Along with the Velvet Underground, Nina Simone, Jimmie Rodgers, and more, Sly Stone finally received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys last week. It seemed an appropriate time to recognize his influence: back in the late ’60s, Sly and the Family Stone was the epitome of freedom in popular music.
Formed by Bay Area radio disc jockey and producer Sylvester (Sly) Stewart in 1966, the group—as its debut title declared a year later—was on a mission to be A Whole New Thing. Unlike the suit-clad Motown crooners, Sly Stone dressed like a hippie, and was as well versed in the Beatles and Bob Dylan as he was in James Brown and Ike Turner. A former gospel prodigy who started out wanting to be a preacher, Sly was a multi-instrumentalist who knew exactly the sound he wanted his racially integrated group to achieve on stage and in the studio. Sly was determined to forge his own path by infusing layers of psychedelic, blues, jazz, and spirituals.
The first time the band hung out, Sly invited guitarist (and brother) Freddie Stone, bassist Larry Graham, drummer Greg Errico, saxophonist Jerry Martini, and trumpeter Cynthia Robinson to his parents crib so they could vibe; the following day, it was all about practice. Saxophonist Jerry Martini, who still tours with the Family Stone (minus Sly), recalled to me in 2016, “We rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. It was the most rehearsed band I’d ever been in my life.” A week later they were performing at a club called Winchester Cathedral, owned by their then-manager Richard Romanello. “We did covers, but we would rearrange them and own them, so to speak, Martini added. “And then we moved forward from that point.”
They signed to Epic Records in the winter of 1967, and by the fall, the group’s first album was in stores. While A Whole New Thing served as the blueprint for better tunes to come, it didn’t sell and “didn’t contain a single song any ordinary fan needed remember,” in the words of critic Robert Christgau. Sly went back to the drawing board and, after recruiting baby sister Rose to play keyboards and sing background, scrambled back to the studio.
Released in April 1968, Sly and the Family Stone’s anti-sophomore slump album Dance to the Music and its title-track first single set in motion a legacy-making string of events, from playing Woodstock to putting out what would become modern pop standards (“Everyday People,” “Family Affair”). Sly was also the group’s producer and arranger, who, in that era of studio auteurs George Martin and Brian Wilson, was every bit as brilliant. “So many bands began making music based on Sly’s vision, including Stevie Wonder and George Clinton,” says Rickey Vincent, the author of Funk: The Music, the People and the Rhythm of the One.
Of course, Sly’s reign couldn’t last forever. By the end of the decade, he was sinking into piles of cocaine quicksand, recording erratically and becoming verbally abusive to his group. With no new album delivered, CBS Records released a greatest hits package in 1970 that contained new tracks “Hot Fun in the Summertime” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).”
By 1971, Larry Graham and Greg Errico had left the group, but before departing, they may have contributed (or so we’re led to believe by the liner notes) to the celebrated and misunderstood masterpiece There’s A Riot Goin’ On. Supposedly Sly actually recorded Riot alone with a little help from Bobby Womack, Billy Preston, and a Maestro Rhythm King drum machine, which he called a “funk box.” “The sonic dividing line with music between early Sly and Riot (and beyond) was his funk box. He got plenty of funk out of those 18 preset beats,” says Miles Marshall Lewis, the author of the 33 1/3 book on the album.
But new levels of funk were not all Stone reached during that era: “Sly went dark with Riot,” Prince biographer Ben Greenman adds. “He went murky and took a turn that alienated, or risked alienating, some of his white audience. But he also made an album that’s a gripping, bleak, amazing piece of artwork.” The subterranean starkness of the record also heavily inspired jazz cats like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, whose landmark fusion album Head Hunters contains a way-out song called “Sly.”
Granted, drugs took their toll, but Stone was still creative on his next joint Fresh. Yet, by the time the album was released in the summer of ’73, Sly’s crossover card was in danger of being revoked and many black folks decided to depart to other funk frontiers. For the next decade, Sly continued to record albums under the group’s name (Small Talk, High On You, Back on the Right Track, Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back), under his own name (Back on the Right Track, Ain’t But the One Way), as well as a various collaborations with George Clinton.
By the early ’80s, Sly struggled to regain the fame he had a decade before. “I know what it’s like to be on top,” he told Jet Magazine in 1982, “and I hope to get there again.” Four years later, Sly made the Billboard charts for the final time when he collaborated with former Prince protégé/Time member (and current D’Angelo guitarist) Jesse Johnson on “Crazay,” a gem bursting with electric funk synths and Afro new wave soul. The world finally seemed to be catching up to Sly.
These days, Stone is 73 years old and the hard living has dragged him down, but his music is still fresh. As a celebration of Sly’s mastery, here are 10 post-Riot tracks that highlight the man’s stone cold genius.
“If You Want Me to Stay” (1973)
The blaxploitation beat of Fresh’s first single “If You Want Me to Stay” sounds as though it’s directed at an audience that keeps making demands on brother Sly. “For me to stay here I got to be me,” he proclaims, as if to say, I know I have my problems and I’ll change when I like. As we know, Sly doesn’t like any pressure.
“Skin I’m In” (1973)
Perhaps the most African a West Coast soul man has ever sounded, Sly opens this Fresh track with a jungle boogie groove and rides bareback on a black panther until the party is over. In less than three minutes, the man has caused a revolution.
“Can’t Strain My Brain” (1974)
Uncle Sly threw the studio sink into this Small Talk track that incorporates jazz and blues with a hint of country and western.
“Insane Asylum,” Kathi McDonald & Sly Stone (1974)
Discovered by Sly’s friend Ike Turner, blue-eyed soul singer Kathi McDonald brings the blues out of Stone in a swampy, guttural way. The late McDonald had the pipes of Janis Joplin and the soul of Aretha Franklin, so this is an underrated gem.
“Crossword Puzzle” (1975)
Perhaps the coolest thing about Sly was that the brother couldn’t be contained by genre. When you thought you knew his sound, he’d flip it around on you just cause. Later sampled by De La Soul for their old-school classic “Say No Go,” this is Sly at the heights of funky-worm slipperiness.
“I Get High On You” Remix (1979)
Back in 1979, Sly fans were screaming sacrilege when Epic put dreaded disco remixes on a bunch of Sly songs for the compilation Ten Years Too Soon (including “Dance to the Music”), but damn near 40 years later, the proto-house vibe of Boston DJ John Luongo has a certain retro appeal on High on You’s title track.
“We Can Do It” (1982)
This is one of those ahead-of-its-time tracks that sounds as left of center and bugged-out now as it did in 1982, on the Family Stone’s final afterthought of an album, Ain't but the One Way.
“Sylvester” (1982)
Nothing more than a dramatic 43 seconds on Ain’t But the One Way, “Sylvester” is a fully formed meditation on identity, stardom, and addiction. “Digressing with the best of them,” he sings in a gravelly voice, sounding as though he’s descending into a crypt. This is Sly at his most haunting.
“Crazay,” Jesse Johnson & Sly Stone (1986)
This Minneapolis dance groove was hip-windingly irresistible when it came out in 1986. While many Sly/Prince fans would’ve rather seen them two get their freak on, the Time’s pink-clad consolation prize was just as dazzling. No doubt, Prince is still somewhere pissed that Johnson got to work with Sly and he didn’t.
“If I Didn’t Love You,” Funkadelic (2012)
Sly Stone has been working with Funkadelic leader George Clinton since the ’70s. “People don't know it, but Sly still working on his music,” the P-Funker told me in 2012. “He got some bad stuff coming out soon. Right now he is in rehab, but when he gets out I'm getting him down here to Tallahassee to work on some music with me. It's not about me helping him, but both of us helping each other.” Two years later, Clinton dropped this vocoder-heavy soul jam, proving that the funk remains alive in Sly.