Rare Earth

Rock, Classic Rock, Soul, Pop, 1960s, 1970s

RARE EARTH has been an established name in the music industry for over two decades, and now they are back performing with the same unique and recognizable sound that has always been their own!
Hit songs include…"Get Ready", "I’m Losing You", "Born To Wander", "I Just Want To Celebrate" and "Hey Big Brother". 

Band: These individuals guarantee the audience an evening of the greatest musicianship and singing ever to be heard! Needless to say, everyone walks away excited and with the warm feeling that they have gotten their money’s worth. It is truly an exhilarating experience!

Recently, Rare Earth decided to tour again – much to the applause of their many fans across the country. Rare Earth has their audiences up and out of their seats dancing and singing along with their million selling classics such as “Get Ready”, “Hey Big Brother”, “Losing You”, “Born to Wander”, and “I Just Want to Celebrate” creating an atmosphere reminiscent of the Madison Square Garden Concert in 1970, the Atlantic Pop Festival in 1971 or the California Jam which was one of their most memorable concerts broadcast nationally in 1974.

Rare Earth has an amazing track record over 3,000 concerts with such performances as the Ed Sullivan Show, The David Frost Show, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. Rare Earth performed on the very first Midnight Special where they set the precedent in performing live instead of lip synchronization to a record. They have been asked back a total of three times by the producers of Midnight Special. Rare Earth – definitely crowd pleasers!

They have performed with Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, and Ike and Tina Turner. Some acts that have opened a Rare Earth concert are Earth, Wind, and Fire, Steely Dan, and the Doobie Brothers. Among those activities, including performances in Alaska, Hawaii and a concert tour of South America, they were commissioned to do the title song of the move “Generation” starring Kim Darby and David Jansen.

Out of the nine albums released by Rare Earth, two have gone Double Platinum (“Get Ready” and “Rare Earth in Concert”); one Platinum (“One World”)’ and three Gold (“Ecology”, “Willie Remembers”, and “Ma”) along with several million selling singles. The group tours Europe annually with rave reviews. In 1994 they released their first studio recorded album in 17 years called “Different World” on the Koch Int. label.

Rare Earth has always been the “People’s Band” and the thirst for performing for a live audience has brought them back to touring the country – performing WITH the audience, not at them.

Rare Earth is great! At the climax of their show, the audience is always on their feet – some of those feet on chairs and tables – with the audience demanding an encore, which is acknowledged with another show stopping “million seller” by the incomparable Rare Earth.

History: In 1961 a group of high school buddies formed a band and called it "The Sunliners".After playing for about seven years the group decided to change the name of the band. Hence forth comes "Rare Earth".

Motown Record Corporation approached Rare Earth in the latter part of 1968 to sign a recording contract. At first the group was reluctant to sign because of knowing of other white groups and artists before them that had not had any success because Motown was geared for promotion and distrubution in the black market only. It was when Motown decided they wanted to launch a new division of Motown to cater to white artists that Rare Earth started to seriously consider signing.

Motown did not have a name for the new division and lable so jokeingly the band suggested the name Rare Earth. Unbelieveably they agreed. That convinced the band that Motown was serious about making Rare Earth their first successful white band and they were going to sign more white acts to be on the "Rare Earth" Label. To clear up a long time false statement that Rare Earth was the only white act to ever be signed with Motown, Rare Earth was the one and only successful white band to be signed with Motown. Rare Earth was with Motown from 1968 to 1978.

Motown wanted an album from Rare Earth immediately after signing.

Rare Earth was playing bars for several years prior to signing with Motown. Motown music at that time was very strong on the radio so Rare Earth was playing a lot of Motown songs in clubs. Thus the bands roots developed from R&B music. Most people in the beginning thought Rare Earth to be black. Surprise, surprise. The band had been playing the song "Get Ready" in clubs for about a year or two prior to recording it. It started out a 3 minute song until one member took a solo and then everyone wanted a solo so over time the song became 21 minutes long. It became the closing song each night and people liked it so much they would stay just to hear it.

The band decided that "Get Ready" would be Rare Earth's first recording, to be 21 minutes long and to be one whole side of the first album. Motown was leary about doing this but the band insisted because radio was starting to play album cuts which were longer than the normal 3 minute single. "Get Ready" first broke in Washington D.C. in the black market, spread across the country and eventually into the white market. It was a huge hit selling millions of records and remaining on the charts for almost 3 years. Some of Rare Earth's other hits from 1969 to 1974 were songs such as "Big Brother","Born to wander", "Tobacco road", "Losin You", and "I Just Want To Celebrate".