | ||||
| Stealin' Love (In The Night) | We Almost Made It Together | Dunhill | |||||
| 1975 | Mamacita | Last Time Around, The | Haven | 71 | 84 | ||
| Naked Man | Nothing Good Comes Easy | Haven | |||||
| 1976 | Out In The Open | Optical Illusion | Haven | ||||
| 1982 | Here Comes That Feeling Again | Temptation Eye | MCA | ||||
| She Don't Know Me | Keep On Burning | MCA | |||||
| Powers Of The Night | Powers Of The Night | MCA | |||||
++Gold Record - RIAA Certification +++Composed by Italian superstar Lucio Battisti)
| Release date | Title | Record label | Chart positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Billboard | US Cashbox | UK | ||||
| 1966 | Where Were You When I Needed You | Dunhill | ||||
| 1967 | Let's Live for Today | Dunhill | 75 | |||
| 1968 | Feelings | Dunhill | ||||
| Golden Grass ++ | Dunhill | 25 | ||||
| 1969 | Lovin' Things | Dunhill | 73 | |||
| Leavin' It All Behind | Dunhill | 36 | ||||
| 1970 | More Golden Grass | Dunhill | 152 | |||
| 1971 | Their 16 Greatest Hits ++ | Dunhill | 58 | |||
| 1972 | Move Along | Dunhill | 86 | |||
| 1973 | Alotta' Mileage | Dunhill | 222 | |||
| 1975 | Self Titled | Haven | ||||
| 1976 | The ABC Collection | ABC | ||||
| 1978 | 14 Greatest | Gusto | ||||
| 1982 | Powers Of The Night | MCA | ||||
| 2000 | Live At Last | RFG | ||||
| 2001 | Symphonic Hits | Cleopatra | ||||
| 2008 | Live Gold | RFG | ||||
++Gold Record - RIAA Certification