2 Cd
Long before Michael Jackson and Prince became superstars by fusing rhythmic soul with rock’s sense of scale and ambition, a former Northern California deejay and producer named Sylvester Stewart took the vaunted musical utopianism of the ’60s and forged it into the cross-cultural, ass-shaking, genre-bending groove monster that was Sly and the Family Stone.
James Brown may have invented funk, but S&TFS masterfully tooled and supercharged it into mass-acceptance. No mere greatest hits collection–though they’re all here in digitally remastered glory–this 35-track, double-disc anthology delves deeper into the handful of seminal albums the band produced before its leaders’ long, troubling slide into drug abuse and oblivion.
Given the chronological development, there’s a sense here that Stewart/Stone’s problems paralleled the increasingly militant and hard-edged stance his band took on albums like the uncompromising classics There’s a Riot Going On and Family Affair. Propelled by Larry Graham’s locomotive bass lines and accented by rousing horns, Sly and company swooped from the heights of 1969’s hit-laden “Stand” towards a darker and more unsettling decade ahead. Few bands have soared higher–or fallen as far.