There was a time back in the early seventies when Grand Funk seemed to be middle America’s favourite band. This was the band’s ninth album that came out in ’74 and is regarded as one of their weaker albums, even though it reached #10 on the Billboard charts.
You can split the album in two: Side 1 is very average (apart from Runnin’), and Side 2 is epic. Runnin’ has the added horn section to lift that funk sound up from the ordinary. The title track blows the cobwebs clean off with an instant burst of uptempo rocking R’n’B. Good & Evil has a really dirty bass and hammond blues groove that I really like.
This band goes against everything that the majors were all about. They played with the sequencing of songs so that all the strong tunes are on the flip side. In fact, the last two songs were the real big hits. Bad Time was a single with a really cool soul groove. One of the band’s biggest songs was Some Kind Of Wonderful. It is three minutes and thirty seconds of pure pop soul genius, it’s my favourite track on the album.
The album does sound very dated, but then again it does have some serious high points.
7/10 from The Grooveman.
