Archive Review: Rare Earth’s The Best Of Rare Earth, The Millennium Collection (2001)

They might have well been the funkiest bunch o’ white boys to come out of the Motor City, kicking out the jams with a hybrid of Motown soul and hard rock ‘n’ roll. Much like Rodney Dangerfield, however, Rare Earth never gets any respect. Critics trashed them, the record buying public forgot them shortly after the last notes of their handful of hits had rung and, well, quite frankly, history hasn’t looked down favorably on the band. The Best of Rare Earth, a 7-track compilation released from the Motown vaults as part of the “20th Century Masters Millennium Collection” proves that these guys were ahead of their time by almost two decades.

Although they weren’t the first funkmeisters to mix create rock ‘n’ roll with R & B roots in the ‘60s – hometown heroes the MC5 did it a couple of years earlier – Rare Earth had greater success with the sound. Cuts like “Get Ready,” “Hey Big Brother” and “I Just Want To Celebrate” proved to be large hits for a relatively undistinguished bunch of players, and the songs hold up well even after thirty years. Rare Earth foreshadowed the jam bands of the ‘90s with extended instrumental passages filled to the brim with funky rhythms, rock riffs and jazzy interludes that stretched three-minute pop songs into 15- or 20-minute compositions. Sometimes tedious, sometimes exhilarating, it was nonetheless unique.

At their best, Rare Earth exemplified the sort of musical experimentation that made the late 1960s/early 1970s an exciting time for music. Anything might happen, with adventuresome bands throwing elements of country, blues, jazz, and R & B music on top of their basic roots rock sound. When they were good – as on the handful of hit singles featured on The Best of Rare Earth – the band was very good. Honestly, however, those moments were few and far between. Rare Earth’s more typical fare consisted of hackneyed R & B covers (like their slaughtering of Ray Charles’ classic “What’d I Say”), which is what earned them their reputation with critics and historians. For those listeners wanting a taste of one of rock music’s more obscure bands, I’d heartily recommend The Best of Rare Earth as a low-cost sampler that features the four big hits, which is all anyone really wants anyway... (Motown Records, released 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine