| Rare Earth Band Members Included: PETE RIVERA - Lead Vocals, Drums (Sunliners) GIL BRIDGES - Sax, Flute (Sunliners) KEN JAMES - Keyboards JOHN PARRISH - Bass, Trombone (Sunliners) ROD RICHARDS - Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals (Sunliners) ED GUZMAN - Percussion RAY MONETTE - Guitar (replaced Richards) MARK OLSON - Keyboards (replaced James) ...and numerous others through 1979 when they gave it up Quite a prolific, popular and long-lived band and a Detroit area favorite (they starting out in Lansing as the Sunliners in the very early part of the decade, at which time the band contained Fred Saxon (Kotenko) AS the Sunliners they had the distinction of opening for the Beatles Detroit appearance in 1966 and were rumored to posses a performing repertoire of over 500 songs, although they were as much, if not more of a Roostertail-type nightclub lounge act as they were a pure rock band. Even though they signed to Motown's new rock subsidiary in 1968 (with both taking the same name in the process ) and were produced by a handful of notables including Detroit guitar wizard Dennis Coffey among others, Rare Earth's psychedelicized renditions of their favorite Motown tunes haven't aged near as well as even Vanilla Fudge's similar mutations (go ahead, play all 21 minutes of "Get Ready"...you'll understand). It's hard to tell if these guys wanted to be the Temptations, Young Rascals, Three Dog Night or possibly Blood Sweat & Tears (or all in one) but despite a string of modestly successful records that wandered the territory of those influences during the early seventies, musically they made little impact at the time and even less of a lasting impression. RIP. |
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| Temptations record their first live album at the Roostertail |
| Four Tops and Jerry at their 1973 Roostertail show. |
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