Recently, a proliferation of clips has appeared on YouTube in which young music fans document their reactions to hearing the music of Grand Funk Railroad for the first time. Their faces are braced with stunned, slack-jawed amazement as they listen. When the music stops and the talking begins, their assessments of the band are typically along the lines of: "Damn, those guys can really jam!" and "What did I just hear?!" Asked if he's familiar with the videos, Mark Farner lets out a robust laugh. "Hell yeah, I've seen them!" the former Grand Funk Railroad guitarist exclaims. "My friends send me those clips, and I just love watching them. I think it's so cool seeing these young guys getting off to the music we made fifty years ago. What touched people's hearts back then still moves them today. We were fierce. We were big and loud, like we were busting out of the chute. And I was riding the bull, man. You can't fake that kind of excitement. It's either real or it's not." He chuckles, then adds nostalgically: "It sure was a fun time." For the better part of their career, which lasted from 1969 to 1976, the Flint, Michigan-based Grand Funk Railroad specialised in high-energy, meat-and-potatoes, blues-based hard rock.
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Denne historien er fra June 2023-utgaven av Classic Rock.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Dream Theater
With friends (and bandmates) reunited for the band's 40th anniversary, it'll be a special night for fans at Wembley Arena.
Royal Republic
Livewire, turbo-harmonised, disco-rocking Swedes get ready for upgraded UK and Europe dates.
GOTTA KEEP MOVIN'
In 1968 the MC5's Kick Out The Jams album was a grenade thrown into the music scene. In the decades since, Wayne Kramer acted as guardian of the band's legacy until he died earlier this year, after making one final album.
THE KILLING FLOOR
Now revered as a linchpin moment in the history of the blues, Howlin' Wolf's London sessions in 1970, with a superstar cast that included some of England's rock royalty, came out of a chance encounter several months earlier at a gig in San Francisco.
ROGUE TRADER
Recording almost everything on his latest album himself and putting it out on his own label, Tuk Smith followed the adage that if you want something doing properly, do it yourself.
BILL WYMAN
WW2 evacuee, RAF airman, Rolling Stone, hit solo artist, bandleader, author, restaurateur, archaeologist, cricketer... Even just his time in The Greatest Rock'N'Roll Band In The World is storied, but there's been much, much more to his life than that.
LIFE IS A JOURNEY
For some people, travelling life's road is easy. For lifelong worrier Myles Kennedy it's anything but. But with his brand new solo album The Art Of Letting Go he's learning just what that title says.
ALL ABOUT BEING LOUD
In an exclusive extract from his Fast Eddie biography Make My Day, long-time Motörhead associate Kris Needs looks back at the making of their game-changing Overkill album and the subsequent killing-it UK tour.
Nikki Sixx
The Mötley Crüe bassist on making new music, replacing Mick Mars, work-life balance, learning when to say no...
Bobbie Dazzle
Meet the West Midlands singer bringing back upbeat music, fun and fashion of the 70s.
