Grand Funk, "We're An American Band," Story
It's 1973, and Grand Funk is in financial ruin because of a costly legal battle with their producer/manager, Terry Knight. Grand Funk fired Knight because of poor management, and apparently, he wasn't handling their money well either. Knight responded by suing them for breach of contract.
Also, at that time, radio and the record industry were changing from album-focused play to hit song formats. Grand Funk was an underground album-focused FM radio band. Because of the substantial legal costs of fighting Knight, they knew they had to write a "hit" single to stay afloat.
Grand Funk was touring, flying from city to city at the time. As they were flying into a city, Don Brewer, the drummer in the band, looked out of the plane window, and the line "We're coming to your town, we'll help you party down" came into his head. Brewer wrote the song on guitar around that one inspiring line. He knew about 4 guitar chords. He used them all. Brewer was determined to beat Knight. He had to come up with something great.
Brewer wrote the rest of the song based on true events during the tour, including the people, like "Sweet Sweet Connie..." a famous groupie named Connie Hamzy, who apparently has her own Wikipedia page. Hah! Anyway, Brewer knew he had a good song but didn't know how good. When he played it for the record executives, they loved it! Not bad for a drummer.
Brewer sang lead vocals on the recording. I must say, what a powerful voice he has, too. Mark Farner usually sang lead vocals. Brewer's drumming was a huge focus in the song, not surprisingly. We all know the cowbell didn't hurt either. We don't hear many cowbells these days, do we?
Here's the best part, though. Brewer's crafting of "We're An American Band" became a number-one hit in September 1973. It became the band's breakthrough hit. They recovered financially from the money they made on that song. How's that for timing a number-one song!
Guess you lost on that one, Terry!
I love that story. Check out the whole deal here at al.com.