By 1969's Woodstock Festival, Sly And The Family Stone's reputation for incendiary live performances had grown to the point where they were regarded by many as the greatest live act on the planet. If there was any doubt whatsoever of this however, it was completely shattered by the band's historic performance at Woodstock.
Looking past Woodstock's images of stoned out hippies dancing naked in the mud that have become forever ingrained into the consciousness of a generation, there are really only a handful of images of the actual musical performances that took place there which have become likewise etched into memory.
Of these, only three were truly star making turns. Santana's electrifying rain chant during "Soul Sacrifice;" Ten Years After's Alvin Lee's blistering, teeth-clenched guitar soloing on "I'm Going Home"; and Sly And The Family Stone's unforgettable, call and response during the medley of "Dance To The Music" and "I Want To Take You Higher." The energy of this performance was absolutely off the charts, and the image of Sly throwing the peace sign in the air with fringe flying, is arguably the most lasting musical snapshot of that historic event.
It was a landmark performance whose way had been thoroughly paved by a landmark album, 1969's Stand!. While many music historians justifyably will point to There's A Riot Goin' On as Sly And The Family Stone's greatest work, my own vote goes to Stand! hands down. Either way you choose to slice it, these two albums represent the creative and artistic peak of Sly And The Family Stone.
But for my money, Stand! is where everything absolutely came together. From the first notes of the opening track, this album just flat out kicks ass and takes names. On a musical level, the band plays as tightly as any musical unit had ever done up to this point and establishes the standard for every single self-respecting funk band which would follow. Not to mention quite a few rock bands as well.
The album's original seven tracks include at least four hit singles: "Everyday People"; "Sing A Simple Song"; "You Can Make It If You Try"; and of course, the band's signature song made famous by it's Woodstock performance, "I Want To Take You Higher." The band was also by now fully incorporating the politics of both the civil rights and anti-war movements into it's lyrics via both "Everyday People" and the racially charged call to empowerment of "Don't Call Me Nigger Whitey."
Rounding out the album, the thirteen plus minutes of the instrumental "Sex Machine" begin with a slowly percolating wah-wah guitar that slowly builds in tension before finally exploding into a cacophonous wall of sound of crashing drums and screaming horns. The final effect is a virtual eargasm of sound (hence the title perhaps).
Article comments
1 - JC Mosquito
Count me in - Stand over Riot.
2 - Rodney Welch
Riot is one of the greatest, darkest, and fiercest albums ever made. It's Sly Stone's Tonight's the Night, and it is every bit as powerful as that record -- maybe more so. Both are scary records, scorched by drugs, death and, in Sly's case, raw anger. Sly's vocals throughout are slurred and the lyrics occasionally trail off into incoherence, not unlike that of someone who had to get flat-out ripped in order to say what he really, really felt, sort of the way Anthony Burgess had to get drunk in order to deal with his own wife's rape when he was writing A Clockwork Orange. It was Sly Stone at his most frustrated and vehement -- as if he wanted to make damn sure no one ever thought of him as a happy Negro in Nixonland. "Family Affair," for example -- that is one bleak social portrait to wind up on the Top 40. To listen to Riot is to listen to turmoil, and even it's lightest, happiest moments are bleak and menacing; the music bounces along in "Spaced Cowboy," but then you hear Sly say: "Well once I saw a bore,/Who was a social whore..."
When I listen to "Africa Talks to You (The Asphalt Jungle)" -- it's as if you can smell the smoke from a dozen urban communities about to go up in smoke, and "Thank You for Talkin' To Me Africa" is an almost nightmarish rewrite of "Thank You Fallettenme Be Mice Elf."
Sink yourself into that record and it's like a thunderbolt hyperdermic driven right into your brain. Think of a drug that doesn't blot out illusions, but illuminates them. That is what Riot is.
3 - Glen Boyd
Thanx for the comment Rodney.
Understand that I don't diminish the greatness of Riot at all. I actually think it is overall the most musically interesting of Sly's albums. But the dark Underlying tone of the album (that you actually allude to in your comment) is for me what seperates it from the infectiously "up" quality of Stand!, which is what I feel makes the latter the better record of the two.
I like to remember Sly Stone as the energized performer that absolutely electrified half a million people at Woodstock, rather than the darker personality he became during the band's latter day period, and the drugs began to really do a number on him -- eventually dulling his genius altogether.
But don't get me wrong here about Riot, because it is a great record in it's own right. I just feel that Stand! is a better representation of what was at the time, the tightest band in rock period.
Thanx again for the comment.
-Glen