Sly and The Family Stone - Greatest Hits

Sly and The Family Stone’s Greatest Hits is a stopgap between albums, and a way to finance Sly’s last real opus.

Way back in 1970, when Michael Jackson was still shimmying alongside Tito and Jermaine, singing about birds and letters, one Sylvester Stewart was the world’s most batshit crazy music-star. Stewart, known to the world as Sly Stone, was holed up in a Hollywood studio making his definitive creative statement 1971’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On, increasingly paranoid of outside pressures from Black Panthers wanting him to go political, and record executives wanting him to finish up the album to capitalize on his growing fame after the surprise success of 1969’s Stand!. Sly, at that time, was known for his errant live performances, where the crowd was lucky if he showed up three hours late, if at all, and for his increased paranoia after finally achieving the fame he had set out for when he began his musical career. When Stone began to dig in and continue spending most of ’70 in his studio, shutting himself off to the world, his record company decided to put out Sly & The Family Stone’s Greatest Hits, as a stopgap between albums, and as a way to finance Sly’s last real opus.

Luckily for Sly’s record company, his greatest hits album did for his career, what Bob Dylan’s first greatest hits album did for his, as in expanded his fan base and made him seem essential. Listening to Greatest Hits, there’s no doubt he was. Sly, in 1970, seemed to foreshadow many separate phases of black music. There’s the beginnings of funk music on tracks like the bluesy “I Want To Take You Higher,” “Fun,” “Sing a Simple Song,” and album highlight “Thank You,” a song highlighted by very heavy drums and bass for the time, and nearly void of guitar at all, that bands varying from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to George Clinton are indebted to. 

Sly should also be considered in his role of making R&B the most popular black music in the 1970’s along with the guys who made Motown a powerhouse. If someone had told me that “Stand,” “Life,” “Dance to the Music,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” and “M’Lady” were songs by The Temptations I’d have believed them. Sly could make catchy R&B group music as anyone in Detroit could in their heyday. 

Sadly, to this generation Sly and the Family Stone are known as some relic pop group, a group that was cool like No Doubt was ten years ago. Or worse, the group is known for Sly’s erratic behavior and strange appearance at the Grammy’s in 2006, where he sported a white Mohawk. Maybe the repackaging and remastering of his band’s catalog will make Sly into the hero he should be, once and for all.   

(Epic Records)