Trees were a rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band that were popular in the 1960s in the South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

, Iowa

Iowa

Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

, and Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 region. The band started out as "The Trees," but changed the name to Trees (no the) in an attempt to be hip and different. Trees hailed from Madison, South Dakota

Madison, South Dakota

Madison is a city in Lake County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 6,474 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Lake County and is home to Dakota State University.-Geography:Madison is located at ....

.

The original line up included Jeff Severson

Jeff Severson

Jeffrey Kent Severson is a former American football safety in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins, Houston Oilers, Denver Broncos, and the St. Louis Cardinals. He played college football at Long Beach State University and was drafted in the 12th round of the 1971 NFL Draft...

 on rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

, Craig Stroud on lead guitar

Lead guitar

Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...

, Dick Brown on bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

, Rob Coates on drums

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

, and Rocky Grace on keyboards

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

. While other bands of the region in the late 60s were doing white, pale imitations of soul music, the Trees dared to be different. Long hair, counter culture garb, and the driving sound of Craig's Rickenbacker 12 string defined their image and sound. Trees were known for their covers of songs by the Byrds, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, The Who

The Who

The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...

, Them

Them (band)

Them were a Northern Irish band formed in Belfast in April 1964, most prominently known for the garage rock standard "Gloria" and launching singer Van Morrison's musical career...

, The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....

, the Doors, as well as original tunes.

A couple of the Trees went on have successful music careers after the band dissolved. Rocky Grace later joined with Joe Walsh

Joe Walsh

Joseph Fidler "Joe" Walsh is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful bands, the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles, and has experienced notable success as a solo artist and prolific session musician, especially with B.B...

 and played keyboards on the classic rock staple Rocky Mountain Way

Rocky Mountain Way

Rocky Mountain Way is a compilation album released in 1985 by rock musician Joe Walsh.-Reception:Writing for Allmusic, critic Ben Davies wrote of the album "considering both the amount of classic Walsh songs not featured on Rocky Mountain Way and the many other more extensive and better chosen...

. Jeff Severson has had a lifelong career as a successful producer, musician, and songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

and has played along with or produced a long list of well known acts.

"Trees" later regrouped with new musicians including Rob Coates on drums, Brian Wheeler on lead guitar, Bob Schulte on keyboards and Ed Dunn on bass.