The Grass Roots

Pop group

Despite the beginnings of the group that bring to mind the original "Pre-Fab Four"—the Monkees—the Grass Roots evolved into a respectable pop group that both wrote and performed much of their own music. The Grass Roots, cemented by the group's most famous lineup of Warren Entner, Rick Coonce, Rob Grill, and Creed Bratton, proved their reliable hit-making acumen with oldies and classic rock radio format staples such as "Let's Live for Today," "Temptation Eyes," "Midnight Confessions," and "Two Divided by Love."

The Grass Roots were formed by Trousdale Music, the music publishing division of record label ABC Dunhill, to capitalize on the folk-rock boom of the mid-1960s, epitomized by such acts as the Byrds, the Turtles, the Mamas and the Papas, and the Beau Brummels. Trousdale songwriters P.F. Sloan (born Philip Gary Schlein) and Steve Barri (born Steven Barry Lipkin) had already recognized modest success as The Fantastic Baggys with the novelty single "Tell 'Em I'm Surfin'," and as the writers of Herman's Hermits' "A Must to Avoid" and the Round Robins' "Kick That Foot, Sally Ann" for the Screen Gems label. When Screen Gems executive Lou Adler left to form the Dunhill label, he brought Barri and Sloan with him, and formed a record company with a roster that included the Mamas and the Papas, Barry McGuire, and the Turtles. McGuire scored a major hit with the Sloan composition "Eve of Destruction," while The Turtles dented the charts with the infectious Sloan-Barri song "You Baby." Another composition by the pair was the major hit and television theme song "Secret Agent Man," which was recorded by Dunhill artist Johnny Rivers. In 1965 the duo wrote and recorded "Where Were You When I Needed You" as the Grass Roots, with Sloan on lead vocals. The relative anonymity of the Grass Roots moniker allowed Sloan to pursue a parallel career as a solo artist. However, "Where Were You When I Needed You" became a hit single, while Sloan's solo career floundered. To promote the essentially non-existent Grass Roots, Dunhill needed a group to perform the hit and other Sloan-Barri compositions for live and televised performances. As a result, they recruited a group previously known as the Bedouins. Bedouin singer Bill Fulton re-recorded the vocal track for "Where Were You When I Needed You," but the band chafed at Dunhill's insistence that only Fulton appear on the Grass Roots' recording of Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man." The single flopped, and the Bedouins departed to San Francisco to reinvent themselves as the Unquenchable Thirst.

"Where Were You When I Needed You" charted in 1966, but there was no Grass Roots group to capitalize on the single's success. A Los Angeles group named the 13th Floor (not to be confused with the psychedelic 13th Floor Elevators) had submitted a demonstration tape to Dunhill, and was offered the unusual deal of either a recording contract using their original name or filling the vacant chairs of the Grass Roots. The Floor members—Coonce (drums), Grill (vocals, bass guitar), Entner (guitar, keyboards, vocals), and Bratton (guitar)—opted for the latter, and the Grass Roots were born again. The newly configured Grass Roots of 1967 garnered an immediate hit with a remake of a pop song by an Italian group called the Rokes, "Let's Live for Today." The song's urgency and the sincerity of Grill's vocals immediately tapped into the 1967 Summer of Love zeitgeist with a decidedly romantic feel. The first verse, "When I think of all the troubles that people seem to find/and how they're in a hurry to complicate their minds/By chasing after money and dreams that don't come true/I'm glad that we are different, we've better things to do/Let others plan their future, I'm busy loving you," seemed a perfect description of the music-buying public's attitudes. The simple yet somehow philosophically sound and dramatically different solution was summed up in the song's title, introduced after each chorus with a 1-2-3-4 count-in: "Let's Live for Today." The song featured the familiar sitar-like high-pitched guitar phrasing of the era to heighten the peaceful mantra of the title. Instead of endeavoring to solve the world's problems, the song's lyrics acknowledged their presence while advocating a solution through individual relationships. The single was a piece of 1960s pop nirvana, as was the album Let's Live for Today, on which it was featured.

The Grass Roots experienced another Monkees parallel with their next album, Feelings, which featured compositions written by the band members rather than Barri or Sloan. During the late 1960s and the explosion of such entertainers as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen, all of whom performed their own material, groups and performers were expected to write and perform their own songs in order to be considered real artists. The Grass Roots insisted on performing band-penned tunes for Feelings, but the album fared poorly and yielded no singles. In 1968, however, the group rebounded with the Lou Josie-composed "Midnight Confessions," a song featuring a heavy bass line with brass-tinged punctuation and impassioned vocals about a man's unrequited love for a married woman. The song was produced by Barri. Lineup changes didn't stop the band's success, since the public had failed to embrace the individual band members as celebrities. Entner and Grill were the group's only constant members as they entered the 1970s. After experiencing hits with "Temptation Eyes" and "Two Divided by Love" in the early 1970s, they too folded their tents, and the Grass Roots called it a day as a producer of top-notch pop music fare. Some members of the original group have toured occasionally on the oldies circuit, but new material has been in short supply for more than three decades.

For the Record …

Members include: Creed Bratton , guitar; Ricky Coonce , drums; Warren Entner , guitar, vocals; Rob Grill , bass guitar, vocals.

Formed as performing project for songwriters and singers P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, 1965; issued "Where Were You When I Needed You," 1966; released hits "Let's Live for Today" and "Things I Should Have Said," 1967; released hit "Midnight Confessions," 1968; released hits "Two Divided by Love" and "Temptation Eyes," 1971.