Friday July 8, 2022 “Midnight Confessions” The Grass Roots
This 'stuff' is just relentless.
The Grass Roots were a studio experiment of Dunhill records songwriters Steve Barri and P.F. Sloane who wrote and recorded the first “Grass Roots” hit single “Where Were You When I Needed You”. The band didn’t actually exist until after their follow-up top ten hit “Let’s Live for Today” which was based on an Italian song written by David Shapiro and Italian lyricist Mogol.
Once “Let’s Live for Today” charted, giving them their second top twenty hit Barri and Sloane realized they needed a band to tour their hits but the record label didn’t want Sloane out touring because they felt he was more valuable to them as a songwriter.
So Sloan and Barri had two top twenty hits on their hands but no band to back it up so they went looking for a group that could recreate their sound and ultimately found a demo from a band called the 13th Floor who would become the Grass Roots.
The Grass Roots managed to chart fourteen Top 40 hits, including seven gold singles and one platinum single, along with two ‘best of’ collections that effortlessly went gold but they would remain almost anonymous while they were pumping out in-house written and produced pop hits…and there is nothing wrong with that as most of their tunes were immediately familiar, easy to sing along with and fun to listen to...and almost instantly forgettable.
The record label's decision to keep P.F. Sloan writing songs turned out to be valid thinking on their part as Sloan would go on to write hit songs like “A Must to Avoid” (Herman’s Hermits), “You Baby” (Turtles, Ronettes), “Secret Agent Man” (Johnny Rivers) and “Eve of Destruction” (Barry McGuire) among many other top twenty hits.
Have mentioned this before but for any fans of the TV show The Office there was an occasional character named Creed Bratton who was an office worker as well as a musician and he was played by Creed Bratton who was an original member of The Grass Roots.
Stay safe and well…and although it is not today's song let's be sure to live for today.