Grit, Noise, and Revolution: The Birth of Detroit Rock 'n' Roll

25. First Train out of Town

25. First Train out of Town The Eastown Theatre was closing out 1969 with a New Year’s Eve appearance by the new power trio known as Grand Funk Railroad. The group had risen from the ashes of the Fabulous Pack, the Flint-based band that had carried on following the breakup of Terry Knight and the Pack. Grand Funk Railroad was comprised of guitarist–lead vocalist Mark Farner, drummer Don Brewer, and bass player Mel Schacher. The trio had made an unimpressive Michigan debut the previous May as a last-minute add-on at the “Rock ’n’ Roll Revival,” held at the State Fairgrounds. Some attendees had called their performance “a bomb.”1 In the months that followed, Grand Funk Railroad’s popularity with fans had grown steadily in other parts of the country, but despite plenty of national bookings and fairly strong national record sales of their ‹rst album, locally they were perceived as lightweight hype.2 There was resentment among Detroit’s rock community that this Michigan group had been able to explode on the national rock scene without coming up through the ranks of local bands playing the teen clubs, the Grande, and the big Michigan rock festivals. The slow, grinding careers of Detroit favorites such as Bob Seger, the MC5, and the Rationals made quick success of Grand Funk Railroad all the more amazing. “Detroit has been built up,” Don Brewer commented in Creem. “It’s been socked into Detroit kids’ heads that Detroit is the musical capitol of the world or something.”3 “What happens in Detroit is that they devote too much time thinking, ‘make it in Detroit and you can make it anywhere,’ when in fact, ‘make it in Detroit and you can’t make it anywhere,’” sarcastically preached the group’s manager, Terry Knight, who had been determined that Grand Funk Railroad make it nationally ‹rst.4 After splitting from the Pack in April 1967, Knight had gone 223 down several roads, all of which seemed to place him in advantageous positions. While performing in Cleveland with his horndriven Terry Knight Revue, Ed McMahon, of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, happened to be in the audience, and signed Knight to a management contract. He wanted Terry to write the musical score for a motion picture Ed was involved with called The Incident. McMahon gave Terry Knight twenty-‹ve thousand dollars up front.5 At the conclusion of ‹lming, Terry began wearing love beads, and returned to performing as a singer-songwriter in coffeehouses, such as the Chessmate in Detroit, where folksingers Chuck and Joni Mitchell also performed. Appearing in Florida, he met Twiggy, the 1960s supermodel, and joined her on a national tour, warming up the audience with a few songs. It was Twiggy who brought Terry to the attention of Paul McCartney, who was looking for talent to sign to the Apple record label.6 Twiggy’s manager suggested that Knight join them on their return trip to London. But when he arrived, the four Beatles were embroiled in business arguments, and a meeting with McCartney never took place. Still, Knight bene‹ted from the whole experience. Paul McCartney made some calls that resulted in Terry being signed by Capitol Records.7 The label then released a song Terry had written about McCartney on his return plane ride called “Saint Paul.” The record spent a couple of weeks on the charts at Detroit’s WKNR in May 1968. Although he wasn’t setting the world on ‹re, things were going well for Terry Knight at the beginning of 1969. Meanwhile, his old bandmates in the Fabulous Pack had not been able to keep up momentum from their two 1967 regional hits “Harlem Shuf›e” and “Wide Trackin’.” Their producer, John Rhys, who also had an arrangement with Capitol Records, had not been able to coax the label into releasing an album they had recorded. The Pack had also bombed at a high-pro‹le East Coast gig at the Boston Tea Party. In late 1968, bass player Rod Lester and keyboardist Craig Frost bailed out in the middle of a freezing New England tour, leaving Mark Farner and Don Brewer to ponder their future.8 Upon returning to Michigan, the two decided to reform as a trio because, as Don Brewer recalled, “the power trio thing—with Cream, and Hendrix, and Blue Cheer and all that kind of stuff— Grit, Noise, & Revolution 224 seemed to be the thing that was...