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Tag: Sly Stone

  • Sly Stone Turns 70, Contest and New Box Set News

    Sly Stone

    Sly Stone is Legacy Artist of the Month

    Sly Stone is 70.

    Now you feel old.

    Sylvester Stewart, the heart of Sly and The Family Stone, had a groove for everyone over a decade of crossover success when the band fused every music of the day from rock to funk to pop to soul to maybe drawing the line at Creole. Over a period of just several years, everything the Sly and the Family Stone released topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

    You know the tracks, “Everyday People”, “Family Affair”, “Thank You” are just a handful. A pioneer at home on a stage with Jimmy Page or George Clinton, Sly had something to say about society and usually locked it within a groove that won over everyone.

    On Sly’s 70th birthday, we got two fun pieces of news. We already knew that Legacy Recordings had made Sly their third “Artist of the Month” following Janis and Nina Simone.  Today we learned that there will be a new multi CD box set released later this year to honor the Grammy and Rock Roll Hall of Fame winner.

    We also heard about a contest you can enter to design a funky Sly and the Family Stone poster and scoop up $500.   The poster contest details are online now, and you’ve got until April 11 at midnight Pacific Time to “create a fun design influenced by the…song titles that span the band’s legendary career.”

    I’m not an artist, but I’m guess the entries will be colorful.

    Happy 70th birthday, Sly.   Thank you for making so much music possible.

    Respect.

     

    Sly Stone photo courtesy Legacy Recordings

     

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #40: The Great Popeye Con

    Jesse Johnson (w/Sly Stone)'s "Crazay" 45

    JESSE JOHNSON  “Crazay” (Featuring Sly Stone)  b/w  “Drive Yo Cadillac” (A&M Records #2878, 1986)

    Money Mike might’ve already covered this track a while back in his brilliant Infatueighties column, but given the random nature of 45 RPM, our rich musical history is destined to repeat itself here at Sonic Clash, so here goes…

    Between the scattershot, flannel-clad, pre-grunge indie slop-rock of young, bored, snowed-in white kids like The Replacements, Husker Du and Soul Asylum, and the glitzy, chart-topping new-wave glam-funk of poon-crazed urban youth like Prince and Morris Day & The Time, Minneapolis was providing a fair chunk of America’s musical sustenance by 1986.  And as deeply indebted to reclusive geniuses like Bob Dylan and Black Flag as the former were, the latter borrowed so many pages from the Sly Stone Book Of Brilliance-Smashed-By-Insanity that it was only a matter of time before either certain hermits emerged from hiding, or the scene imploded in on itself in a cascade of ego, drugs and violence.  Turned out all of the above.  But not before one great, though very brief, comeback.

    Shockadelica, on-again/off-again Time guitarist Jesse Johnson’s 2nd solo LP, showcased this self-penned-and-produced single, which features an ebullient Sly Stone making his first major recording appearance after a near-decade hiatus.  Though sung as a duet, Johnson takes a gentlemanly backseat, politely allowing Sly to steal the show.  Which he does, of course.  This is an example of one of those tracks that comes together perfectly, where all the elements are aligned and nothing is missing or out-of-place.  Backstage may have been a cesspool of crack addiction, fatal sexually transmitted diseases, and botched suicide attempts, but on stage was sheer joy.

    Watch the video for Jesse Johnson\’s \”Crazay\” (Featuring Sly Stone) on YouTube

    And for one brief, shining, gorgeously fulfilling moment, it seemed like Sly Stone was back.

    He wasn’t.

    NEXT WEEK: An early World Music smash, courtesy of a duo from Trinidad.