THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,050) Rare Earth — “Eleanor Rigby”
People either love or hate Rare Earth’s (see #869) cover of “Eleanor Rigby”. You get “[o]ne of the best rock versions of this song ever” (60seczmusicvideos86, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1_wwr_Slck&t=344s) and “[h]ow to make the beatles better just add some smooth funk”. (joelday9155, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1_wwr_Slck&t=344s) Or, you get, “[i]t sounds like a cross between Jim Morrison as a Vegas lounge singer & Bill Murray’s lounge singer character from SNL” (Scott Kornfeld, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1_wwr_Slck&t=311s), and ”Ecology bumps to a close with a somewhat ill-advised cover of the Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’ that mimics the Moody Blues – poorly.” (30 Days Out, https://30daysout.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/your-sisters-record-rack-rare-earth/) I find it sublime. If Lennon had gotten Rare Earth to play around with Let It Be instead of Spector, we’d be living in a better world.
Chris Rizik perfectly sums up Rare Earth in one extraordinary sentence: “Whereas a number of white acts spent the 50s stealing hit blues and soul songs and sanitizing them for pop audiences, Rare Earth largely made a career out of taking hit Motown songs and giving them an even funkier rock sound – and doing it as Motown’s first major white act.” (https://www.soultracks.com/rare_earth.htm)
As to Rare Earth, Ken McIntyre tells us that:
Rare Earth’s music straddles genres and defies categorisation, slipping seamlessly between the two seemingly disparate worlds of classic rock and R&B. This careful balancing act is a rarity even now, and was a near impossibility in the colour-segregated 60s when Rare Earth began their journey. . . . “When we first started playing, Motown Records . . . had the radio locked up, especially here in Detroit,” says [saxophonist Gil] Bridges. “That’s what we were listening to when we started out, that was our roots. That’s where the R&B came from. People were astounded that a white group could play black music, but that’s where we learned. That’s what we loved, listened to and played. . . . In the beginning they were The Sunliners, a teenage garage band [see #400]. And, frankly, they were kind of square. They formed in 1960 and gigged around Detroit for eight years; they were local heroes, but had yet to make an impact outside the city. Then, in 1968, the ‘dawning of the age of Aquarius’ hit. And The Sunliners decided it was time for a change. “There was a radical shift in the music,” Bridges remembers. “Bands had these crazy names like Iron Butterfly all of a sudden. ‘The Sunliners’ just wasn’t making it any more.” They changed their name, choosing Rare Earth because it sounded significantly ‘with it’. The change worked, and the band were soon signed to Verve Records who released their debut album, Dreams/Answers, in 1968. The album flopped, but Rare Earth’s reputation as one Detroit’s preeminent live bands continued to grow. . . . Rare Earth had a knack for improvisation, and could jam on a song for, literally, hours. . . . Rare Earth soon caught the ear of Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records. . . . [W]hen they approached us they told us they were starting a whole new division, one that catered exclusively to white acts. . . . Initially, much like the band’s first album, Get Ready stalled at the gate. “The record didn’t do anything for the first six months, and we thought, ‘Uh-oh, we’ve got a dud on our hands.’ And then all of a sudden a black DJ in Washington DC spun the record. At that time, ‘album-oriented radio’ was just coming out; it wasn’t just three-minute singles any more, the DJs could play longer songs and they had the choice of what they wanted to play. . . . People went wild for it in Washington and it just spread out from there. The record broke in the black market first, and the first concerts we played were to black crowds; they were all shocked and surprised when a bunch of white guys got on stage.” Eventually Get Ready caught on with white audiences as well . . . . The band settled in with producer Norman Whitfield, a pioneer of ‘psychedelic soul’ . . . .
https://www.loudersound.com/features/cult-heroes-rare-earth-motowns-funkiest-white-band
Mark Deming adds that:
Hailing from Detroit, Rare Earth were a band inspired by the Motor City’s twin legacies in hard rock and soul. Their biggest hits saw them covering classic Motown songs of the past, while their sound found a middle ground between full-bodied rhythm & blues and tough bar band rock & roll. This dichotomy was reinforced by the fact they were the only white act signed to the Motown Records organization that regularly achieved chart success, and their tight musicianship found room for them to transform their songs through extended jams . . . . Motown Records . . . had little luck breaking into rock & roll, which was dominated by white acts. Motown founder Berry Gordy decided to create a subsidiary label devoted to rock bands, and was looking for a band to launch the new venture. Rare Earth’s sound, which straddled rock and R&B styles, appealed to him and he signed them; when he asked the group to help brainstorm a name for the new label, they jokingly suggested calling it Rare Earth, and Gordy took them up on the suggestion. . . . Album number four, Ecology, arrived in stores in June 1970, and produced [the] hit . . . cover of “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” while “Born to Wander” racked up significant airplay in the Midwest.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/rare-earth-mn0000339490/biography
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