Sly & The Family Stone - Stand!

Released - May 1969

Genre - Funk

Producer - Sly Stone

Selected Personnel - Sly Stone (Vocals/Guitar/Organ/Piano/Bass/Harmonica); Freddie Stone (Vocals/Guitar); Larry Graham (Vocals/Bass); Rose Stone (Vocals/Piano/Keyboard); Cynthia Robinson (Trumpet); Jerry Martini (Saxophone); Greg Errico (Drums)

Standout Track - Everyday People

Stand! is an album that I really should have gotten round to listening to much sooner and not purely out of my recent "let's start listening to as much funk as possible" odyssey, as it's so much more than just a landmark funk album. It is that, of course - Sly & The Family Stone were one of the most significant bands who constructed funk as a genre in the late 60s, picking up from where James Brown left off and incorporating more diverse sounds from psychedelia and rock, paving the way for the likes of George Clinton and Funkadelic. But Stand!, and the Family Stone in general, represent far more than that and are a landmark moment in musical history in general, summing up a lot of what music came to mean in the sixties. There's also the fact that, on top of its historical and cultural significance, it's one of the most upbeat, colourful, inventive and exciting albums of the decade by far, and one I wish I'd heard much sooner than I did.

By the mid-to-late sixties, Sly Stone had already established an unusual and important cultural role for himself as a DJ for an R&B radio station who, alongside permitted R&B songs by black artists, also played songs by the likes of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the hope of trying to engender a more integrated musical consciousness in the American public, one that wasn't necessarily dictated by genre or race, but simply enjoyed good music. Such a stance in the mid-sixties, with the notion of integration still a fairly recent one, was a bold one and one he would go on to make even more directly when he formed the Family Stone out of various siblings and friends. Pretty much uniquely for the era, Sly & The Family Stone were a band that contained both black and white, male and female performers, with the women notably playing instruments themselves and not reduced to mere set dressing or backing vocals or the like. Such a musical collective was unheard of at the time, and made Sly's vision of social harmony through music all the more visceral. More than just such visual emblems of harmony without boundaries, though, the band incorporated that manifesto into their very approach to music-making. Sly, Freddie and Rose Stone and bassist Larry Graham would each take turns to tackle various verses of vocal parts rather than having a single dedicated lead vocalist, with Cynthia Robinson frequently shouting ad-libbed vocal commands to both the band and the audience, while the music itself borrowed equally from Motown and Stax-influenced pop, James Brown's early funk and the psychedelic rock innovations of people like Jimi Hendrix.

Their early records established a great interest in the band, with early single "Dance To The Music" proving a huge hit, but it wasn't until 1969's Stand! that they truly became a phenomenon. Essentially, Stand! manages to successfully distil all the euphoria and optimism and experimentation that characterised the sixties into one gloriously sunny, surreal and hugely entertaining gem. The sound manages to veer from experimental weirdness with distorted fuzz guitars and scatted vocals processed beyond recognition on songs like "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" and "Sex Machine" to simple pop brilliance on effortlessly memorable songs like the title track or "Everyday People." To me, it's most reminiscent of the psychedelic rock of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but here Sly Stone has a keen eye on pop sensibilities and mainstream appeal. So, while the experimentation and weirdness and sonic invention is all present and correct, things are kept far more concise, memorable and simple than on the sprawling, occasionally meandering experiments of something like Electric Ladyland.

The two most exemplary examples of that simple pop sensibility are the glorious title track and the infernally catchy "Everyday People," both of which explore similar messages of social and racial tolerance. "Stand!" has a wonderfully ascendant, triumphant vocal melody that's trilled at the highest possible pitch on the chorus and becomes almost rapturous in its message of victory for the under-represented and the disadvantaged - "There's a midget standing tall, and a giant beside him about to fall" - summing up all the optimism and the social togetherness of the late sixties. It then transforms in its final minute into a sharp, vicious organ-driven gospel break that's one of the coolest moments on the record. "Everyday People" is a simpler song, perhaps, but infinitely more catchy with its sing-a-long, nursery rhyme choral vocals and stick-in-the-mind phrases (it popularised the phrase "Different strokes for different folks" in its exploration of racial harmony).

Then there are songs that push the experimentation a little further. "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" has never really grabbed me, being a little too limited in terms of melody or musical dynamics, but it sees Sly singing through a vocoder and distorting his own vocal contributions beyond recognition, while "I Want To Take You Higher" is a vicious, ecstatic and high-tempo funk jam. Larry Graham's bass thuds and thunders throughout while the band take turns in practically screaming their vocal parts, interweaving with the punchy refrains of the horn sections. "Sex Machine" (not to be confused with the James Brown classic) is a lengthy jam that again sees Sly distort his vocals and provide an opportunity for each member of the band to indulge in an extended solo. It's not the finest epic jam ever, being a little too simplistic in its structure, but it's a fine example of the instrumental prowess of everyone involved.

The remaining songs, like the deceptively fun "Somebody's Watching You," which seems to be about pervasive paranoia, are great fun too. There's not one moment on this album that doesn't push fun and optimism to the forefront, really - even the fearsome moments of "I Want To Take You Higher" or the more sluggish passages of "Sex Machine" are just irresistibly fun to listen to or dance to or whatever you feel like doing. There's a sense with this album that Sly & The Family Stone didn't just create something of huge musical significance, but also sent out a message of great cultural significance as well in its attitude of social togetherness and hope for the future. It was enormously successful and established the band as a phenomenon, with "Everyday People" becoming a number one hit. Sadly, the optimistic and ecstatic mood of their music wasn't to last as the social optimism of the late 60s began to fade. Over the subsequent two years, the decline of the civil rights movement, the rise of police brutality and social malaise changed the state of the nation severely, while Sly Stone fell into a serious cocaine dependency that changed his behaviour and attitude. The band remained quiet for a couple of years before releasing There's A Riot Goin' On in 1971, an album that sought to take stock of the dramatic decline in America's social health. The album is revered as another classic, but as yet it's not an album I've been able to love. The songwriting is considerably below the standard set on Stand! and the production and arrangements are muddy and uninspired, with the pace deathly sluggish throughout. Perhaps it's one that will grow on me and will one day appear on this blog with a mumbled apology, but for now I feel that Sly Stone's true brilliance went hand-in-hand with his health and his optimism, and that when both began to depart him it affected his musical output. On Stand! though, he created a piece of music so brilliant that his place in history is assured whatever you make of his later work.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Sly Stone.

1. Stand!

2. Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey

3. I Want To Take You Higher

4. Somebody's Watching You

5. Sing A Simple Song

6. Everyday People

7. Sex Machine

8. You Can Make It If You Try