1994
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- 1 min
- Oliver Wang
- The Beau Brummels, “Laugh, Laugh” (1965) Sly Stone's first taste of national notoriety began at the tender age of 19 when he produced the moody pop single, "Laugh, Laugh," for the San Mateo folk-rock band the Beau Brummels.
- “Rock Dirge” (circa 1965) During Stone's brief stint at Autumn Records, he made use of their studios to mess around with his own compositions, including this funky, chattering instrumental, likely concocted in 1965.
- “I Ain’t Got Nobody” (1967) Using proceeds earned from Autumn, Stone set himself and his family up in Daly City, just outside of San Francisco. This is where the Family Stone band began to cohere in the mid 1960s and their first official release came on this single for the local Loadstone label.
- “Underdog” (1967) As the first single and first song on the group's first album, A Whole New Thing, "Underdog" introduced Sly and the Family Stone in as raucous a way possible.
- Crossword Puzzle
- Get Away
- Remember Who You Are
- Underdog
- Can’T Strain My Brain
- Dynamite
- Everybody Is A Star
- Fun
- Luv N’ Haight
- You Can Make It If You Try
More straight-ahead funk than the albums that had made his name, High on You is nevertheless the last Sly Stonealbum that anyone but an obsessive might want to listen to all the way through. The best track is Crossword Puzzle – its tight groove subsequently sampled by De La Soul – although, ominously, it was a leftover from the previous year’s Smal...
Stone’s most recent album, I’m Back! Family & Friends, is a miserable affair: pointless re-recordings of old classics; a belief-beggaring bro-step take on Family Affair. Yet, there is also the drum-machine-driven, fabulously hooky Get Away, which, had it been better recorded, might have been a comeback single. Hearing it is heartening and frustrati...
By now, we are deep into Stone’s extended twilight years, spotted with weak albums that seem to signpost their desperation in their titles – Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I’m Back and Back on the Right Track. Still, he could, occasionally, come up with the goods: here, sister Rose and brother Freddie are on vocals for a low-key but killer song.
Sly and the Family Stone’s debut album, A Whole New Thing, didn’t quite deliver on the promise of its title. It sounds like traditional soul by comparison with what was to come, but is still worth hearing: the opener, Underdog, is paranoid, fabulously funky and powered by razor-sharp brass.
Devotees tend to view the Small Talk album as Stone’s most personal and on Can’t Strain My Brain, over the most recumbent of laid-back grooves, he certainly seems to hint at the chaos his addictions and volatility have caused: “I know how it feels to worry all the time, I can’t take the pain.”
A commercial disappointment after Dance to the Music, the Family Stone’s third album, Life, deserved far better: it was a creative leap forward, as demonstrated by its urgent opening track. The guitars sting more sharply, and the risks it takes – a cacophonous, echo-laden climax, a weird, beatless Dance to the Music-quoting coda – are greater.
The last track released by the classic Family Stone lineup – with drummer Greg Errico, who bailed when things got too drugged-out – has a suitably elegiac quality, and a hint of southern soul influence about its pleading, organ-heavy sound. The vocals, in which everyone gets a turn at the mic, are a final display of soon-to-be-fractured unity.
Life might have been a more successful album if they had picked Fun as a single, rather than the circus-themed novelty of the title track and the Dance to the Music redux of M’Lady. There is an infectious euphoria about its invitation to party and a bit of Sly philosophy thrown in: “Sock it unto others as you would have them sock it to you.”
Peer through the murk, and you can make out a song the Family Stone would once have turned into an irresistible order to dance, but times had changed: here, it feels muted, its drum pattern sounds twitchy, the lyrics an ode to rendering yourself supine as a desperate means of escape.
The closing track from Stand! hymned confident self-reliance amid the turmoil of the US in the late 60s, set to blasting brass and terrific drum breaks: precisely the kind of optimism that would be noticeable by its absence from the Family Stone’s next album. Still, it was energising and inspirational while it lasted.
Sly & The Family Stone harnessed all of the disparate musical and social trends of the late '60s, creating a wild, brilliant fusion of soul, rock, R&B, psychedelia, and funk that broke...
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Dec 3, 2020 · TRACKLIST. Play all. 1. 5:22. I Want To Take You Higher. Sly & The Family Stone. •. 116K views • 7 years ago. 2. 3:06. Sly & The Family Stone - Everybody Is a Star (Official Audio) •. 1M...
Sly and the Family Stone Lyrics, Songs, and Albums | Genius. About Sly and the Family Stone. Sly and the Family Stone was an American band from San Francisco, active...
Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart, March 15, 1943, Denton, Texas) is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, a...
