Grand Funk an American band with more than one sound

If you don’t remember how much you like Grand Funk Railroad, maybe it’s because their hits sounded so different.

The breakthrough song “Closer to Home” sounds so, well, introspective compared to the “Footstompin’ Music” that came two years later, in 1972, or the bar-band classic “We’re An American Band” that went to No. 1 for the group in 1973. These tunes made mainstream radio fare out of the group’s heavier rocking in hard-fisted Flint, Mich.

Ah, but then there was the pop side with the remake of the Carole King-penned “The Loco-Motion” and that movie trailer perennial “Some Kind of Wonderful.”

These songs are currently sustained by a lineup that lacks singer-guitarist Mark Farner, but does include “American Band” singer and writer Don Brewer and bassist Mel Schacher, along with middle-era Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.