Shinin On Rock's

Shinin On is a great hard rock album, This is from the We're An American band period (73-76) where Don Brewer Grand Funk's Great Drummer steps up with his song writing and lead singing along with Mark Farner who was GFRs main song Writer and a Great singer as well. Brewer rocks on Please Me, Getting Over you, Carry Me through, and Shinin On. The song Destitute N Losin (the B side from Locomotion) is included on this one and it is a great Mark Farner song. Farner chimes in as well with To Get Back and it is a nice song. Locomotion was the big hit from this album (along with Shinin On) kind of hurt the band in the long run, people starting thinking of GFR as a pop/hits band instead of a head rock band. Another Farner song, Mr. Pretty Boy is a different kind of GFR song, that really does not fit on this hard rock album but is interesting nevertheless, it has no drums in it and is a slow bluesy song. Over all Shinin On is a dam good album, GFRs music-ship is in top form. Shinin on is Pure Grand Funk, Pure Hard Rock, Pure Brewer, Pure Farner, Pure Schacher, Pure Frost and Pure Hard Rock. I don't think anyone who likes hard rock could be disappointed with this album.

Grand Funk Displays Maturity and Flexibility

Grand Funk's Shining On is an effort that truly showed the all around abilities of what they were about. All of the band's musical influences come to the front on this one. When you listen to this CD you here the polish of a truly matured band that recognized their ability to cross over to mainstream Top 40 as well as satisfying the tastes of the legions of fans GFR had built over the years. Heavy metal, Motown, and good old fashion blues influence "shine through" on this effort. Mark's soulful vocals and writing have never been better as well as Don Brewer's songwriting,which has blossomed with the success of "American Band". Brewer shows an all around "musicianship" on this CD. The keyboards of Craig Frost have now evolved into the mix,no longer a "filler" for the sound as on "Phoenix" but totally creating a sound that Grand Funk fans would recognize for years. As always Mel Schacher holds down the bottom in the only way he knows, earthy yet creative as not to take anything away from any of the compositions here, but to bring them to a greater level. Everything said, this is a fine effort for a band that had been through a lot of difficult times. The Railroad proves once again that hard work and perseverance gets the job done!