Geez.. Midnight Confessions Wait A Million years Let's Live For Today Temptation Eyes Heaven Knows Sooner Or Later These guys were putting out hit, after hit in the later 60s.... whatever happened? They lost their writers huh?
It's funny that The Grass Roots started out as a bunch of faceless studio guys under the direction of PF Sloan & Steve Barri, and morphed into a real group after the first LP. Are there any other groups with origins like that?
I have always liked them,I bought the first l.p. on Dunhill when it first came out.Not on the level of Buffalo Springfield or the Doors,but a very good L.A group.They introduced me to P.F.Sloan,Barry McGuire and a lot of the Dunhill artist
They're a lot of fun.......definitely a guilty pleasure. The original Sloan/Barri version is really good. My favorite songs...... Sloan/Barri version - Where Were You When I Needed You Grill version - Lovin' Things
Let's Live For Today It's one of my top five favorite songs of the 60s from any group. A true classic. Scott
They were pretty good -- not in the same league as The Rascals and The Lovin' Spoonful, but good. Btw, "I Live For Today" sounds very similar to The Drifters' "I Count the Tears."
That first album, when it was just Barri/Sloan and studio guys, has some great deep tracks, like This Is What I Was Made For and Only When You're Lonely. Hey PF: how about some new music?
Their first album ("Where Were You When I Needed You") was actually by a band from San Bruno, CA (south of SF) called the Bedouins, and features PF Sloan's lead vocal on most of the album. The group's success forced another band called the Grass Roots to change its name to Love. That first album is a little-known gem, a fine slice of Hollywood folk-rock. Its evocative liner notes offer a wonderful glimpse of the Sunset Strip teen scene at its height. The guys in the Bedouins didn't like being remolded into a vehicle for Sloan & Barri and began pushing to record their own blues-rock material, so S-B essentially fired them and hired a Los Angeles band called The 13th Floor to become the new Grass Roots. That was the group that had all the big fits from 1967 on.
One of the highlights of that album is the cover of the Stones' "Tell Me," done in a more folk-punk style. Whether by accident or brilliance, they substituted an E major chord where the Stones played an E minor, making it sound more tuff!
I saw PF on his last concert tour (something like 10 years ago) and when people started calling out for various hits, I shouted for "Wake Up Wake Up" from the Live for Today album. He'd basically forgotten it but managed to make it through one verse.
Same with me. My high school band played it - it was great fun and we could almost pull it off, relative to the many other songs we butchered. ("Like a Rolling Stone" - what were we thinking?)
I saw them do a show that I never expected from a top-40 band in 1970. When the stage fuses blew in our small-town armory, the drummer (Rick Coonce) did a furious 20-minute drum solo all over the stage, mostly while walking on his knees, until the power came back. The rest of the band had a real attitude, they wouldn't even talk to the groupies.
the grass roots were a great singles band for a short time....sadly when i was in my college years about 1980 i went on a road trip with my buddies up to Cape Cod and one night we stopped into what to us was a dive bar and to my astonishment on a dimly lit stage surrounded by maybe 20 people drinking was the grass roots or at least what was called the grass roots then....it was a rather pathetic sight and they were to say the least rather listless on stage....i prefer to forget having seen these guys when i hear one of their hits
A good excuse to post one of my favorite deleted scenes from The Office, with Creed Bratton of the Grass Roots:
I always thought that the second album, with the yellow cover, not only has terrific songs, but is recorded particularly well.
