When we bought rock in the Sixties, we got personality with it. The American rock-group pantheon of the last decade — such as the Band, the Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sly and the Family Stone, perhaps the Grateful Dead — included strong individual leaders — Robbie Robertson, Roger McGuinn, John Fogerty, Sly Stone and Jerry Garcia.

Now, five years after Woodstock, the American supergroup, as represented by Chicago, Three Dog Night and Grand Funk Railroad, is in crisis. As befits a form honoring the adolescent in us all, the supergroup is having an identity crisis.

Chicago conjures up nothing but a logo (perhaps the best artist-marketing device in rock), that Coke-like signature that dominates their nearly identical album covers. And try as they may, Three Dog Night seems like more of a sound than a group. After five years of gold albums and singles, and endless SRO arena-sized concert tours, who but their closest relatives and staunchest fans recognize photographs of Lee Loughnane and Jimmy Greenspoon? Who knows which group each of them is in?

And the music of both groups is as faceless as their members. Chicago derives its sound from Stan Getz and cool jazz, big, brassy dance bands, all mixed with the latest in technologically advanced but anonymous recording styles. Three Dog Night is the descendant of the early Sixties Tin Pan Alley pop-rock that Dylan helped to destroy. Though some of their work is pleasant, the group is an anachronism, a vehicle for songwriters in an age when songwriters are their own best vehicle.

Grand Funk Ubermensch

Though Grand Funk has its own problems, they are, at least, a rock band — while Chicago and Three Dog Night are not. When Grand Funk jettisoned manager/producer Terry Knight, who had provided them with a perhaps spurious, but effective persona — the Rock & Roll Ubermensch — they too found themselves without a personality. But with a recognized leader, Mark Farner, they quickly and smartly retreated to the homiletic "We're an American Band," rekindling the connections between their craft and the traditions founded by Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and their contemporaries. Chicago and Three Dog Night simply can't make those connections, because they are too rooted in pop traditions, as opposed to rock tradition.

But pop is also a commodity, rock is now merging into pop, and all three of these bands are pop in that sense and popularizers as well. Their audiences are comprised primarily of people who didn't experience the pre-Woodstock rock explosion firsthand and who do not sense these groups' inauthenticity. Part of the post-Woodstock idea presumes that the previous era was somehow magically superior to the present. Whether or not that's true —I think it is too soon to tell— the result has been instant nostalgia. Thus, Grand Funk is a power trio (now a quarter) for those who missed Cream; Three Dog Night, the world's most popular Vegas lounge act, for those who've never experienced nightclub or vaudeville entertainment; Chicago, a jazz group for those who have neither the industry nor the inclination to seek the real thing.

These groups don't necessarily share the same audience. Grand Funk was able to capture those who want to feel the old-style commitment that pre-Woodstock rock entailed. Three Dog Night and Chicago have more passive audiences to go with their more passive music. As a result, Grand Funk's music may not last, but their concerts and albums may at least be remembered as events. Their work had an effect that transcended the specific situations in which it occurred. That event had its darker side—it occasionally seemed like an American version of a Nuremberg rally — but it was also exhilarating. Grand Funk had fans and those fans had a commitment to that group and its simple, populist ideology which almost no other group since Woodstock has been able to inspire.

Three Dog Victory

On the other hand, last summer Three Dog Night proclaimed a victory over the Beatles because they had topped several of the latter's attendance records in various stadiums and arenas around the nation. We were to infer from this that Three Dog Night had surpassed the Beatles in the area where they thought it counted most: numbers.

That inference is ridiculous, not only because the Beatles made art, but also because Three Dog Night's concerts were just bigger shows. There were no riots, no screams, no lust, no passion. Socially, Three Dog Night is a cipher, with all the magic and mystery of a five o'clock traffic jam. Magic and mystery were just what made the Beatles' and Grand Funk's concerts — events. Similarly, Chicago could sell out Death Valley, and it would still be just another rock concert.

Three Dog Night's and Chicago's buyers aren't fans, but consumers. Fanaticism requires something about which passion can be worked up. Creating passion for a rock group without an interesting persona is as impossible as creating passion for Gerald Ford. And that's the reason Chicago and Three Dog Night haven't been able to capitalize on critical animosity as Grand Funk has. The GFR began by asking, "If Grand Funk is happening, and the critics ignore them, then how hip can the critics be?" Their audience, instinctively rebellious, took the hint. Buying a Grand Funk record became a gesture of commitment, a signal that the purchaser was an insider.

Three Dog Night recently ran a six-page, full-color ad in the music trade magazines (that never give bad reviews) and thundered, "The Public be denied? Never!" Their argument was that if it sells it's good and that critics weren't doing their bit by helping sales. "We've found our particular niche: entertainment," said lead guitarist, Michael Allsup. "We've sold millions of records and hundreds of writers receive performance royalties and publishing royalties because we do care about contributing substantially to the music world."

Yet, in the aftermath of their extraordinary economic success, Three Dog Night—like Chicago and Grand Funk— can't resist the lure of respectability (the one goal left to conquer) and so have chosen to now grace us with the very antithesis of their own argument about simple entertainment—a concept album. The most effective conceptual moment on Hard Labor comes on the cover —a mannequin giving birth to the group's latest slab of vinyl. Inside are two songs by Daniel Moore, who with B.W. Stevenson wrote "Shambala," but neither song is as good as that one. A Jimmy Cliff song, "Sitting In Limbo," is well done, but certainly not up to the original.

Allen Toussaint's "Play Something Sweet" is terrific, though it would be even better were it half as long. In their advertising copy, drummer Floyd Sneed suggests that Three Dog Night would like to serve "an elegant banquet [for critics] ... on our gold records." At least the dish served on the one they get for Hard Labor won't have to be turkey.

Grand Funk's new album, Shinin' On, is good, but its best moments reflect producer Todd Rundgren's talents as much as the group's. "Loco-motion" is someone's idea of a dance record; it gets more bearable, on the radio, the more you hear it. Rundgren has loosened up the playing in general — the early GFR albums have so much bass it's little wonder they seldom got airplay. They'd have shaken the speakers clean into the back seat.

But "Loco-motion," though amusing (could Todd be putting the boys on?), isn't an anthem. Making an anthem is Grand Funk's special delight. "I'm Your Captain" was one, and so was "Paranoid." Their remake of "Gimme Shelter," however leaden, surely was, and "American Band" was the best they'd ever done. "Shinin' On" might have made the grade before but "American Band" set such high standards — it even had an interesting lyric — that this really won't do Still, the 3-D cover is nice, the sort of second effort that turned a pack of Midwestern underachievers into a major force in rock.

Chicago Ambition

Chicago VII is about as ambitious as their other six: very; and just about as successful: one-quarter. Unfortunately, Robert Lamm's high intentions don't make listening to the excess any more pleasant.

One of the mysteries of Chicago is their penchant for multiple-record sets, going as high as four. Lots of groups survive and even prosper while putting out one-record sets with a single listenable side. Chicago is the only group I know who dilute their interesting material three to one.

The horn charts here are, as usual, hackneyed, but effective. Guitarist Terry Kath, also as usual, is subject to such incredible gaffes that he ruins many an otherwise unobjectionable—if not yet thrilling—cut. Chicago VII isn't as good as Chicago VI, of course, but it's easy to see why. Chicago VI was one record, on which there were two Top 40 hits. The only hit I can hear on this one is "Wish You Were Here," on which Beach Boys Al Jardine, Carl and Dennis Wilson, step in for some back vocals and take over.

Proving once again that, despite all the obfuscations, talent will out. (RS 161)

DAVE MARSH