Stand!

Performer: Sly & the Family Stone
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: Sly & The Family Stone: Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart (vocals, guitar, keyboards, harmonica); Freddie "Stone" Stewart (guitar, vocals); Jerry Martini (saxophone); Cynthia Robinson (trumpet); Rosie "Stone" Stewart (piano); Larry Graham, Jr. (bass, vocals); Greg Errico (drums). Master Sound releases are 24-karat gold CDs remastered from first-generation masters. This process utilizes 20-bit technology and Sony's revolutionary "Super Bit Mapping" system. STAND! was Sly & The Family Stone's fourth album, and contained the hits "Everyday People" and the title track. It also contained Sly's first foray into social/political songwriting with "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey," which touches on black and white racism. Sly Stone was too busy having a good time and living life to the excess to begin to realize how influential his brand of funky soul would become. Early signs of rap also surfaced on this album. Confident, hard rocking and marvellously arrogant, the band were outrageous and exciting; even five minutes of a cappella handclapping was riveting. Two classics appear on this --"I Want To Take You Higher" and "Everyday People"--but the whole album is a necessary purchase for students of goodtime soul, dance, rap and funk. This family is the acknowledged leader.

Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.124) - Ranked #118 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "STAND! is party politics at its most inclusive and exciting..." Rolling Stone (7/26/69, p.37) - "...extremely vital body music. It really can't be listened to in a low volume and communicate. STAND! depends on sheer energy..." Q (p.124) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "STAND! is Sly Stone's definitive statement....The title track's coda is the funkiest thing ever recorded by anyone not called James Brown..." Down Beat (p.68) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "Everything seems to click, with the band actually sounding like one big, happy family."

Sylvester Stewart, known to the world as Sly Stone, had a musical vision that coalesced quickly in the late 1960s and sadly disintegrated after half a decade. As the leader of Sly & the Family Stone, he and his combination hippie commune/soul revue melded funk with psychedelia in a revolutionary manner. Sly's lyrical themes shifted from peace and love to scathing social commentaries that made for some of the strongest political statements of the era. Unfortunately, by the turn of the decade he began to lose himself in a netherworld of drug addiction from which he never really recovered.

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