Grand Funk’s Second No. 1 Hit Single

By Randal Hill
Guest Columnist

Grand Funk Railroad

In 1962, fad dances were all the rage among record-buying teens. Included among the steps was the Loco-Motion, where participants shuffled their arms to simulate the driving of steel rods that turned a locomotive’s wheels.

“A chug-a chug-a motion like a railroad train now.”

Songsmiths Carole King and husband Gerry Goffin had created “The Loco-Motion” for 17-year-old Eva Boyd. Called Little Eva on records, Boyd’s million-seller soared to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Fast-forward a dozen years, and “The Loco-Motion” regains the top chart slot again, but this time by a Flint, Mich., power trio called Grand Funk Railroad.

“We were loud, but there was a reason,” proclaimed leader Mark Farner. “We wanted to create an atmosphere in which nothing existed but the music.”

Farner had apprenticed in two bands in high school before dropping out and assembling an eardrum-cracking aggregation with pals Don Brewer (drums) and Mel Schacher (bass). They gleaned their play-on-words name Grand Funk Railroad from a Michigan rail line named the Grand Trunk Western Railroad.

Wowing the crowd as an unknown (and unpaid) opening act at a 1969 Georgia rock festival, the threesome eventually signed with Capitol Records, the prestigious one-time home label of the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

Beloved by their fans but frequently ignored by Top 40 DJs or reviled by music critics who often saw them as unpolished and unnecessarily loud, Grand Funk Railroad found recording success right out of the gate, beginning with their “On Time” album late in 1969. After seven more hit LPs, they shortened their name to Grand Funk in 1973. In that year, Craig Frost came aboard to play keyboards with the band.

“Shinin’ On,” the rockers’ 10th album, included “The Loco-Motion.” Don Brewer recalled that, during a break in the recording studio, Mark had begun singing, “Everybody’s doing a brand new dance now!”

Farner had been goofing around, but everyone there that day declared that the band could possibly pull “The Loco-Motion” off as a valid recording— if it were done right.

Their top-notch producer Todd Rundgren recalled the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann,” an oldie single lifted from their “Beach Boys’ Party!” LP and done in a studio but made to sound live, as at a casual music jam.

Rundgren, a wizard at the recording console, made the band’s “The Loco-Motion” sound live. Brewer explained, “Todd could really crank up everything with the hand claps and all of that stuff. It just had this huge sound to it. It sounded like a big party!”

“The Loco-Motion” became the headbangers’ second Number One single. (“We’re an American Band” had arrived a year earlier.)

Goffin later offered a diplomatic take on the hard-rock version of the iconic tune he wrote with Carole King: “You can still hear how it appeals to the kids.”

Farner and friends never abandoned their roots. “People want the real thing,” Farner once proclaimed. “As long as there’s room for sledgehammer rock and roll, there’s room for Grand Funk Railroad!”