IM: WHUSDJ
CURRENT SHOW
Bluegrass Rules
Tune into "Dark Side of the Highway" this Sunday (July 17) from 3-6 AM EST for a special memorial tribute to Rob Grill, lead vocalist of The Grass Roots...
R. I. P. Robert Frank Grill (November 30, 1943 - July 11, 2011)
Robert Frank "Rob" Grill (November 30, 1943 – July 11, 2011) was an American lead singer, songwriter and bass guitarist of the rock and roll band, The Grass Roots.
He launched a solo career in 1979, assisted on his solo album by several members of Fleetwood Mac. Responding to 60s nostalgia, Grill then reformed The Grass Roots (billed "The Grass Roots Starring Rob Grill") and toured the United States since the 1980s.
Rob was a native of Hollywood, California where he attended Hollywood High School. Soon after graduation, Rob began working at American Recording Studios with musician friends Cory Wells and John Kay (who later formed Three Dog Night and Steppenwolf, respectively). Convinced to start his own band, Rob and three others formed The Grass Roots. Teaming up with mega-hit producer P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri (The Mamas & the Papas, Tommy Roe, Four Tops and Dusty Springfield), The Grass Roots went on to chart twenty nine singles, thirteen of which went gold followed by two gold albums and two platinum albums.
The Grass Roots played at the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival on Sunday June 11, 1967 in the "summer of love" as their top ten hit "Let's Live For Today" was hitting the airwaves. This music festival is important because it occurred before the Monterey Pop Festival but did not have a movie to document it for the ages. On Sunday October 27, 1968 they played at the San Francisco Pop Festival and then played at the Los Angeles Pop Festival and Miami Pop Festival in December of that year as their top ten hit "Midnight Confessions" was hitting the airwaves.
The Grass Roots played at Newport Pop Festival 1969 at Devonshire Downs which was a racetrack at the time but now is part of the North Campus for California State University at Northridge. They played on Sunday June 22 which was the final day of the festival as their top twenty hit "Wait A Million Years" was hitting the airwaves. In Canada, they played at the Vancouver Pop Festival at the Paradise Valley Resort in British Columbia in August 1969.
In 2006, former manager Marty Angelo published a book entitled, Once Life Matters: A New Beginning which has numerous stories about his life on the road with Rob Grill and the Grass Roots back in the early 1970s.
In 2008, The Grass Roots Starring Rob Grill released a live album chronicling their 14 top forty Billboard hits titled Live Gold.
Grill composed sixteen songs for The Grass Roots and his solo album. One of these appeared as a single "A" side. It is "Come On And Say It". His other fifteen compositions appeared on single "B" sides and albums. He wrote frequently with Warren Entner and they were considered a songwriting team. Grill played with The Grass Roots on sixteen albums, seven of which charted. He took part in thirty two Grass Roots singles released, twenty one of which charted.
Grill died July 11, 2011 in an Orlando, Florida hospital. He had been in a coma since sustaining a head injury several weeks earlier when he fell after suffering a stroke in northern California. He was 67.