Music Review: Sly And The Family Stone - The Woodstock Experience

This summer marks the 40th Anniversary of 1969's historic Woodstock Music And Arts Festival. As part of the celebration, Sony/Legacy Recordings is releasing a limited edition series of deluxe, double disc recordings by five of the artists whose performances at Woodstock changed the world.

Dubbed The Woodstock Experience, each double-CD set pairs a classic 1969 album from the featured artist, along with their full festival performance. All of the concert recordings — by Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Sly And The Family Stone, and Santana — appear on these CDs in their entirety for the first time ever. All are packaged in eco-friendly sleeves, that include a mini-version of the original album cover and a 16 X 20 inch double-sided fold-out poster. With this series, which we are also calling The Woodstock Experience, Blogcritics will be reviewing each of these commemorative sets.

Of all of the performances that took place at Woodstock, Sly And The Family Stone's amazing set is simply in a class all its own.

A notoriously hit and miss act at the time, Sly had one of the worst reputations in the business for showing up late or not at all to his shows back then. But when the band actually would show, they usually came to play — and Sly And The Family Stone were definitely firing on all four cylinders at Woodstock.

In fact, to this day one of the most iconic images from the Woodstock film remains the one of Sly, bathed in blue light with his arms outstretched and white fringe flying at the close of "I Want To Take You Higher." There are many memorable images from that historic weekend — but that one just really stands out as a signature snapshot of what Woodstock was all about.

After forty years, fans now have the opportunity to experience that entire amazing performance as part of Sony/Legacy's Woodstock Experience series. Perhaps most amazing is the fact that this represents the first official live album ever from Sly And The Family Stone — again coming some forty years after the fact.

Article Author: Glen Boyd

You'll find Blogcritics assistant music editor Glen Boyd sharing his Thoughtmares on his personal blogs The World Wide Glen, and The Rockologist. In a previous life, Glen was a music professional and journalist whose work has appeared in The Rocket, SPIN, Pulse!, and The Source. …

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