Don Brewer's 70th Brithday

Today, Grand Funk Railroad drummer, Don Brewer, has turned 70. Let's take a look at his tenure in the band.

What was to be Grand Funk started as Terry Knight and the Pack. Terry Knight became the new formed band's manager which constisted of Mark Farner (guitar/vocals) and Don Brewer (drums/vocals). They need a bass player and so they hit up Mel Sacher and named themselves Grand Funk Railroad after the Grand Trunk Railroad in their hometown of Flint, MI.

There first two records, both released in 1969, "On Time" and "Grand Funk" featured hits such as Time Machine and Mr. Limousine Driver. Their 1970 record "Closer to Home" featured the anti-Vietnem number I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home. Their next big record, 1971's E Flurbious Funk included the classic Footstompin' Music.

At this point the band pondered expanding to a quartet, the appointed Peter Frampton of Humble Pie fame, but he quickly left them for his newfound band, Frampton's Camel. As a result Craig Frost joined as Grand Funk's keyboard player. The 1972 record The Phoenix featured Rock'n'Roll Soul, but was not well received. Their 1973 album, We're an American Band was a big hit - especially the title track (I wrote an excellent blog posting on it so do check it out). Listen to We're an American Band here.

In 1974 the band released Shinin' On with their cover of LIttle Eva's The Loco-Motion. Later in '74 came All The Girls of The World Beware! featuring Some Kind of Wonderful which became a hit in 1975 as did Bad Time.

 Grand Funk split around 1976 with Farner quitting to form a Christian band named Flint. They did reconvene in the 1980s when they made their last two records, Grand Funk LIves in 1981, and What's Funk? in 1983. They went on hiatus in 1984 and came back together in 1996.

Brewer and Frost have been members of Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band since 1983 and 1980 respecively. Grand Funk is still together now with Brewer and Sacher. In addition they are joined by 38 Special's Max Carl (vocals), former KISS guitarist Bruce Kullick, and keyboardist Timothy B. Cushion.

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