by Gary Jackson
NEW REVIEWS COMING SOON!

SLY & THE FAMILY STONE
The Collection

Sony/Legacy

If your Sly Stone experience is limited to his 2006 Grammy Music Awards bleached-blond Mohawk haircut appearance, then you saw a caricature of Stone’s former self, not the supremely gifted visionary whose music stood the world on its ears in the late 1960s. Sly Stone, hugely influenced by James Brown, literally created a genre of funk music that is still being mined. I was one of the lucky ones who saw Sly & the Family Stone intact and in their prime.

The group was two weeks ripe from their historic and volcanic 1969 Woodstock Music Festival appearance. The concert, held at Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, Massachusetts, featured the Family Stone headlining a bill that included Wilson Pickett and the Rascals. It was very late summer, the cool, crisp signals of autumn made for a slightly chilly evening in early September.

Anticipation was high that evening, not only because of the Woodstock buzz, but also due to a slew of hits that had already placed the Family Stone as THE most innovative act of the closing decade. Bonfires were lit in the stadium’s concrete stands to stave off bracing evening breezes from the Atlantic Ocean. And—surprise!—the concert actually went off as planned. Sly, as promised, took us higher musically than we had hoped for, and I and my fellow freshmen headed back to our dormitories supremely satisfied to have seen in person what the buzz was all about in upper New York State.

At the time, a trio of albums, A Whole New Thing, Dance to the Music and Stand! yielded a packet of hits—“Dance to the Music,” “Stand!,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” “Sing A Simple Song,” “Everyday People” and “You Can Make it if You Try”— that remain as polished and energetic as when they were first released. Who then could have guessed that a 37-year odyssey would follow, one that made Ulysses’ “cruise” seem tame by comparison. While there may never be an accurate re-telling of Sly Stone’s well-chronicled missed concerts, recording, touring and interview dates, and brushes with drugs, a revealing August 2007 Vanity Fair article brings Stone back to earth, makes him seem, well, normal, far from the blond Mohawk he stylishly displayed on the boob tube. Do yourself a favor and seek out the article: it will give you a direct insight into a man as complex as any of his funk masterpieces, yet reveals a soul that wonders what the fuss is about over his lapses. After all, he’s merely a human who happens to have created some of the best pop/funk albums ever.

A very limited release of The Collection brings together every album Sly & the Family Stone recorded for Epic Records from 1967 to 1974, save for Greatest Hits, which was released as a solo CD this past July. Along with the afore-mentioned CDs, The Collection includes Small Talk, Fresh, Life and the under-rated classic There’s a Riot Going On. All CDs contain original artwork and numerous previously unreleased tracks, out-takes and demos, too many to mention in this space. What The Collection reveals is an artist who mixed the vagaries of everyday life with a hypnotic dance groove. As is still the case today, few artists of color are allowed by their labels to take a penetrating and insightful look into the world’s problems, let alone their own internal demons. Sly Stone marched to his own inner beat, never letting the dictates of over-bearing A&R departments guide what he should or should not record. There will never be another “character” quite like Sly Stone. Couldn’t happen because the times we live in will not allow the freedom needed to create the type of music that only geniuses can supply us. So we’ll take Sly Stone, Mohawk and all, and in as small a dose as he allows. Perhaps Oprah might want to consider offering him a spot on her couch. Now, wouldn’t that be a hoot!