The Grass Roots

A string of landmark successes, above all “Let’s Live for Today,” “Midnight Confessions,” “Temptation Eyes,” and “Two Divided by Love,” captured the spirit of the period’s strongest AM radio fare. Even though none of the musicians ever became familiar faces and the band contributed almost nothing in the way of original material, the Grass Roots still placed 14 singles inside the Top 40—seven of them gold and one platinum—while two separate greatest-hits packages also reached gold status with ease. Adding to the complexity, at least three separate aggregations took part in creating the recordings issued under the Grass Roots name.

P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, a songwriting and production partnership, first devised the Grass Roots as a fictitious identity for a series of Byrds- and Beau Brummels-influenced folk-rock sides. Contracted to Trousdale Music, Dunhill Records’ publishing division, they were instructed to supply material that would exploit the 1965 folk-rock surge. Dunhill further directed them to invent a group alias for the releases. Their initial Grass Roots offering, “Where Were You When I Needed You,” featuring Sloan’s own vocal, was shipped to a Los Angeles station that promptly added it to rotation—despite the fact that no such band existed. Sloan therefore recruited the Bedouins, a San Francisco ensemble whose frontman, Bill Fulton, impressed him. Fulton overdubbed a fresh vocal onto the existing instrumental tracks. Although the Bedouins agreed at first to let Sloan and Barri guide their career, the rest of the group objected when Fulton alone was permitted to record a cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Ballad of a Thin Man” with studio backing. That October 1965 single achieved only modest success; consequently the Bedouins, save drummer Joel Larson, returned to San Francisco and later re-emerged as the Unquenchable Thirst. Sloan and Barri persisted, issuing the original “Where Were You When I Needed You” in mid-1966, where it climbed to number 28, though the accompanying album failed to chart.

Throughout 1966 no stable Grass Roots unit actually existed. Dunhill eventually received a demo from a Los Angeles quartet called the 13th Floor, whose members—Warren Entner on vocals, guitar, and keyboards, Creed Bratton on lead guitar, Rob Grill on vocals and bass, and Rick Coonce on drums—were invited either to record under their own name or to assume the Grass Roots identity and work with Sloan and Barri. They selected the latter option, installing Grill as principal lead singer. Their first session in spring 1967 produced “Let’s Live for Today,” a brisk, dramatically arranged reworking of an earlier Italian hit by the Rokes. Released that summer, the single soared into the Top Ten, while the album of the same title stalled at number 75. Seeking greater independence, the band emphasized its own compositions on the late-1967 album Feelings, yet the record lacked the commercial punch of its predecessor, sold poorly, and yielded no hits. Eleven months passed before another chart entry appeared; during this interval Sloan and Barri dissolved their partnership, Sloan relocating to New York to pursue a solo career. The group itself contemplated disbanding. Its return proved decisive: under Barri’s production, “Midnight Confessions” reached number five in late 1968 and earned gold certification, its Motown-inflected R&B flavor leaving a lasting impression on both producer and musicians.

Creed Bratton departed in April 1969; Denny Provisor took over keyboards and Terry Furlong joined on lead guitar. Now a quintet, the Grass Roots maintained their hit-making pace into the early 1970s, cresting with “Temptation Eyes,” which peaked at number 15 during summer 1971. At year’s end Coonce and Provisor exited, replaced by Reed Kailing on lead guitar, Virgil Webber on keyboards, and the returning Joel Larson on drums. This revised lineup capitalized on the number 16 success of “Two Divided by Love,” the last major hit. The group continued to reach the Top 40 twice more in 1972, yet commercial momentum faded through 1973. Activity persisted for another couple of years before the original configuration disbanded in 1975. Rob Grill stayed active behind the scenes and, at the urging of friend John McVie, recorded the 1980 solo album Uprooted, which included contributions from Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham. By 1982, capitalizing on the expanding oldies circuit and renewed appreciation for the Grass Roots’ catalog, Grill assembled a new edition of the band—occasionally billed as Rob Grill and the Grass Roots—and began performing up to 100 shows annually. Continued appearances on package tours kept the name prominent. Grill remained active with subsequent lineups into the 2000s, though he had long battled degenerative bone disease; in June 2011 he sustained a head injury and died the following month in Tavares, Florida, at age 67 from resulting complications.