Chords for Whatever Happened To The Grass Roots?

All right music fans welcome back it is I Dave the real music observer
Observing real music in real time for real people just like you right there and just like me
All right, so the grassroots whatever happened to the band of the grassroots _
_ _ Here's some information for you first of all
hit machine from the 60s and 70s
_ [N]
Loved their music because number one my older brother and older sister
Had eight tracks lying around the house and here in a track
Click channels going from channel 1 to channel 2 in the middle of midnight confessions
_ Just drive used to drive me crazy.
Okay, I didn't understand that and _ _
It's the eight tracks used to do it's like we go from program 1 to program 2 and we're in the middle of a song
Great technology, but
_ They were kind of cool.
They're kind of like carts were at radio stations the same thing
You press a button and they start right away
But you know, there's only so much tape you can spool in there and apparently they had these
Programs that it just I didn't get that.
[B] But anyway, I loved the grassroots
_ _ melodic and they were
More or less a hit machine they started out as a folk group more or less
They evolved they were [N] birthed by a couple of really good songwriters and then
_ those songwriters
_ gave way to more songwriters and
These guys just had the best material if you listen to one of their albums if you can get your hands on an actual grassroots album
_ You'll find that pretty much every song on that thing is designed to be a hit
and
they did, you know work the band and get them on the radio quite a bit and
They had a bit of a Motown thing going they had a bit of a straight-up rock thing going
_ They were pop they were rock.
They were soul
And their leader Rob grill who didn't wasn't in the band initially, but then joined
and became really one of the great singers of that generation and then _
_ Kept the band going right up until his untimely death in
_ 2011 after he had this weird fall and accident and then died due to complications from the brain injury
That was just weird and left planet Earth
slightly early he was 67 and I
_ Know he probably could have kept singing like Tony Bennett for another 10 or 20 years.
I mean the guy was just great
Yours truly true story coming up here
[Bm] 1987 _ our radio station was doing a promotion _
_ Grassroots were in town.
They were at this small restaurant bar club thing called Christine's
Which is in I believe Dennisport or used to be I don't know if it still exists, but good food good music
grassroots in concert
Yours truly helped set it up helped, you know
I was a roadie for that event wheeled stuff in wheeled stuff out helped set up guitars and so forth and
_ _ [N] Got to sing on the final encore, which was sooner or later
_ It was me and everybody from the radio station got to go up on stage.
They just called us up there
we all jumped up on there and
Grabbed a microphone and started singing, you know backup vocals on sooner or later and it was a blast
So yes, yours truly has actually performed with a rock band.
Okay, so there you go
I'm good.
Now if anyone comes after me you've never been in a band _
Not permanently.
No, but I've been in a band dang it.
Alright, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it and
_ Anyway, so the grassroots in the 70s obviously were huge
_ _ They in 1975 76 they kind of hit a brick wall
_ And I think maybe between the touring and the record label, which was Dunhill
Dunhill was bought by MC a
_ _ _ An MCA was kind of like the graveyard
For a lot of artists other than maybe Tom Petty and the [B] Heartbreakers.
Okay
They had a couple that they would promote and push
But really with MCA and Tom Petty that wasn't a great relationship either _
Being that Tom was telling them to quit jacking those prices up on those albums
_ _ Look this band probably could have had a resurgence in the 80s
The grassroots go look this up go look this [Fm] album up
There's a couple of tracks uploaded to YouTube the album is called powers of [B] the night by the grassroots and
_ They do a version of she don't know me
[Bm] Which is the song that Bon Jovi did in?
1984 on his debut album.
It was the song that was a follow-up to she's a little runaway
[N] The song is written by Mark Avsek
Mark was in Donnie Iris's band _
Songwriter great songwriter, by the way also was in the band Wild Cherry
Which is just bizarre to think he was in Wild Cherry and
Donnie Iris's band, but Donnie Iris was also in Wild Cherry and his own
thing also in the Jaggers
well before that
So there's some weird connections going on there, but Avsek wrote a beautiful
_ just power rock song that
_ Rob grill just killed so if you hear his version
You're just gonna be you know doing the holy crap Batman thing because it's it's pretty cool
It's pretty amazing and that entire album is
_ _ Pure 80s rock there's a tune that sounds like Tony Banks is playing keyboards on it
I think it's the title track from the album called powers in the night
_ and
shockingly
MCA didn't promote it and
the band basically then went off into the permanent oldies circuit and
_ _ [B] It's too bad Rob grill passes away in 2011.
There's video of him at Epcot and so forth
_ You know not too long before that still sounding great
He's got his band and [N] here's an interesting thing for all of you folks that think that bands can't continue
_ after
Their key guy goes and by the way Rob grill
Technically wasn't an original band member
But you know who's gonna say Rob grill saying all of their hits and so forth
So what the band has no original members?
Well guess what the grassroots now have no original members a guy by the name of Mark Dawson
Who played with the grassroots for many years was told that he could have the rights?
To the band's name and their music and to continue on and Mark does a great job by the way
[E] If you're gonna go to Epcot or if you're gonna hang out and see the grassroots perform
You'll be entertained and if you want to call it a cover band or a tribute band
Go ahead, but he's got the name and he's got the rights to it and it's all
Legal and it was all kind of blessed by Rob before he passed on
So that's the story of the grassroots yours truly involved in that [N] story
Yes, I made my singing debut
_ hopefully there were no microphones that picked up that voice because that would have just been the end of the grassroots as far as
Future touring but obviously it didn't happen because they soldiered on and still going strong today
I'm Dave.
This is the real music observer
I'll be back observing more real music in real time for real people just like you and just like