40 YEARS OF MARK FARNER

There is an "official" tour this year of the former band Mark used to be with.

We think this is just ridiculous and so petty. Self defeating as well...

How can that voice and those licks be replaced? How can that guy even walk on the stage without being totally humiliated.

It's like The DOORS trying to replace Jim Morrison. Replace the very signature of the group? Earth Wind and Fire without the WIND AND FIRE...LOL

Sadly.. there is a GFR mexican standoff (which is a strategic deadlock or impasse, in which no party can act in a way that ensures victory.) that seems without repair.

However we will always admire Mark Farner who those on the inside all know to be a really fine, gifted, and an honorable family man. He deserves better than this treatment he has received from that group.

From VH1

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."

Mark was born in Flint, MI, in 1948, the second-oldest of four children, to Betty and Delton Farner.

Farner began his career in music playing in bands like Terry Knight and The Pack (1965-1966), The Bossmen (1966), The Pack (aka The Fabulous Pack) (1967-1968), before forming Grand Funk Railroad (later called Grand Funk) in 1969. Grand Funk's "We're An American Band" reached #1 on the Hot 100 on Mark's 25th birthday.

In the 1990s, Farner formed Lismark Communications with former Freedom Reader editor Steve Lisuk. Soon after, Farner began reissuing his solo albums on his own record label, LisMark Records.
Farner toured with Ringo Starr's Allstars from 1994 to 1995, which also featured Randy Bachman, John Entwistle, Felix Cavaliere, Billy Preston, and Starr's son, Zak Starkey.


He currently tours with his band, N'rG, which plays a mixture of Grand Funk songs and Farner's solo offerings.


The authorized biography of Mark Farner, From Grand Funk to Grace, was published in 2002 by Collectors Guide Publishing in Canada. As Farner said it has "the facts, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." Of his biographer, Beatles Undercover author Kristofer Engelhardt, Farner says "He's thorough...a very thorough guy. He should've been a P.I."

The first 200 pages cover Farner's life from the loss of his father at age nine to how he developed as a musician. There are details on his marriages, his children and grandchildren, work with Terry Knight during their time together in the Pack, as well as Knight's management of the group and the eventual split and lawsuit. In a very bold move for a biography, Farner's views on politics, religion, and his philosophy on life in general -- which his biographer said are "more to the right than Ted Nugent" -- give a very sharp picture of an individual who is passionate about his ideals, a man who sticks to his guns.

We Celebrate 40 Years of Mark Farner:

Heartbreaker