There once was, and is again, a rock and roll band from Detroit called The Rockets. A helluva rock band. No big hits, but Detroit rock radio embraced them, and they were local heroes from 1972 until they faded away in 1983.
The pedigree that made them noteworthy were two leaders that were driving forces behind the Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels. Johnny (Bee) Badanjek (drums) and Jim McCarty (guitar) both fueled the R&B rock and roll craziness of Ryder’s sound, and, as musicians do, eventually left the band to do their own thing.
They became the Rockets.
You could have dubbed them “Kings of the Openers”; they opened for the big rock bands of the time – and not just in Detroit. They traveled with KISS, Seger, ZZ Top, among many. But they never could get any bigger than that. Never had a big radio hit beyond the Motor City. But even the band’s later stuff , like “Rollin’ By The Record Machine” elicited a vintage Bob Seger energy.
With lead vocalist Dave Gilbert, the Rockets reached their biggest success in 1979 with a Top 40 hit doing a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well”. The hard partying Gilbert ended up taking a job hanging drywall, and died in 2001 at age 49.
Badanjek is one of rocks truly great drummers. And McCarty an engaging, gritty rock guitarist. They had continued to play music, just not together. That changed when they formed the Motor City Music Review in 2009, a Motown/rock and roll cover-type band. Then into a band called the Hell Drivers, with new frontman Jim Edwards. Things started to happen.
Promoters in Detroit and Flint and Toledo started to call. How about a Rockets show? So they morphed back into The Rockets. And if the story ended here, with the band playing bars in Detroit, it would still be good, right?