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Rare Earth began in Detroit in 1960 as the Sunliners, a bar band playing Top 40 and R&B covers for nearly a decade. Renamed in 1968, they cut a debut, Dream Answers, for Verve that failed to chart. In 1969 Motown, looking to reach the white FM rock audience, signed them as the flagship act of a new rock subsidiary, and when the band joked that it should be named after them, the label called it Rare Earth. In 1970 their 21-minute album version of the Temptations’ Get Ready, written by Smokey Robinson, became an FM staple, and the single reached number 4 and sold over a million copies.

Gil Scott-Heron named Rare Earth in a 1970 poem alongside Tom Jones and Johnny Cash as entertainers who would not soundtrack the revolution. After Motown moved to Los Angeles, the band dealt with alleged mob financing, a Norman Whitfield-produced album, Ma, that flopped in 1973, and a 1974 split that took away its rhythm section. Saxophonist Gil Bridges won the rights to the name and kept the band touring until his death from COVID-19 in December 2021, while hip-hop producers sampled its records.

• Bassist John Persh stayed in Detroit when the band moved west.
• Rare Earth played the April 1974 California Jam for about 250,000 people, alongside Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and the Eagles.
• Peter Rivera and Mike Urso left in 1974 to form a group called Hub, and Rivera later sued over the name.
• A 1978 disco single, Warm Ride, was written by the Bee Gees.
• Their records were sampled by NWA, Scarface, DJ Shadow and Beck, and I Just Want to Celebrate anchored Ford and AT&T ads.