Sly And The Family Stone 1969
Introduction
On May 3, 1969, Sly And The Family Stone released their fourth album, Stand!. It would turn out to be the breakthrough for the band that would put 4 classic albums to their name in 4 years’ time.
Sly
Early 1969, Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone), was still completely focused on music. The drugs that would soon paralyze his career, hadn’t been fully introduced yet.
After Sly And The Family Stone had released their last album Life in September 1968, they concluded that the potential they had hinted to with the Dance To The Music album and single, hadn’t been fulfilled. The Life sales were disappointing and none of the album’s singles turned into hits.
So, Sly Stone went to work: a new album, same concept, multi-racial, multi-gender, soul, psychedelica, rock, gospel and pure focus. Steven Paley, at the time the band’s A&R director and photographer, noticed how “together” Sly was during the recording sessions and how he constantly referred to music theorist Walter Piston’s Orchestration. But, Sly did make a change, be it very careful, but still. Social consciousness translated into different lyrics (and titles). Themes like racism entered the realm.
Sly And The Family Stone – Stand!
Stand!
On May 3, 1969, the result of Sly Stone’s hard work was released as Stand!. The first hit album and the start of a glorious musical run of albums, which would end with the release of 1973’s Fresh album.
The first song on the album is Stand!, a call to stand up for your own rights and convictions and the rights of the neighborhood/community you belong to. The song’s outro is one of the funkiest pieces of music ever recorded. Drummer Gregg Errico: “People would always ask, ‘why didn’t you go there and let that be the song?'”. A fair question.
Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey contains little text. A pity, but as a statement the title is revolutionary in its own right. Sly immediately reverses the title in the second line, making it a call to stop calling each other names. Talk, get into contact and respect one another.
Don’t call me nigger, whitey
Don’t call me whitey, niggerWell, I went down across the country
And I heard two voices ring
They were talkin’ funky to each other
And neither other could change a thing© Sly Stone
I Want To Take You Higher was an instant part of the live shows upon its release, where it oftentimes was elongated to epic proportions, as evidenced at the Woodstock festival. The perfect call-and-response backed by a rousing rhythm.
Somebody’s Watching You gently looks forward to masterpiece There’s A Riot Goin’ On. The next Sing A Simple Song is optimistic again: “try a little do re mi fa so la ti do”.
Side 2 of the original vinyl album starts off with Everyday People, a genius song typical of Sly And The Family Stone, both musically and lyrically. Unity, that’s what it’s all about. Whether you’re blue, green, yellow, black or white, ordinary or long-haired, we’re all “everyday people”.
Sex Machine is a long bluesy rock/funk jam, giving almost every member ample room for solos. Sly himself experiments with a vocoder (of is it a talk-box?) and scats on guitar. Trippy! You Can Make It If You Try closes the album on a positive note.
Sly And The Family Stone – Stand! – Ad
Success
The album was preceded by two singles in November 1968 and March 1969, both turning into (big) hits. Everyday People was the first single and was a number 1 hit in the US. The song introduced the familiar term “different strokes for different folks”, which was a popular catch-phrase in the US in 1969, even among people who didn’t have any affinity with music and/or Sly And The Family Stone.
The second single, Stand!, was a hit also, not as big as Everyday People, but still a prelude to the album, which would be Sly And The Family Stone’s biggest success to date. In 1969 over 500.000 copies of Stand! were sold, which meant the album was certified gold before the end of the year. The album would stay in the Billboard album charts for nearly two years straight.
The group had finally arrived, and the mega success of Woodstock hadn’t even happened yet.
Sly And The Family Stone – Poster 1969
Review
Stand! proved once and for all that Sly And The Family Stone was one of the most influential bands of all time. Funk, rock, soul, psychedelica, gospel and pure 1960s pop all came together in an irresistible melting-pot. Sly Stone proved to be a masterful composer, arranger and producer.
Stand! is a perfect product of its time. Catchy, positive, controversial and hinting at things to come. The end of the 1960s hadn’t fully materialized yet, but something was brewing, like on Somebody’s Watching You. It’s still undefinable, but it most certainly is there.
Sly Stone stated in Rolling Stone magazine: “I was into everyone’s records. I’d play Dylan, Hendrix, James Brown back to back, so I didn’t get stuck in any one groove.” And that just about sums up Stand!, a unique and original sound, not to be pigeonholed.
Sly And The Family Stone – Stand! – Singles
Singles
Two singles were culled from the album:
- Everyday People / Sing A Simple Song
(released in November 1968) - Stand! / I Want To Take You Higher
(released in March 1969)
Songs
All songs written, produced and arranged by Sly Stone.
- Stand!
- Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey
- I Want To Take You Higher
- Somebody’s Watching You
- Sing A Simple Song
- Everyday People
- Sex Machine
- You Can Make It If You Try
Sly And The Family Stone – Stand! – Inner sleeve
Musicians
- Sly Stone – vocals, organ, guitar, piano, harmonica, vocoder; bass on You Can Make It If You Try
- Rose Stone – vocals, piano, keyboards
- Freddie Stone – vocals, guitar
- Larry Graham – vocals, bass (except on You Can Make It If You Try)
- Greg Errico – drums; background vocals on I Want To Take You Higher
- Cynthia Robinson – trumpet, ad-libs; background vocals on I Want To Take You Higher
- Jerry Martini – saxophone; background vocals on I Want To Take You Higher
- Little Sister (Vet Stone, Mary McCreary, Elva Mouton) – background vocals on Stand!, Sing A Simple Song, Everyday People, I Want To Take You Higher
Sly And The Family Stone – Hot Fun In The Summertime & Thank You Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) singles
After Stand!
Following the success of the preceding singles, You Can Make It If You Try was selected to be the third Stand! single. With the mono-mixes already done, it was replaced by a new song at the very last minute. Sly Stone couldn’t stop writing and recording. In the meantime he had come up with the wonderful Hot Fun In The Summertime, which was released as the next Sly And The Family Stone single on July 2, 1969.
Next up: the legendary Woodstock festival. At approximately 3:30 AM on August 17, 1969, Sly And The Family Stone took the stage and overwhelmed the over 400,000 people in the audience with a blistering mix of their music. Inspired, tight, enthusiastic and full of conviction, the band played one the best live shows ever and were among the definite highlights of the 3 day festival. Despite the time, the crowd went crazy. Singing, dancing, screaming, everything and everyone joined in. No-one will remain untouched by witnessing the images (and sound recordings) of Sly And The Family Stone playing I Want To Take You Higher in pitch dark receiving a massive “HIGHER!” back from the audience, time and time again. Goose bumps.
Sly Stone – Woodstock 08/17/1969
Sly And The Family Stone were everywhere. The new single Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) was released in December 1969, another number 1 hit.
And then it went quiet. Too quiet. Sly Stone quickly deteriorated. Drugs, paranoia, Sly Stone proved extremely vulnerable to the negative sides of superstardom. He alienated himself, didn’t even bother to show up at a lot of concerts, was distant and seemed unable to place two sentences in a row. A sad sight.
It’s unbelievable but true, during that period Sly Stone would deliver no less than 3 more masterpieces:
Read articles Sly And The Family Stone release on the best compilations of all time and Sly Stone’s masterpiece There’s A Riot Goin’ On for more on the first two albums. An article on Fresh will hopefully be published in the future.
In closing
I close this article with the words of funk grandmaster George Clinton, who mentioned Sly Stone: He’s my idol; forget all that peer stuff. I heard Stand!, and it was like, man, forget it! That band was perfect. And Sly was like all the Beatles and all of Motown in one. He was the baddest thing around.”
Video/Spotify
This story contains an accompanying video. Click on the following link to see it: Video: Sly And The Family Stone’s breakthrough album Stand!. The A Pop Life playlist on Spotify has been updated as well.
