Sly Stone S/D

(Plus I really want to know what the fucking chords in Family Affair are).

i rate his albums like this:
riot
stand
whole new thing
fresh
dance to the music/life

i like the others in the 70s but his songwriting was going down the pan a bit, already.

S: "Underdog," a song I love to kick a mixtape off with.

Presumably this isn't referring to the Electric Spanking of War Babies. The tracks from that album that Sly collaborated on are brilliant!

(Plus I really want to know what the fucking chords in Family Affair are).

Shakey Mo, do ya know what I own? The "Riot" SONGBOOK, with all 'em in it. I can't believe I ever found this, but I do have it, and if you want the chords to any of the songs, be glad to e-mail them to you, make copies and regular mail them, whatever. ("Family Affair" is actually quite simple!)

the lack of a closing quotation mark here had me thinking that sly had recorded a song entitled ""ha ha, hee hee, and sly's so out of tune he's nearly pushed out of that song altogether"

is out of print too, and fucking hard to track down.

yeah. no market for that.

ILM, I KISS YOU!

many others...

The series is called For the Record, not Off the Record.

< /pedant >

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841955914/qid=1116503480/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_8_3/026-8727259-6275608

Destroy: Dance to the Music. I agree with Shakey: aside from the singles, this album doesn't really do anything for me. I haven't heard the post-High Epic/Warner Bros LPs, so I can't comment on 'em.

WTF does this even mean? I can understand if they weren't actually that into the four-on-the-snare Motown beats because they wanted to be doing funk, but to suggest that Sly had some other, hipper style in mind that he never got around to playing is such bullshit.

The True Story Behind This Album, August 20, 2004
Reviewer: obi odobi (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

Since no one has really gotten into it here, I thought I'd write and clarify the circumstances of this recording for all of the Sly freaks, funk freaks, and other potentially-interested buyers.

By 1976, Sly's career was at an extremely low point. He hadn't had a significant commercial hit in years, he had lost his management, the original Family Stone was long gone, Sly's drug problems were apparently getting the best of him, and former bassist Larry Graham was putting Sly to shame (on record and in concert) with his more funky, pop, and upbeat version of the original Family Stone formula with his band Graham Central Station. In fact, Sly was struggling so much at this time that he actually toured (in support of his attempt at Philly International soul "Heard Ya Missed Me, Now I'm Back") as an opening act for the famous P-Funk Earth Tour in late 1976. It was a sad irony to see Sly opening for two bands (P-Funk and Bootsy's Rubber Band) that had been so inspired by HIM in the first place. At the end of tour, in fact, two of Sly's backup singers (one of which was his cousin) defected and joined P-Funk where they later recorded as The Brides of Funkenstein.

Sly dropped out of visibility, surfacing two years later in 1978 when he had left Epic and signed to Warner Brothers, and began working on his latest in a series of "comeback" LPs, "Back On the Right Track." Opinions are varied on the musical quality of this album (I think there are some great songs on there, but nothing resembling a chart hit) but commercially, it fared poorly. That must have hurt Sly after all the comeback hype. I don't think he even toured in support of the album. And I remember seeing Sly on the Mike Douglas show at this time. He was dispirited and so out of it on drugs that he could barely speak. Mike and the other guests just stared at him in disbelief.

He dropped out of sight again until around 1980, when word was that Sly was now in George Clinton's camp. The plan was for Sly to guest on some P-Funk releases, and for Clinton to produce (or co-produce) Sly's next album for Warners. This made sense, since Sly and Clinton were label mates at Warners (via Funkadelic and Bootsy). Clinton was talking the Sly project up in the press, Sly made cameo appearances during P-Funk's 1981 tour, and he and original Family Stone trumpeter Cynthia Robinson are on two versions of "Funk Gets Stronger" from Funkadelic's summer 1981 LP "The Electric Spanking of War Babies." Supposedly, the original version took up an entire side of a projected double album, but was later edited down. Personally, I love these tracks but objectively, they sound as if the main priority in the studio that day was getting extremely high, there happened to be a few instruments laying about, and the tape recorder was running. The same can be said for most of the Sly/P-Funk collaborations, the most significant of which is the P-Funk All Stars' 3-part "Hydraulic Pump" 12-inch (the complete version is available on the P-Funk All-Stars CD "Hydraulic Funk"). Like a lot of Sly's material with P-Funk (which is spread out over several releases), it sounds like they were trying to take a little bit of music and make a lot of out of it.

By late 1981, Clinton had become involved in a bitter dispute with Warners, with the end result that Funkadelic left Warners (they haven't released an album under the Funkadelic name since then). That also threw a wrench into the Sly project, which hadn't yet been completed. And supposedly, Sly just vanished, leaving the album unfinished. Warners brought producer Stewart Levine in to salvage and complete the project, and the album was released two years later in the spring of 1983 with the title "Ain't But the One Way." The cover photo (with Sly jumping over a fence wearing camouflage pants) dated back 5 years to the "Back On the Right Track" photo sessions. Sly must have been long gone if they couldn't even get an up-to-date photo for the cover of his album!

If you look at the album's personnel listing, you will see the names of many original Family Stone members, and also the names of many studio session players. That suggests that the basic tracks were cut with Sly, Clinton, the Family Stone (maybe augmented by some players from P-Funk), and that the project was completed later with Levine and the studio musicians. That's probably why the album has a glossy, generic sound to it. If you listen closely, you can hear traces of the Sly/Clinton approach underneath, especially in Sly's lyrics, singing attitude, and electric piano playing. If you want to compare the two approaches, listen to the demo version of "Who In the Funk Do You Think You Are" from the first volume of George Clinton's Family Series, and compare it with the Levine-produced version on the "...One Way" album.

As far as the music, it sounds far more inventive and inspired than Sly's previous LP "Back On The Right Track." Hardcore Sly fans know that there is not a single Sly LP without at least a few moments of genius, however fragmentary. If you're sensitive to Sly's musical "codes," you can hear that they had some good ideas going, lyrically and musically. You can hear Sly's stoned wit in good effect. But you can also hear that the ideas were left in a skeletal and incomplete state, and were completed by someone else with a very different production concept. The strongest songs to me are the poignant rehab ballad "Ha Ha Hee Hee," the cover of the Kinks "You Really Got Me," the vignette "Sylvester" (another song seemingly dedicated to Sly's mother), the "I Want to Take You Higher" retread (called "High Y'all"), and a few others.

You have to give Clinton credit for inspiring Sly to break out of the playing-it-safe mold of his recent records and push the envelope here. And Stewart Levine also deserves a bit of credit for achieving a professional sound in the end with what he had to work with.

If they had completed this album with the original team, it would probably have been the strongest and most interesting Sly album in a LONG time. It might have even been a commercial success. But unfortunately, it fell victim to music business chicanery and drug excess. "Ain't But The One Way" turned out to be Sly's de-facto farewell to the music business. He hasn't relased an album since then and for the rest of the 1980s, it seemed like he was in the news for one drug-related offence after another. The funny thing about it is that on the Mike Douglas show I mentioned above, one of the few coherent things I remember Sly saying was - and this is a quote as best I can remember - "I'm gonna release one more album and if it doesn't go platinum - BYE Y'ALL..."

A Whole New Thing is worth hearing if only for "Underdog" and "Trip to Your Heart." (I didn't know until three years ago that the latter was the source material for the ahh-uhh-AHH-ahh's in LL's "Mama Said Knock You Out.")

Would love to see a transcript of the Douglas chat.

"I Cannot Make It", too...

It should be noted that there was a Funkadelic album called The Way of the Drum recorded for MCA in 1984-5 (it was rejected by the label), so Warner Bros has nothing to do with there not having been a Funkadelic album in the last 20+ years. Universal says they've lost the masters, by the way.

and of course A Whole New Thing is out of print and never issued on CD

Um, Shakey, didn't we go over this on the FMBB a few years back where you were upset that this was on CD, but the only album that didn't get a vinyl reissue?

The story in Mojo a coupla years back on the making of RIOT is a high freak point in music journalism.

This is the only issue of MOJO I've ever bought (great story on the making of Cloud Nine by the Temptations as well), which has always made me wonder why the magazine is so hated on this board.

sounds like something I would say. (I have had a vinyl copy of it for a few years now - not a reissue tho)

Newmark kills it on “in time.” What a groove

I'd say Fresh is his second-best record.

It appears that the documentary mentioned two and a half years ago is still unreleased. It's amazing that George Clinton seems to have been the only person in the last 40 years to bring anything to completion with Sly, who is also just about the only person in Clinton's memoirs who receives a vivid portrait. Clinton spends a lot more time in his book talking about ideas than other people.

I'd say Fresh is his second-best record.

not trying to be aggressive or argumentative here, but i thought that was the generally accepted consensus? riot and fresh the firm 1 + 2, with the #3 spot *usually* going to stand, but even that was never as firm a lock as the top two.

"skin i'm in" popped up yesterday while shuffling my ipod and, MAN YES, calstars! newmark just owns the whole album and rusty allen is right there with him. just some super fat, warm grooves all over that album. very dope.

Yeah. I don’t want to disparage Ericco though, he is fantastic on the earlier stuff, full of groove and space. I guess Sly could pick ‘em

I guess I'm remembering the Rolling Stone Top 100 1967 to 1987 list, which contained BOTH Stand and Greatest Hits, despite the latter record containing about 90% of what people want to hear on the former.

that line about the midget does not fly in 2021. #slyiscancelledparty

Fresh > Riot > [if we can't choose the classic pre-Riot Greatest Hits] Dance To The Music (the medley is just sublime, some of the most exciting music comitted to tape, and as great as Stand! is, Sex Machine and the long, turgid Don't Call Me ****** are hard skips for me)

And I really love large chunks of Small Talk, High On You and Back On The Right Track

Relistening to Sex Machine now and hush my mouth, it is a jam. Stll think Dance To The Music is the stronger album, though.

Fresh > Riot

correct

Fresh is great, but Riot is the greatest album of all time

I was at a yard party last weekend where the hosts were spinning Greatest Hits and I told my friend it seemed at the time, on that sultry summer day, to be the best record ever.

https://i.imgur.com/eGm2Pqo.png

Cynthia ❤️

Timing.

Fantastic news: @NovenaCarmel just revealed that #SummerofSoul director @questlove will be making a documentary about her dad, Sly Stone. pic.twitter.com/CSANjx8WL9

— Яandall 🎧 Яoberts (@LilEdit) July 12, 2021

Fantastic news... Summer Of Soul is just brilliant, one of the best music documentaries I've ever seen.

OMG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sgxbpFfk0M

Whenever they knew Sly was gonna miss a gig they should have sent that dude out there and let the chips fall...

That would be almost as hilarious as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5C2woQLgto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMQhO-ee-Cw

eat your heart out mike flowers pops

at least the Dick Jensen video had a recommend for this (although, bass player absolutely ruled):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ_QaEir7FU

Someone undoubtedly posted about it somewhere, but I had no idea Sly put out a memoir last year. Just ordered a discounted hardcover from Book Outlet. I would much prefer a biography, but you never know.