"From Grand Funk to Grace"

Anyone who has even the slightest brain cells remaining after 1969 and the festivals of the summer of love, know who mark farner is!

This savage samite singer of the Shea stadium legendary performance and the lighting bolt that charged Grand Funks shows and albums( yeah , vinyl)was and is stratospheric in his approach to audience participation.

You knew from the start of the song, until the last tune , that you were on a laser bound for the heart of rock and roll.

This biography does exactly what i would expect from a Mark Farner project, piss you off while chuckling at his brashness.

The book is a personal look at the formative relationships of family and the tragedy of losses that took their toll on the young athlete turned musician.A fond recall of the days of yore and how they impacted him.

The un heroic flight from armed services via any means possible, even so far as to appear gay or drug addicted. Reckless youthful pranks of every variety and mayhem.A all too normal background in Michigan’s industial environment and it's root beliefs, rowdy being the norm , not the exception.

The salvation by the music of the era that sparked the drive that possessed the man and the boy to follow an uncertain and unmapped future to rock's shaking shoes , where the glass slipper is always a foot away from royalty, and gold and silver come a in vinyl gem.

The drug culture is alive and well in this storied testament to youthful endurance and luck, not to mention miraculous recoveries.

The famous co-horts in pranks and mischief are no less than Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, unfortunate examples of the excess of stardom that leads to a free fall without a net.

The success of the power trio phase of grand funk is enlightening , but too limited for my taste, more telling of the concerts would have thrilled me since i was at many of them and they were wild and untamed events that were by any one’s account, intense!!

His child by an affair with a touring female is touching and sad, evidence of his need to right a wrong.

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