CoronaVinyl Day 72 (Michigan): Closer to Home by Grand Funk Railroad

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is Michigan, and there have been many great bands and artists to come out of the Great Lakes State, from Stevie Wonder to The White Stripes.  I had many options, but I'm going with Flint's Grand Funk Railroad.

Formed in 1969, the band's lineup from 1969 to 1972 featured Don Brewer on drums and co-lead vocals, Mark Farner on guitar and co-lead vocals, and Mel Schacher on bass.  And yes, I realize this is the fourth trio I've featured in the last five days.  Anyway, the band named itself after the Grand Trunk Western Railroad that passed through Flint.  They rose to fame in the early to mid '70s, with hits like "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)" (#22), "We're An American Band" (#1), "Some Kind of Wonderful" (#3), and their cover of "The Loco-Motion" (#1).

1970's Closer to Home is their third studio album, and I bought my copy at a local thrift store.  As you can see, it was at one time owned by someone named Frick.  It was the band's highest-charting album to that point, reaching #6 on the Billboard album charts, and starting a string of seven consecutive Top 10 studio albums for the band.  It also produced their first Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)" (more on that below).  

While I have been a fan of that song for many years, I haven't ever done a deep dive into their music.  I didn't realize that they were such a hard rock band.  Closer to Home is a fantastic hard rock album, sometimes even bordering on metal.  Brewer has many delicious fills throughout the album, and Farner shreds on his guitar, while Schacher plays his bass heavier than just about anyone at the time not named Geezer Butler.  If you're looking for an album to blare out of your open windows while you're driving around town, this is it.

While listening to this album, I also came to a revelation that everyone is wrong about Greta Van Fleet.  People claim they are trying to be Led Zeppelin -- which every hard rock band since 1969 has tried to be, by the way -- but people are looking way too far away, when they should be looking a mere 25 miles south of Greta Van Fleet's hometown of Frankenmuth, Michigan.  I hear a lot of Grand Funk in GVF, which is a good thing.

The Spotify album has four extra songs.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Sin's a Good Man's Brother"
The first track on the album is a ball buster. A fuzzy, heavy guitar riff drives this song, and Farner wails on the vocals.  Brewer's delicious fills are abundant.  If I didn't know this was Grand Funk, I would think it's Greta Van Fleet fifty years later.  Great song.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)"
Like I said before, I have loved this song for a long time.  It's one of my favorite songs from the '70s.  It's damn near ten minutes, and it is epic.  It has two separate sections, and the ending was actually accompanied by the Cleveland Orchestra.  If literally taken, the song is about a boat captain facing mutiny, but some have said that it's about drug addiction or a metaphor for the Vietnam War and how Nixon was botching it.  The band has purposely kept the song's meaning somewhat of a mystery so that it can mean whatever the listener wants it to mean.  I appreciate that.  Also, it's clearly about aliens.  But think about this.  What if Pickford was right?  Maybe we're the aliens.