Thankful n' Thoughtfull: The Sly Stone Dedicated Chronological Listening Thread

I thought it might be them!

Is there a released recording of that

Cuz I dont have it in the queu

Aside from like the Little Sister and 6ix singles, I know basically nothing about Sly's extra-Family affairs. So this thread is welcome for numerous reasons.

from Wikipedia:

While signed to Autumn Records, the band worked with the label's staff producer Sylvester Stewart (better known as Sly Stone), who at the time was still in the process of forming Sly and the Family Stone. Purportedly, Stewart eventually walked out as the band's producer after it took The Great Society over 50 takes to record a version of the song "Free Advice" that was suitable for release.

lines up with this

https://www.discogs.com/The-Great--Society--Someone-To-Love-Free-Advice/master/519426

But I don't want to drop $300 to find out what it sounds like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQXd0IIxzOE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEVOyvf8Kq0

If Wikipedia's to be believed there should be 48 more of these.

such a terrible band

oddly, a few months ago I pulled out the first Sly & the Family album, the one with no hits, and listened to it for the first time…I was startled upon hearing one song that it is the basis of a huge huge huge hip-hop hit that everyone reading these words knows…I look forward to when Shakes gets to it in a week or whenever…I think that it's clear that the Dance to the Music album has the tremendous title track and a bunch of engaging filler that was cut pretty fast to satiate Clive Davis…Life and obviously Stand but also the first one are far more solid…

I know that's what people say about the "Dance to the Music" album but I don't agree fwiw.

Some background on the Viscaynes tracks:

Jerry Martini: The Viscaynes were a Vallejo singing group that was very hip and very unique because it was an integrated band. They had a Filipino. Sly was the Afro. There were girls and boys and different colors...He [Sly] had a hell of a time back then because when he was in the Viscaynes, he was hammering one of the girls in the band, the most beautiful girl, and they had to keep it a secret. He had all this talent and was so far beyond this racial bullshit that was going on back then that it had to affect his psyche a little bit. It was just bullshit... they had to sneak around. When I met him, he was hanging out with Joe Piazza. I played with Joe Piazza and the Continentals. We started doing side gigs together. We were the backup band and we also did Sly's first record, "Yellow Moon", backed with "Uncle Sam Needs You Boy". It didn't get off the ground. Sly sang lead on both sides. He sang high on one side and low on the other side. He had incredible range. It was just a single, but it got him the attention of Bob Mitchell and Tom Donahue, who hired him to work at Autumn Records.

Sounds like they probably spent more on the bus fares to the studio than the actual recording - if it was recorded in a studio, the vocals sound like they were recorded in a bathroom.

not sure what quality studios were available in the Sacramento/Vallejo corridor at the time, probably not a lot if any

4. The Viscaynes (or Biscaynes?) - Yellow Moon (1961)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYO307vnrH0

this feels like pretty straight doo-wop, his voice in fine form. Interesting how different all these tracks are, stylistically.

A lot of the details around these early singles - date of release, titles, names of artists, etc. - seem pretty fluid and hard to untangle.

That you're making the attempt at all is a public service, and I thank u.

I'm just making it up as I go along.

Martini says that track was released under the Viscaynes (and he gets the backing band right) but the label says "Biscaynes" and it's shown up on comps under both names so... whatever

according to discogs "biscaynes" was a misprint on this single which was reissued with the name corrected to viscaynes.

I prefer his earlier material.

I was thinking "How on earth does Sly Stone make it through this?" but then the fact that he's still alive speaks to something about his resilience. Love "Free Advice."

the discography in the back of "Sly and the Family Stone: Off the Record" seems exhaustive, also details what he did on various productions, I'm going to lean on that pretty heavily. He had a handful of singles out in 1961, the chronology of which I am not clear on, so I'm just going to go through the remainder of them this week.

5. The Viscaynes - Heavenly Angel (1961)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAtVkphZE0k

I'm a sucker for these 6/8 doo-wop ballads, and the arrangement actually sounds pretty dense - there's clearly different vocal tracks overdubbed (listen to that echo!), plus the saxophone augmenting the standard guitar-bass-drums-piano combo. I feel like this would have been in Lou Reed's 45 collection.

This is nice, and I'm glad I have an excuse to hear this stuff, but I confess I'm getting a bit anxious to get to the Family Stone.

yr gonna have to wait a couple weeks :)

Can't say I much care for the juvenilia so far.

Not a great fan of doo-wop so I'm not getting much out of any of this tbh.

I used to have a comp of pre-Family Stone stuff and I don't remember any of it being much good. I'm prepared to change my opinion though.

for my part I can't say I love any of this either, they're basically curiosities, not bad but not really absorbing either.

but these threads are about being completists, goddammit, you can't bail at the beginning!

buncha whiners imo

for real

I'm here till the bitter end!

Not going anywhere; just not finding a whole lot to say about these songs yet.

yeah this is interesting, good work Shakey

"Yellow Moon" is great. Sly!

Re. earlier discussion: other rock bands he produced were the Vejtables and the Mojo Men.

And Psyrkle aka Crazy Horse

Wow, that's an obscure one. Neither the band nor that entire record label (apparently a subsidiary of Autumn) seem to be on Discogs.

6. The Viscaynes - Stop What You Are Doing (1961)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg_LeUbz9ts

The Viscaynes second single. Around this same time, Sly put out a couple 45s under his own name (or some variation thereof), which we will get to shortly. That kinda doesn't sound like Sly singing lead to me on this one. Fine but not particularly remarkable doo-wop imo.

That kinda doesn't sound like Sly singing lead to me on this one.

You don't say? I would have thought this stuff was maybe a bit out of date in 1961?

not really, doo-wop's peak is late 50s/early 60s. Dion was killin it in 1961 for ex.

For what it's worth: there was definitely a revival around that time--probably the commercial peak, yeah--but I think most of the greatest doo-wop was the first wave in the early/mid-'50s: "In the Still of the Nite," Moonglows, Flamingos, Drifters, Nolan Strong, "Earth Angel," etc.

yeah, quality is a different argument. Commercially it was still a viable form in 1961.

Not coincidental to the commercial peak: it definitely got a lot whiter during the revival. Some of which--Dion, the Diamonds' "Little Darlin'," the Capris' "There's a Moon Out Tonight," etc.--was pretty great.

Maybe it was a west coast thing, but this record is 1963 and this was a black group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq0I8MAz3H4

I'm sure it was still popular in the west coast Latinx community even later than that. Something like "Sad Girl" by Thee Midnighters still has that 6/8 groove going.

1963:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ_unB6ODy8

And if you guys will indulge me (sorry, I love this stuff), one more. Black group, L.A., 1962.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe1d0b4Y--I

You know, I think when it comes to someone like Zappa, this is something that's misunderstood. When the Mothers started out playing in this style, it was not actually some archaic, defunct form of music. It was current. (See also Beefheart's "I'm Glad.")

Cheers, amazing work

Yes incredible effort on this thread, ty <3

Great thread, though becomes inevitably more depressing as we move into the later years.

Legendary thread! Loved reading from start to finish

Surely this is the gold standard for listening threads? So thorough and insightful.

One of my favorite ILM experiences over 20 years here. Just a treasure trove of top shelf analysis.

What am I going to do everyday at lunchtime now? LOL.

Great thread! Thank you so much! Respect.

I didn't give anywhere like enough time to this thread but it's a great acheivement!

Oh, no mention of "If I Didn't Love You", also on First Ya Gotta Shake The Gate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBpt8Yu3Q8s

We never did discuss "My Gorilla is My Butler", either...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbZQ6tIeNH8

It's strange that Sly's status as a "survivor" almost makes his career sadder than if he had died at some point in the last 50 years.

Just finished reading the oral history from a couple of years back in anticipation of reading Sly's new one.

All I can say is ...wow. I blame PCP.

After listening to Questlove's podcast with the autobio writer, I listened to 'Life of Fortune & Fame', which is pretty striking and was apparently on a comp of unreleased '60s tracks that came out in the '90s called Funkmeister. Curious if One Child had heard these?

Also at the very end there's a clip of an actually unreleased '80s Sly song, just a DX7 and drum machine. It's very Prince-y, really something.

Nice clip, thanks for sharing.

BTW it’s kind of nuts that OneChild started this thread 3 1/2 years ago and finished the 208th and last entry the day before his memoir was released.

Autobio is great!

I downloaded Small Talk prompted by this thread - had never heard it - and it's absolutely blazing my Saturday, "Can't Strain My Brain" is wildly, weirdly great. Thank you Sly and Shakey.