Grand Funk Railroad - 01 - Are You Ready

Grand Funk Railroad - 01 - Are You Ready On Time is Grand Funk Railroad's first studio album, and was released in August 1969 by Capitol Records. It was produced by Terry Knight.

"Time Machine", the band's first single release, barely broke the top 50 in the singles charts. However, after the success of their second album "Grand Funk" (aka the Red Album) "On Time" went gold shortly thereafter in 1970, one of four RIAA Gold Record Awards for the band that year. The other two albums reaching gold status in 1970 for GFR were Closer to Home and Live Album.

A notable characteristic of the album's production - quite rare for hard rock bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s - is that the guitars are mixed rather low in comparison to the bass guitar, which is louder than any other instrument. The normal practice at the time was to turn the guitar up in the mix higher than any other instrument. Some fans have claimed this was because Mel Schacher was usually considered to be the band's best musician, but why this was done is unknown. While the Terry Knight-produced Grand Funk Railroad albums tend to feature the bass as prominent in the mix, Mark Farner's guitar was mixed higher on subsequent albums. Lyrics: Are you ready? you can trust me all the way.
Are you ready? well, then let me hear you say
That you're ready, and the world will know it's right.
Yes, you're ready, and you know it's out of sight.

Now you're ready, well, then what you waitin' for?
If you're ready, you just open up your door
'cause I'm ready, for everything you got.
Yes, I'm ready, come and get it while it's hot.