Sly Stone S/D

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)

The reason I bought this expensive import was to have a perfect copy instead of having to painstakingly restore my vinyl copy on my computer using an audio restoration program (Sound Forge, etc.). But instead, I found out that the CD version of the album is full of hiss, and is ACTUALLY missing the funky breakbeat clips at the beginning of "Time For Livin'", which was a hip hop sample classic. I collect many classic funk pieces, and I would advise the purist to DEFINITELY get the reissue of this on vinyl, and use an audio program to get the clicks and cracks out. You will definitely get closer to the Quadrophanic quality that way.

Yes. I hate that cover with the photo looking out from the stage or whatever is, looks so cheap and corny.

The stuff you saw on VH1 was from Don Kirschner's Rock Concert in '73, where Sly has a big hat and gold Sly buckle. It's quite cool for attitude but the music is not quite up there with the Larry Graham era Family Stone.
Check out the Dick Cavett shows, where the original line up are on form, and Sly's interviews are the most wasted I have ever seen anyone on TV.
If you want this footage and loads of others, it's all out there.

there's also a dick cavett dvd boxset, rock icons, that has an early sly episode in full. sly is late, and very high, and its kind of awkward to watch him and cavett sort of grapple with each other verbally for a bit and entirely not get wahat the other is saying (in sly's defence, cavitt seems to miss or badly receive much of sly's humour). but the music is good.

I've always been curious about the albums Sly put out in his "declining" years and whether they deserve the bad press they routinely get.

Over here in the UK Small Talk and Back On The Right Track (love the cover of the latter; Sly sitting, hands clapsed and looking doe-eyed at the camera like a penitent schoolboy) are available on CD and I note the comments above but High On You, Heard Ya Missed Me Well I'm Back and Ain't But The One Way aren't. Are they worth searching out or was Greil Marcus right in saying he didn't do himself any favours with all those I'm OK, Honest album titles?

Oh yeah, and the remix album Ten Years Too Soon - was it?

I like all of his albums, so you can probably safely ignore my opinion

High on You is fantastic.

Heard Ya Missed Me is really sad, very limp, his sonic tricks are all evaporated by that point, glossed over by some weird attempt at Philly Soul that doesn't work. Never heard Ain't But the One Way.

"Heard Ya Missed Me" isn't that bad, it grows on you! Some great basslines!

High On You is not "fantastic" — it pretty clearly runs out of gas early on. But the first two cuts (title track and esp. "Crossword Puzzle") are serious highlights. Back on the Right Track sounds a little bit like Car Wash, with a few good tunes and some great organ comping. It's worth hearing if for no other reason than "It Takes All Kinds," which is so smacked out/"I've-been-up-for-six-weeks-straight" it makes There's a Riot Goin' On sound like Enya.

Cos Enya DOESN'T sound like fucking heroin-womb music???????

small talk is underrated. been playing it all week. its basically the riot/fresh sound continued, but with strange violins and strings that could be potentially over-sappy but arent. the strings seem almost put on there to sound more like other records of the time/more polished - maybe to hide some of the records flaws, not sure, but it just gives it a more sympathetic edge and makes it sound quite diff to his other records.

has anyone read the eddie santiago or jeff kaliss books?

yeah, small talk is rad. is that the album with 'crossword puzzle'?

No, that's "High On You". As for the strings, there was a violin player in the band at the time I think?

High On You is wonderful. The last great album he made

the oldies station here plays "thank you (falletinme be mice elf agin" p much everytime i listen to it. this is a dope thing imo.

hahahaha based on strength of these quotes i might just have to buy for the record

it's out of print fwiw

did they ever do "maybe your baby"?

there are plenty of used copies going around anyway.

I highly recommend it

if just for the bit where Sly's pitbull Gun tries to eat his baby, and his wife (at the time) has to wrestle the kid away from the dog and flee the house

Just pulled down Listen to the Voices: Sly Stone in the Studio 1965-1970, which collects all his production work from that time period -- and frankly, OMG. There's a pretty awesome sampling of all the work he was doing at the time -- one of the Beau Brummels tracks sounds like Sly producing the Byrds.

But the real treasure trove on this is the circa-1970 Stone Flower stuff. The sound of There's a Riot Goin' On is there--all the Maestro King drum machines, wah guitars and clavinets, etc. plugged in direct--but the vibe as a whole is not quite as despairing. It's all great -- highlights including Joe Hicks' "Life and Death in the G&A" and 6IX's "Dynamite" and "I'm Just Like You" (the latter of which has a drum machine part one review I read described as a windshield wiper).

In particular, tho, Little Sister's "You're the One (Parts 1 + 2)" is just about one of the best things Sly ever did -- the amazing ensemble vocals, an incredible groove and an outstanding tune. It's unbelievable that this stuff hasn't been reissued until now.

Here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Yp2LIAGCk&feature=related

"You're the One" is indeed awesome (I've had the original 7" for awhile) - there was a different, more disco-fied version issued in the late 70s, apparently

i so so so wish little sister had completed an album. stanga and somebody's watching you are astonishing.