"We're an American Band" by Grand Funk Railroad (1973) with Todd Rundgren as producer/engineer

Todd Rundgren Creator Series

Today is the sixth post in our series about music maestro Todd Rundgren, and we’re continuing with his rocketing career as a recording engineer and producer.

We’ve already reviewed his early years, up to and including The Nazz.

We’ve listened to his pop hits — “We Gotta Get You a Woman” (here), “Hello It’s Me,” (here), and “I Saw the Light” (here).

Yesterday we covered his first major gig as a producer — The Band’s Stage Fright album (here).

Today we cover a record that, I suspect, cemented Todd’s reputation as a hit-maker, and one that holds a special place in my memory and my heart — “We’re an American Band” by Grand Funk (Railroad).

Today I also feel justified in indulging in a bit of storytelling about my misspent youth, as it’s my birthday. Instead of cake and ice cream, I’m going to revel in a favorite memory. But feel free to skip it if you prefer to go straight to the song stuff.

Song of the day

If there’s one song that reminds me of high school, it’s “We’re an American Band.” My brother was learning to play the drums and practiced to this song incessantly. The sound of the song blasting on the stereo system and his drumming along to it shook the house and deafened the occupants, and of course, being his older sister, I considered it my divine right to open the door to the basement and scream at him.

“Hey you! Shut up!”

It would take a few tries as he was well into his drumming.

“You shut up!”, he would finally scream back.

We would go back and forth like this, shouting inanities and insults at one another.

Which gave me the ammunition I needed to whine to my mother standing nearby at the stove cooking dinner. “Mom, I can’t get my homework done with this noise. Do something!” As if I actually cared about my homework, when, really, it was just an el primo opportunity to antagonize my brother.

She would just heave a big sigh, given that she and Dad were paying for his drum lessons and probably rued the day they got him that set of drums, and would reply, “Oh, Ellen.”

My brother (above — I know, he looked like a really nice guy!) would bound up the stairs and defend himself as I stood there smirking, doing his best to out-do me in the ‘whining to Mom’ department.

Job well done, I thought. Give yourself a pat on the back. An excellent sister.

We were just your typical American family enjoying rock music together. One of my cherished family memories.

You’d think I wouldn’t like the song after hearing it a zillion times accompanied by a novice drummer, but in fact I love it. Call it the beginning of my love affair with hard rock that continues to this day and shocks that same brother. Really, he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s the one that started it.

And don’t even go there if you think Grand Funk Railroad was a desecration and ruination to rock-and-roll, as most critics did (and some still do). Spout off about it in the comments if you wish, while I go ahead and dance gleefully to my boss birthday song.

Those lyrics!

I don’t think my parents had a clue what the lyrics blasting throughout the house meant — “Sweet, sweet, Connie, doin' her act, She had the whole show and that's a natural fact” — or they would have banned it. There were four of us young’uns in the house.

I didn’t actually know what the lyrics meant myself until much later when I read Pamela Des Barre’s Let’s Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies (2007), in which there’s an entire chapter detailing Pamela’s interview with Sweet Connie. Oh, that Connie! The GFR boys were only the tip of the iceberg.

I will be doing a post on groupies at some point, as they are far more interesting than people think.

What’s ironic about those lyrics is that the guitarist, lead singer, and primary songwriter for Grand Funk, Mark Farner, would go on to become a contemporary Christian musician and have a hit on that chart for a song called “Isn’t It Amazing.”

By the way, although drummer Don Brewer is credited with writing “We’re an American Band,” the band’s publicist and co-manager at the time, Lynn Goldsmith (below), has claimed in this interview that Mark Farner actually wrote three-fourths of the song and gave the rights to Donnie.

Song production with Todd Rundgren

Lynn Goldsmith is the one who approached Todd Rundgren to produce the album. Lynn had become a photographer of rock stars from Bob Dylan onwards and snapped a who’s who of rock royalty for magazine and album covers, in the process becoming friends with Patti Smith (among many others) and Bruce Springsteen’s girlfriend. As she says in this PBS profile of her career (it’s fascinating, only 10 minutes, recommend watching it), “If he had had a different occupation, I might have married Bruce.” She was wildly creative, knew everyone, and made things happen.

As Todd tells it in The Individualist, “Lynn Goldsmith had been photographing me with some regularity before she approached me about producing a record for Grand Funk Railroad. The band had just changed management and Lynn was designing their roll-out as a ‘updated’ GFR which entailed amongst other details, finding a new producer. I knew the band by reputation, which was not particularly acclamation from a critical standpoint, but I was starting to enjoy the challenge of these kinds of projects.”

His boss at Bearsville Records, Albert Grossman, “saw it as an opportunity to burnish his reputation (and mine) by demanding and getting what was the largest advance ever from a label [Capitol] for a producer.” Todd went out to Michigan to meet the band and hear what they had already come up with. The album title and lead single had been decided — of course, “We’re an American Band” — and Criteria Studios in Miami (below) was already booked for recording. Todd was “pleasantly surprised at how open they were to input but also how much progress they were making in developing a more streamlined style of songwriting.”

In Miami they recorded “We’re an American Band” the very first day because the label had set a rapid release date for the single, around ten days later. The next day they did the overdubs, mixing, and mastering in a lab set up at Criteria. Boom, done.

At that time advance orders counted as sales, and the record had already charted in the top 20 just a week later as they were still working on the album. On release in July 1973, “We’re an American Band” became GFR’s first #1 single and ranked #23 on the Billboard Top 100 for the year, while the album would reach #2 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on the Cash Box and Record World charts. It also, finally, received much more positive attention from critics, with the more professional sound of the album attributed by many to Todd Rundgren.

Lynn Goldsmith was responsible for the the band’s new and popular logo:

She also designed the ‘Gold record’ album cover (below) and commissioned the translucent yellow vinyl disc, having to call all over kingdom come to find a facility that could manufacture it. This was also the first album on which ‘Railroad’ was dropped from the band’s name and they became Grand Funk.

Let’s listen to what has to be one of the most danceable hard rock songs of all time (while I get up and boogie):

That song makes me so happy. (Let’s play it again!)

Todd would go on to produce GFR’s next album as well, Shinin’ On, released in March 1974, which would hit #5 on the Billboard album chart and give them a #1 single with a cover of “The Loco-Motion” (a Gerry Goffin and Carole King tune) that John Lennon would describe as “a great record.” They would also chart in the Top 20 with the title track.

Also noteworthy is that Lynn Goldsmith would design the very first 3D album cover ever for Shinin’ On, which included bi-visual 3D glasses. You have to assume that tech-lover Todd was completely on board with this.

And btw, I’m sure you’re wondering if my brother survived my sisterly torment. I’m pleased to say that we live near each other and go listen to rock bands together. But he can’t quite wrap his head around my new love for heavy metal. He started it!

Song credits

Songwriter - Don Brewer

Producer - Todd Rundgren

Grand Funk Railroad (credited as Grand Funk):

• Mark Farner – vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, conga

• Craig Frost – organ, clavinet, electric piano, Moog

• Mel Schacher – bass

• Don Brewer – vocals, drums, percussion

Production:

• Todd Rundgren – engineer

• Francesco Damanti – engineer

• Seth Snyder – assistant engineer

• Lynn Goldsmith & Andrew Cavaliere – album design and concept

• Lynn Goldsmith – photography

• John Hoernle – art direction

• Andrew Cavaliere – management