Bob Smith writes ...
The band began as a trio back in 1969 and took their name from a railroad company that had a line running through their home town of Flint, Michigan. The band saw tremendous popularity in the early 1970’s quickly becoming a well recognized band.
By 1971 the band was selling out concerts at astounding speeds verifying their success with their audience. The band’s third album Closer To Home went multi platinum in 1970. Things were looking good for the band.
But with success often comes pressures and strife and the band changed managers following dissatisfaction with his performance. The band connected with Todd Rundgren as their manager/producer in the mid 70’s and with a change in direction of sorts the band saw their two best selling albums to date.
But internal pressures within the band continued to mount and by 1976 the group had disbanded much to the dismay of fans everywhere. In 1981 Grand Funk reunited albeit with a slight lineup change releasing a pair of albums that drew little interest from fans.
Early 1983 following the death of their manager and other issues the band once again went their separate ways but as musical history has shown elsewhere one never knows when a band (or a semblance of) is truly done.
In 1996 three of the founding members reunited and embarked on a series of concerts. To date the band or some variant of continues on out there ... somewhere.
