Mark Farner

Mark Farner is the heart and soul of the band Grand Funk Railroad, having written and/or sung their most famous songs from the majority of their '70s hits: "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)," "Bad Time," "Footstompin' Music," "Rock & Roll Soul," the number one remake of the Little Eva classic "The Loco-Motion" ( which is everything creatively that a remake should be), a cover of "Some Kind of Wonderful," along with a multitude of well-known album tracks, including "Hooked on Love," "Mean Mistreater," "Heartbreaker," to riveting versions of the Stones' "Gimme Shelter" and Traffic's "Feelin' Allright." He was born in Flint, MI, in 1948, the second-oldest of four children, to Betty and Delton Farner. His first recorded work of note was with Terry Knight & the Pack on Lucky Eleven Records, distributed by Cameo/Parkway. In an interview on Visual Radio-Television taped August 31, 2001, at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, Farner reminisced when he was shown a copy of Monumental Funk. "This is a bootleg...it's Pack music...Otis Ellis who owned Lucky Eleven Records...who did the deal with Cameo/Parkway...he always had the 'Michigan bankroll' with the rubber band around it, put the hundred dollar bills on the outside and have about 50 or 60 one-dollar bills on the inside, just a big wad. This is an album that they put out...the old manager Jim Atherton that managed the Pack was in cahoots with him on this. Jim's my friend today and I don't begrudge that those guys tried to make some money off us. At the time, we hated their guts, but now bygones are bygones, friends are friends, love always finds it's way back to the heart even though you may be temporarily disliking someone. If you really love 'em you'll be back together with 'em, you know?" The authorized biography of...