Grand Funk [Railroad] - Closer To Home

Heavy Flint

For one of the heavier power-trios out there, Grand Funk Railroad sure could sing some purdy music too. But first track Sin’s A Good Man’s Brother on this 1970 release, their third, is a raunchy Sabbath-esque riffer. Second Aimless Lady is loud too, though more soulful in the vocals, and Mark Farmer’s fuzzed guitar solo, with Mel Schacher’s pounding bass, keep it heavy – it’s the West Coast harmonies that hint at their other leanings. Third Nothing Is The Same is another riff-driven loud one, bass and drums thundering beneath the wah-wah. The closing descending bass line with guitar lead is as simple and effective as it gets - a doff to Blue Cheer as well one suspects.

Then we get to fourth Mean Mistreater with its slow keyboard opening and Farmer’s emotive vocal dressed even more emotively in echoing harmony with vocals from drummer Don Brewer. It’s a song that does gather pace, but it is essentially a power-pop ballad that has rock swirls of racing keyboard and drums and then returns to the slow echoing lament of the main melodic line. It must have driven the handbangers wild with dismay. This is followed by another keyboard-driven song, but a more upbeat and soul-tilted Get It Together, the wah-wah whine of Farmer’s solo leading into drum and bass, then organ soloing: all leading to the falsetto chorus of the title and then Farmer’s own gritty crooning of the line. Sublime.

Sixth I Don’t Have To Sing The Blues is exactly what it says, though of course the band do, if you follow. Penultimate Hooked On Love returns to the wonderfully neanderthal heavy bass riff that makes this kind of rock the distillation of heaviness, though those falsetto harmonies add a distinctive edge that may not appeal to all [handbangers again]. 

The album closes on I’m Your Captain which is a sweet incline to the prettier side of Grand Funk. Its acoustic core gives it a countryrock edge and it is without question a beautiful song, having pace, but sweetened by the harmonising, especially the central soaring and again emotive vocals, and then even more so the plaintive and beautifully sung title line with accompanying flute and ocean sounds, then strings sweep, and then drums and guitar crescendo with orchestral wrap around the repeated sung melodic line. Very Beatles-esque [or George Martin, or presumably producer Terry Knight]. This ‘endpiece’ became a song in its own right, Closer To Home, and was a huge hit for the band.

The band came out of the tough working class city of Flint Michigan, and this surely informs their heavier side. At about 16 I lived for a while in a very small town somewhere near Flint, and that’s when I heard my first album of theirs. Wearing a tie-dye shirt to a local stock car race, I had beer cans thrown at me in the stadium and also insults and threats in the toilets. Having a drink and something to eat in a drug store [pharmacy], some stranger tried to pick a fight because I had long hair [well, it was just past my ears]. And one night some local louts turned up to a next door neighbours where I was visiting. They’d ripped a branch from a tree and said they’d come to kill the ‘long-hair’. A tough place indeed for a band to cut their heavy teeth.  I soon returned to the relative tolerance of England, and have stayed ever since. That was 43 years ago.