The Grass Roots - Where Were You When I Needed You [Varese Sarabande Bonus Tracks] (CD)

Astoundingly great sunshine folk-rock

By redtunictroll  Jun 12, 2005

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Given that The Grass Roots had one of the most impressive Top-40 runs in American chart history (including the perennials "Let's Live for Today" and "Midnight Confessions"), it's amazing that these early chapters in the ba...nd's history are so little known. Adding to the obscurity is that the band(s) heard here have virtually no personnel in common with the better-known version, save for songwriter/producers Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan. Barri and Sloan are best known for compositions like "You Baby" (The Turtles), "Eve of Destruction" (Barry McGuire), and Secret Agent Man (Johnny Rivers), but in 1965 they found themselves recording their own "Where Were You When I Needed You" with Sloan on lead vocal accompanied by Byrds-like 12-string guitar. The harmony-laden, wall-of-sound chorus is as informed by Spector and Wilson as by the then-burgeoning folk-rock scene. In what would come to be a Grass Roots' hallmark, an actual band had to be recruited to take to the road in the wake of the single's success. The second Grass Roots (counting Barri & Sloan as GR#1) was a northern California band originally called The Bedouins. Riding the sound of the initial single, GR#2 relocated to Los Angeles and became well-known for their performances at Sunset Strip clubs like The Whiskey A-Go-Go and The Trip. Studio sessions yielded almost enough sides for an album, but a rift with their producer/writers (over how much the band would play, and how much their lead singer would be supported by studio hands) destroyed GR#2 before the albums was complete. Sloan and Barri pulled together some earlier demo tracks (with Sloan singing) to flesh out the GR#2 tracks, and an LP was readied. In preparation for the album's launch, a re-recorded version of "Where Were You When I Needed You" was released as a single, with Bill Fulton of GR#2 singing lead. Once the single caught on, the LP was released (though, most confusingly, with the earlier P.F. Sloan sung version of "Where Were You"!), but with no band to promote it on the road, it flopped. The obscurity to which this album was condemned is criminal, as Barry & Sloan's vision of folk rock is a superb combination of The Byrds and Beau Brummels, mixed with sunshine pop elements of bands like The Turtles. Their compositions and cover selections are true ear candy, and the various singers who put their voices to them strike the perfect balance between folk harmonies and garage grit, as on a wonderfully snotty cover of Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man." The band was equally adept at the sort of melodic pop-rock that The Monkees cut so convincingly as they were at tougher garage rockers. Rev-Ola's magnificent reissue includes the twelve tracks of the original LP, along with eight terrific bonuses. Included in the extras are the single version of "Where Were You," a third version of "Where Were You" (sung by eventual GR#3 vocalist Rob Grill), a fuzz-guitar garage B-side ("You're a Lonely Girl"), and a nice garage cover of "Hitch Hike" This CD defines what great reissues are all about. Read more Less