Recommendations of the Editorial team
Sly and the Family Stone didn’t need to say: “Why can’t we all live in peace?” You just had to look at this band and hear their sound to understand what attitude they represented. On the early albums there were no allusions to the topic of skin color, Sly & The Family Stone were through and through utopian, filled with idealism that was expressed in songs such as “Everyday People” and “Hot Fun in the Summertime”.
Such messages need people. There were tremendous optimism and real conviction in these albums. Sly & the Family Stone itself was like the crew of an ark Noah: black and white, men and women. When you saw this band, the ethnic origin didn’t matter and that covered so many layers of society, you felt like a distant family member.
From a musical point of view, the Family Stone was an amazing band, but that Sly Stone was the leader was no doubt about that. He is a unique radio arranger to compare only with Duke Ellington. Nobody has combined different elements of the radio as virtuoso as Sly. These early albums were orchestrated in a very progressive way – a bit of guitar that led to something else that then triggered something else. Later he relied more dissonant colors, this was a kind of cézanne des radio.
At some point, for example at the time of “there’s a riot goin ‘on”, the disillusionment came. Sly & The Family Stone probably became clear that this utopian model worked in his band, but he still couldn’t go to a bar in Alabama without a fight.
Without SLY, the world would look very different. Without him there would be no George Clinton, no prince
“Fresh” is the work of a man who has understood that nobody can turn the wheel of history faster or slower. Qué Será, Será. “Fresh” is a very profound work. Here someone who has arrived at the top speaks and now falls deeply in realizing that he actually has nothing under control.
Without SLY, the world would look very different. Without him there would be no George Clinton, no prince. Everything that came in R&B was influenced by this man. We may have lost the “revolution” of the 60s, but Sly & The Family Stone won his very own revolution, musically and in the heads of the audience. I just hope he knows that and that it’s okay for him.