The Pack -- Next To Your Fire -- Upbeat 1968 pre Grand Funk Railroad

The Pack taping for the Upbeat show in Cleveland, OH, April 1968. This aired April 27 by WEWS TV (episode #194) and other TV stations weeks later. Thanks to David Spero (son of Upbeat producer Herman Spero) and his passion to film all the acts appeared on the show with his 8mm camera, we now have these gems for the real fans to see how GFR was born. The current line-up [February '68 to 'June '68] was: Mark Farner, Don Brewer, Craig Frost, Herm Jackson & Kenny Rich.
Unfortunately, the story behind the original "Big Five" and "Upbeat" films is that most of the old episodes has been destroyed on fire or something......
Now a short story about the Next To Your Fire single:
Former Pack producer John Rhys (who wrote and produced the very first Pack single back in 1965) had been contacted by Jim Atherton [The Pack's manager] and Don Brewer to represent them again, as he had recently engaged with Capitol records to promote acts from Detroit. So, HE WAS the first to position the band in Capitol records.
Rhys had been given a demo copy of [Next To Your] Fire, directly by Jimmi Hendrix when in England and thought that song would be tremendous for Mark Farner and The Pack.
While many of the younger at Capitol thought the record was a 'smash' the powers that didn't understand the product, wouldn't allocate the funds to fully promote the single. Even worse, later that year they refused to release 'The Pack' LP, basically consisted of material that ended up one year later [1969] on 'On Time'
On the other hand, an old roommate but currently an enemy, named... Terry Knight [who also ended up signing with Capitol records] was doing his best to make Rhys' life unpleasant!!! (Rhys and Knight had fallen in love with the same lady... To make a long story short, Rhys married her...) In fact, Knight told the band some terrific tales, totally untrue, resulting Rhys losing The Pack...
Unfairly, John Rhys took all the blame, even though he believed in this band... HE WAS the first to produce diamonds like Heartbreaker, [Getting'] Into The Sun, Got This Thing On The Move, Faucet (a.k.a. Can't Be Too Long), Chance To Get Away (a.k.a. Tryin' To Get Away) and some more along with the late April '68 released single Next To Your Fire / Without A Woman.
Now, let's get back in time more than 4 decades and imagine how this pre-GFR period was... -- JT