Grand Funk Railroad still on track

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Pretend you are on a popular game show. The category is “Rock Music of the 1970’s.”

The “answer” is: “An American band who is coming to your town to help you party down.”

The correct response, in the form of a question: “Who is Grand Funk Railroad?”

The iconic rock band will perform in concert in the Paragon Casino Resort’s Mari Showroom at 8 p.m. on Sept. 28. The five-member band includes two of the three founding members, Don Brewer and Mel Schacher.

“I’m glad we’re coming back to the Paragon,” Brewer said in a telephone interview from the airport in Atlanta. “That’s the place with alligators in the lobby, Cool.”

Brewer and Schacher should feel at home in Avoyelles because it has something in common with their home.

They are people from Flint, Mich., and the parish is named after a Native American tribe whose name means “Flint People.”

Brewer said he walks five miles a day and expects to take a walk around Marksville either before the concert or the next morning before heading to the airport to fly home.

“We want people to come out and have a good time,” Brewer said. “I tell people when they come to a Grand Funk concert, they better be ready to smile and be ready to sweat. We want their feet moving. We’re going to have a good time.”

Tickets range from $25 to $45 and are available at the LA1 Market store in the casino, through Ticketmaster or by calling 1-800-745-3000.

For more information, call 800-946-1946 or 318-253-1946 or visit its website at paragoncasinoresort.com. 

Minors are admitted to the concert with an adult. The casino also has childcare available through Kids’ Quest, which will be open from 2 p.m. Friday to 1 a.m. Saturday for the concert.

ABOUT THE BAND

Brewer is the drummer, but is also the writer and singer of GFR’s biggest hit, 1973’s “We’re An American Band.”

Schacher plays bass guitar and has earned the nickname “God of Thunder” for his chops.

The band is missing founding member Mark Farner and keyboardist Craig Frost, who joined the group in 1972.

However, the three “new” members have been with the two originals since 2000, and have a rich rock history in their own right.

Lead guitarist Bruce Kulick was with Kiss for 12 years (1984-96). Lead vocalist Max Carl is best known for his work with 38 Special (1987-92)

Keyboardist Tim Cashion toured with Bob Seger, Jon Secada and Robert Palmer in the 1990s before joining the reunited/redefined Grand Funk Railroad.

He is a master of music. Really. He earned a master’s degree in music from the University of Miami and is affectionately called “Dr. Tim.”

A quick “google” of Grand Funk finds one of the most popular and oft-quoted comments about the band dates back, not to the 1970s when the band was “hot,” but to 2003, when the members could have been considered “elder statesmen” of rock.

"You cannot talk about rock in the 1970s without talking about Grand Funk Railroad," David Fricke wrote in the April 3, 2003 edition of Rolling Stone.

From 1970 up to the band’s first break-up in 1976, Grand Funk was one of the biggest names in rock music.

It was no “one hit wonder.” It put out its own music, such as “American Band” but was not afraid to re-do popular hits from the past, such as “Loco-Motion,” (1974) written by Carole King/Gerry Goffin and performed originally by Little Eva in 1961.

The band was inducted into the Michigan Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Not a bad achievement for a trio who got its name as a playful turn on the Grand Trunk Western Railroad that runs through its home state.

PAST AND FUTURE

“We’ve been doing this for 49 years,” Brewer said. “We are playing 45 shows this year and are looking at 45 next year. “Since next year is our 50th anniversary, we have been toying with the idea of doing 50 shows -- but that means more weekends away from home,” Brewer noted. “We’ll see.”

Brewer said the past three years on the road with the band “have been the best we’ve had in the past 20.

“Classic rock is alive and well, and Grand Funk is also alive and well,” he added.

Brewer said the early days with the band “was a rock and roll fantasy. We had watched the Beatles in ‘Hard Day’s Night,’ and there we were living that movie. We couldn’t walk down the street without people running up to us and running after us.”

He said it was a lot to handle for 19 and 20-year-old kids.

“I have great memories of Shea Stadium in New York, going to Europe and Japan,” he said.

But his love of music and entertaining an audience keep him climbing back behind the drums show after show.

“We were always the local band that made it big,” Brewer said. “People related to us because we were not the ‘superstar’ band. We weren’t like an English rock star kind of thing.

“We were everybody’s American band.”

HOW LONG IS TOO LONG?

One might think Brewer (70), Carl (68) and Schacher (67) would be enjoying retirement instead of touring to such places as Lake Tahoe, London and packed houses across the country.

Kulick (64) also qualifies for early Social Security.

The “baby” of the group is Cashion, who is “in his late 40s, early 50s,” Brewer guessed.

“When Tim joined us in 2000 he was like, ‘Wow! I’m in Grand Funk Railroad,’ Brewer recalled with a laugh. “We were his older brother’s favorite band. He was just a kid and his parent’s would be yelling at his brother to ‘Turn that racket down.’”

Despite the years of experience and the lure of retirement, the quintet has decided to keep rocking on stage instead of on the front porch -- exhibiting a youthful spirit of entertainers one-third their age.

So, how long is too long?

“That’s a good question and one I have asked myself,” Brewer admitted. “I have turned that one over to my wife and daughter to answer.

“I have seen bands who kept playing when they should no longer have been onstage,” he continued. “I’ve told my wife and daughter, ‘When I’m making a fool of myself, tell me to stop.’

“They have convinced me, so far, that hasn’t happened -- so I guess I can keep going.”