(P.F. Sloan -aka: The Grass Roots - confusing, not really)

When the Grass Roots gained attention with their first single, Where Were You When I Needed You, there was one catch - there actually was no Grass Roots - just two songwriters who wrote songs and cut a bunch of demos with some session folks of which tonight's track was one of them and it hit #28 on the charts.

P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri were house writers for Dunhill Records, an L.A. label very big in the mid-1960's when folk-rock was just about hitting its peak. The had written songs for a number of artists at the time and had gained an insiders notoriety as a talented and edgy songwriting team.

So when the first single was a hit, the problem became what to do about putting a band together. Eventually one was assembled, but after this single and the subsequent album that followed, the band that became the actual Grass Roots had very little in common with that first incarnation. Certainly what made the early non-Grass Roots Grass Roots so appealing was the edge and bite to their songs. And even though they went on to become huge as a pop group, they abandoned their initial protest stance and opted for a more commercial sound and that lost their early fan base.

Certainly not the first time that's ever happened and certainly won't be the last.

But tonight it's the early, edgy Grass Roots - rather timeless.