Grand Funk (nee Grand Funk Railroad) - We're An American Band (Capitol 1973)
What's so American about it aside from the modifier indicating our nationality? The title track deals with groupie excesses not unique to Yanks. The Rolling Stones (among others) said it better.
Let's look at things that make this American.....
1. The band in a hay loft surrounded by American Flags. Probably chased out there by the proverbial farmer's daughter's father. Are they supposed to be travelling salesmen? If they're a rock band and forced to seek shelter on a farm, they ain't playin' Madison Square Garden.
2. The retail history of the record - Originally put out there at full price, returned, placed in the cutout bin (as evidenced by the typical Capitol hole in the upper right), sold to a consumer, sold back to a record store, placed in the used bin then purchased by me for $2.99 from Rockaway Records in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
3. And lets talk American manufacturing ingenuity. Record packaging is assembled by hand. Factory workers take a cover, a record, and an inner sleeve and manually put them together. This is one of those fold over covers where the record is inserted on the left. The worker, not wanting to reconfigure the robotic sequence they'd developed over the years treated it as though it was inserted on the right. This was probably outside the watchful eye of the supervisor. So if you line up the cutout hole with the hole in the inner sleeve we find the opening on the bottom. The inner sleeve was inserted upside down.
By the way - this record was huge.
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