10 Classic Rock Bands Who Deserve More Respect

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03.22.2011

Bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin rarely fall out of the public eye, and rightly so. But beneath the radar lies a number of groups from the classic rock era who don’t get their just due. Many of these artists gained huge fan followings, but were either dismissed by the critics of the day or have since been neglected. Below are 10 such groups, each of whom deserves another look.

10. Grand Funk Railroad

Grand Funk Railroad were on top of the world in the early ’70s, churning out albums filled with blue-collar hard rock and positioning themselves as a “people’s band.” Frontman Mark Farner’s guitar work was by no means breathtaking, but on such good-time hits as “Footstompin’ Music,” “Some Kind of Wonderful” and “We’re an American Band,” his playing fit the band’s garage-y approach like a hand-in-glove.

Best Album: We’re an American Band

Current Status: The band, headed by former .38 Special singer Max Carl, continues to tour. Farner continues to record and tour under his own name.

9. Rare Earth

As the first white hitmakers signed to Motown, Rare Earth had a number of hits in the early ’70s, most notably “Hey, Big Brother,” “I Just Want to Celebrate” and a rousing cover of The Temptations’ “Get Ready.” By 1975, internal strife had scuttled their success, but still “Celebrate” has gone on to achieve iconic status. In 2007, Metallica covered the song during their acoustic performance at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit show.

Best Album: One World

Current Status: A reconfigured version of the band, with two original members, continue to play the oldies circuit.

8. Chicago

Chicago’s reputation today is that of a soft-rock band prone to saccharin ballads. As an upstart group in the ’70s, however, the group unfurled an innovative sound built partly on multiple horn players, and partly on guitar-based jazz rock. Guitarist Terry Kath, a force behind such classics as “Beginnings,” “25 or 6 to 4” and “Questions 67 and 68,” was one of Jimi Hendrix’s favorite players.

Best Album: Chicago Transit Authority

Current Status: Four of the group’s six surviving founding members – including songwriters Robert Lamm and James Pankow – are still in place within the band.

7. The Raspberries

During his 2005 tour, Bruce Springsteen regularly praised The Raspberries from the stage, calling the group’s late period hit, “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record),” a classic. Small wonder. While the power-pop “cool” factor goes to Big Star, The Raspberries were masters of the craft, delivering such memorable hits as “Go All the Way,” “I Wanna Be with You” and “Tonight.” A side note: Joan Jett’s iconic white Gibson Melody Maker is the very same guitar Eric Carmen used to record The Raspberries’ “Go All the Way.”

Best Album: Starting Over

Current Status: The band, including Carmen, last played together in 2007, to promote their then-new concert album, Live on Sunset Strip.

6. The Grass Roots

Critics have sometimes dismissed The Grass Roots as purveyors of disposable bubblegum pop. Revisiting such hits as “Temptation Eyes,” “Midnight Confessions” and even the punchy “Sooner or Later,” however, it’s clear the group didn’t just capture the essence of AM radio; they also had great band chemistry. Indie greats The Replacements used the cover “Temptation Eyes” in their live show.

Best Album: Let’s Live for Today

Current Status: Early member Rob Grill and his band continue to perform – sometimes as The Grass Roots, sometimes as Rob Grill and The Grass Roots.

5. The Guess Who

From 1968 to 1970, the songwriting team of Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings churned out a succession of hits that were both infectious and sophisticated. Bachman’s jazzy guitar lines in “Undun” were something new to radio; likewise, his playing on “No Time” constituted psychedelic guitar-pop at its best. Everyone knows “American Woman,” but The Guess Who were much more than that.

Best Album: American Woman

Current Status: Bachman and Cummings continue to tour as, you guessed it, Bachman-Cummings. Original members Garry Peterson and Jim Kale, who own the rights to the band name, tour as The Guess Who.

4. Black Oak Arkansas

Dismissed by some critics as a poor man’s version of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Oak Arkansas nonetheless garnered a well-deserved cult following in the first half of the ’70s. Frontman “Jim Dandy” Mangrum’s over-the-top showmanship established the template for David Lee Roth’s role in Van Halen. The group’s southern-rock peers went on to greater glories, but today, Black Oak Arkansas’s deliberate primitivism sounds like skewed southern punk.

Best Album: Ain’t Life Grand

Current Status: Jim Mangrum continues to perform on occasion with various Black Oak Arkansas lineups.

3. Three Dog Night

During the period from 1969 to 1974, Three Dog Night scored more than 20 Top Ten hits. Perhaps because they rarely wrote their own material, however, the group never got the acclaim they deserved. No band was better at crafting hits out of other people’s songs.

Best Album: It Ain’t Easy

Current Status: The band, sans former key member Chuck Negron, continues to tour. They released a double-A sided single in 2009.

2. Spirit

Few bands evidenced a more eclectic range of styles that Spirit did. Led by late guitar great Randy California (one of rock’s most under-appreciated players), and drummer Ed Cassidy, Spirit boasted a hybrid musical approach that mixed rock, jazz, blues and psychedelia. When Jimi Hendrix went to England to form The Experience, he tried (unsuccessfully) to persuade the then-15-year-old California to be part of the band.

Best Album: The Family that Plays Together

Current Status: California died tragically in a drowning accident in 1997. Cassidy, at age 87, resides in southern California, where he continues to play drums.

1. Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf rocketed to fame when their classic rocker, “Born to be Wild,” was featured in the 1969 film, Easy Rider. The group’s hitmaking ways hardly ended there, however. “Magic Carpet Ride,” “Rock Me” and the notorious “The Pusher” are all worthy of prime spots in the hard rock pantheon. Fittingly, the band will forever be known as the group that introduced the phrase “heavy metal” to the rock world.

Best Album: Steppenwolf

Current Status: Original frontman John Kay continues to carry the Steppenwolf banner, although he officially retired the group in 2007.

Elton John‘s April 2nd hosting assignment for Saturday Night Live was finally acknowledged yesterday by NBC. Returning to the program for the first time since 1982, Elton will perform with Leon Russell, with whom he recorded last year’s well-received album The Union.

The next three releases in Paul McCartney‘s catalog re-issue campaign will not be Chaos & Creation in the Backyard, Driving Rain and Press to Play as previously reported. They will be McCartney and McCartney II, possibly in June, followed by Ram at the end of the year.

The 2002 Concert for George — featuring Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Tom Petty and others paying tribute to George Harrison — was released yesterday on Blu-ray.

Bryan Adams is on The Ellen DeGeneres Show today.

KISS are in pre-production on their next album, which will be produced by Paul Stanley.

Hot Tuna, featuring former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, will release Steady as She Goes, their first studio album in two decades, on April 5th. They recorded it at Levon Helm‘s studio in Woodstock, New York with Helm’s musical director, multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell producing and playing on it.

Hot Tuna’s last studio album of original material, 1990′s Pair a Dice Found, came 15 years after their previous studio effort, Hoppkorv.

Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder will release a new solo album and live DVD on May 31st. Ukulele Songs is a mix of Vedder originals and covers, and the first single, “Longing to Belong,” will be at digital retailers this week. The live DVD, Water on the Road, was shot during two shows at Washington, D.C.’s Warner Theatre in August 2008.

Pearl Jam will convene next month to start work on their next album. Bassist Jeff Ament tells Billboard that everyone in the band has a disc of 25 demos and that “April will be the time where we get together and learn to play all these demos and figure out which 12 to 15 of them float to the top. Hopefully we can get something done this year.”

Ament adds that they also plan to announce details about their Pearl Jam Twenty Festival next month. The fest is set for Labor Day weekend.

Eric Clapton has four releases coming next month.

On April 5th, he’ll put out another hits collection as part of Universal Music’s Icon series. There will be two versions — a single disc with 12 songs focusing on his time with Derek and the Dominos and his solo career, and a double-CD with 24 tracks, including songs from Cream, Blind Faith and more from his pre-1981 solo catalog.

On April 16th, in celebration of Record Store Day, Clapton will have three more releases — Unplugged on two vinyl LPs; a seven-inch single of Derek and the Dominos’ “Got to Get Better in a Little While,” with newly finished vocals by Bobby Whitlock, backed with “Layla”; and a seven-inch single of “Lonely Years” backed with “Bernard Jenkins” by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton.

Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee is going to star in yet another reality series. After stints on Rock Star: Supernova and Battleground Earth, he’s signed a deal with SyFy to produce an investigative travel show called Culture Shock With Tommy Lee. The series will follow Lee as he attempts to uncover “various rituals, symbols, and other mysteries of secret societies.” He says, “This is the first show that I’ve been a part of that will blow our minds and reveal things that will explain almost all our questions.”

Bob Dylan is releasing a $130 box set, but it doesn’t include any music. The Bob Dylan Archive is a linen-covered box that can hold all 43 Dylan CDs and be expanded to hold more. But it does come with a 220-page book of LP-sized artwork reproductions, an updated discography with excerpts from more than 90 historical reviews, and 27 advertisements spanning his entire career. The first edition run is limited to 10,000 copies.

Jeff Beck starts his Rock ‘n’ Roll Party tour tonight in Washington, D.C. Backed by The Imelda May Band, he’s supporting his recent CD and DVD, Rock ‘n’ Roll Party Honoring Les Paul. Beck and friends recorded that album last June at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York, where Paul used to play every Monday night, and they’ll be re-creating those ’50s-heavy performances on tour. Beck tells us, “It’s my one chance this year to show people that I can play that style and to play what I was playing when I was 15.”

Beck and Imelda May will perform on NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno on April 7th.

Following this tour, Beck will start another leg of his Emotion and Commotion tour on April 13th in Salt Lake City

The Eagles end their Asian tour tonight (Friday) in Hong Kong. They’ll start a European tour in June.

Alice Cooper is on Jay Leno tonight (Friday).

The Music Never Stopped opens in theaters today (Friday). The film is based on Dr. Oliver Sacks‘ essay “The Last Hippie,” about a young man with a brain tumor who finds hope through the Grateful Dead‘s music. The movie also features music by The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills and Nash.

VH1 Classic’s That Metal Show kicks off its seventh season tomorrow (Saturday) at 11 p.m. ET with Metallica‘s Kirk Hammett. Other guests booked for this season include Ace Frehley, David Coverdale, Duff McKagan, Glenn Hughes, Matt Sorum, Sebastian Bach and Carmine Appice.

The BIO Channel will repeat its Biography on Billy Joel Sunday at 2 p.m. ET. It did not air earlier this week as previously reported.

Deep Purple has scheduled their first three North American dates since 2007 — June 3rd at the Rama Casino in Rama, Ontario; June 18th at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois; and June 24th at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles — with more likely to come. Like with their European dates later in the summer, these shows will reportedly feature them playing with an orchestra. Purple perform in Russia tonight (Friday).

A German military band recently performed a brass version of “Smoke on the Water” at a celebration for outgoing German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who recently resigned amidst a scandal involving his doctorate.