Thankful n' Thoughtfull: The Sly Stone Dedicated Chronological Listening Thread

158. Sly & the Family Stone - What Was I Thinkin' In My Head (Head Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tav3rbdC2o
A slickly delivered disco-pop tune. For better or worse there's no sign of the idiosyncratic sloppiness that marked many of Sly's productions from 1970 onward - no extraneous noise, no studio chatter, no wayward playing, no audible engineering artifacts. The arrangement is precise: the phalanx of guitar, keyboards, strings, horns, backing vocalists, drums and bass parts are all cleanly differentiated and capably executed. For once Sly sounds like part of a conventional, well-oiled machine, in step with current trends and trying desperately to fit in.

The song opens with a horn blast, immediately launching into the piledriving disco beat and Sly singing the chorus refrain in unison with the female backing vocals. There's a full stop and then it's into the verse, where Sly again - rather uncharacteristically up to this point - leans into a series of ascending, chromatic chord changes, topped with a twisting vocal melody that doesn't always accomodate all the syllables he's trying to cram in. The chorus is a one-chord blues vamp, burbling clavinet, lot of double-time bass riffs. By the end when the ensemble settles in and extends it, the drummer really lays into those open hi-hat accents, and the horns come in for some punchy lead lines. Lyrically it's not bad, Sly returning to familiar themes of the ironies of being humbled. His voice is somewhat overpowered by the backing vocals, whose delivery bears more than a passing resemblance to contemporaneous P-funk vocal arrangements (in fact, in some ways the whole thing sounds like a Brides of Funkenstein song). This isn't bad, per se, but as with much of this album it's lacking in character, there's an anonymity to its glossy surface.

Great bassline!

My favorite tune on this record.

159. Sly & the Family Stone - Nothing Less Than Happiness (Head Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdIlyhj-dB0
Built around a two-chord pattern of hammered out 8th notes on the piano in a 6/8 rhythm, reminiscent of ""Hot Fun in the Summertime"", but only in passing. Instead this simplest of constructions in belabored with a battery of bland ideas: a duetted female lead vocal, a fussy string melody, anonymous horns, some doo wop bass vocals. Again the sound is clean and clear and all of the playing/singing is fine, it's all just lacking character and depth, it's boring. If one was predisposed to prefer surprises from Sly, the only one here is how *normal* his music sounds. The lyrics are likewise unremarkable, a series of shopworn platitudes.

160. Sly & the Family Stone - Sexy Situation (Head Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFXUQ61YPq0
An incredibly fast blues shuffle, full of buzzing triplet melodies and off-beat, syncopated vocal and horn lines. Again, the ensemble is huge: keyboards, a super-compressed and very thin-sounding electric guitar, bass, drums, multiple backing vocals, a terrible string arrangement (why did Sly hang on to Ed Bogas so long?), and tinny sounding horns. There's no chord changes, this is a vamp that's been meticulously detailed and thorougly worked over. But for all its frenzied activity it's strangely lifeless. Sly's personality is smothered by the arrangement, he seems barely present. It's also a strangely mismatched lyric, the groove is hardly bumping-and-grinding.

161. Sly & the Family Stone - Blessing in Disguise (Head Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP6JMqtVI88
The inauspiciously treacly flute and string fanfare that opens this song does not bode well. The bones of the song - both musically and lyrically - are strong, especially the way the descending minor key chord pattern and melody pivot upwards and switch to a major pattern at the end of the verse, mirroring the lyrics' change in tone going into the refrain. The melody, harmonic structure, and lyrics are classic Sly, including the one-chord vamp thrown in as a bridge and coda. But unfortunately it's all buried under a cavalcade of fairly conventional and fussily arranged vocals, strings, and horn lines. As with much of the album, the song has been dressed up in current fashion, but the clothes don't quite fit.

Just want to say that I've really enjoyed dipping into this thread, especially the Riot/Fresh posts and your musical analyses.

"Blessing in Disguise" is a good song but, yes, the execution and arrangement let it down. The other two songs don't really go anywhere.

I quite like "Sexy Situation" though.

162. Sly & the Family Stone - Everything in You (Head Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkgP-1IqVuE
This album is certainly consistent. Whether or not that's a virtue is a different matter. Again Sly's songwriting prowess is not exactly diminished, but its subsumed beneath an overcooked mass of middle-of-the-road arrangement choices. The song is dominated by the bass, drums, and a dense array of strings, vocals and horns. Sly's keyboard stays mostly in the background, and his singing - while still characteristically exuberant and acrobatic - is often overwhelmed by the group vocals. Structurally it opens with a chorus, which introduces the titular refrain for a couple of bars, all strings and vocals for a couple bars. Then the rhythm shifts and tightens up, resolving its major key melody and then throwing in a passing fifth chord and switching to a highly percussive scatted "ba-ba-ba" vocal. This is contrasted with a syncopated horn countermelody, and an intense 16th hi-hat pattern and a staccato bass part interspersed with triplets. This is all within the first 30 seconds, and it's quite a barrage before the song settles into the two chord plagal cadence of the verse and it's piping vocal melody. There's another chorus, another verse, and then it's the chorus through the fade out. It moves through its melodic hooks smoothly, even if it doesn't transcend the smothering treatment. Lyrically it's more of Sly's familiar homilies, which have long since begun to ring a little hollow.

It's a long time since I listened to this album but this song is pretty good too - though it's hard to actually hear Sly on so many of these tracks.

This is a good tune and there are a bunch of components that feel pretty consistent with 1968-era Sly. But there’s a weirdly frantic quality to it—the strings are again partly to blame—and I can’t quite get past the feeling that the title refrain may have been inspired by Sly getting his stomach pumped or something.

163. Sly & the Family Stone - Mother is a Hippie (Head Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLwBG-V2F5Q
OK this one is a little wild. Opens with a staccato horn fanfare and then launches into a recycled bassline from "Organize", paired with (in something of a first) a lead synth line and another furious 16th note hi-hat drum pattern. The hi-hats push the rhythm forward but the drummer lays back on the rest of the kit, the tempo is actually pretty slow. The mix also foregrounds hand percussion (sounds like congas, likely another first), and then brings in an eerily harmonized female vocal line, Sly's keyboards occasionally poking through. This all breaks up for the verse, the arrangement circling back to the rhythm and staccato horns of the opening bars to create a strange, disco oompah band feel. Sly takes the lead vocal over the descending chord change, there's a brief stiff quarter note turnaround, and then it's back to the 16th note hi-hat vamp, Sly trading lines with one of the lead female vocalists. This vamp-verse-structure is repeated, and other elements are swapped in to fill out the arrangement - some subtle strings, for once, as well as some thin, distorted wah wah guitar. Definitive lyrics are difficult to parse, and there's random stock phrases ("tell the truth to the youth", "yippee ki yay" etc.) While some of the individual transitions feel a bit forced, overall this is pretty good, and definitely harkens back to some of Sly's pre-1969 songwriting.

Agreed, this is a p good one.

After years of owning most of these records, this thread is finally helping me hear the directions Sly was trying take during the post-Fresh period, with Small Talk swapping intricacy for intimacy and High on You’s embrace of some sort of mid-70s funk, albeit with his typical oddball flourishes.

In places,including this track, Heard Ya Missed Me kind of feels like the Sly and the Family Stone Big Band. Because it’s Sly, even when the huge, hyper-cluttered arrangements don’t work—which is probably about half the time—they’re rarely boring. And even if he was a dog chasing his own tail at this point in his career, nothing else really sounds like this.

I remember not liking the second side of this album very much and this track is a bit of mess with no hooks or anything to hang your hat on.

164. Sly & the Family Stone - Let's Be Together (Head Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODQu3LnSfk4
Sly pulls out another old trick, opening a track with a headfake, in this several bars of baroque electric piano, before segueing into the verse proper. This is another instance where Sly pulls out his pop composition playbook for verses, choruses, and breaks - each section with something interesting going on harmonically, rhythmically, or melodically - delivered via a fairly conventional R&B/funk band and sound. As with the rest of the album, the ensemble is quite large and Sly seems to fade into the background. He cedes much of the vocals here (shared with who? who knows), and the arrangement is crowded with the requisite hand percussion, strings, horns, and wah wah guitar overshadowing Sly's organ. It's an up-tempo, energetic take, and anonymous as much of the backing is on this album, the production wisely foregrounds the rhythm section. Lyrically it's one of Sly's odes to hedonism; vocally it's a little strange to hear him trot out the original Family Stone's traded group vocal approach without them.

165. Sly & the Family Stone - The Thing (Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENZt1eAjmWM
Another track that sounds like it could've been written in 1968, but delivered in an updated style that papers over Sly's idiosyncrasies and foregrounds a not particularly exciting studio ensemble. Again there's a veritable army of vocalists, percussion, strings, horns, guitar and keyboards, all relatively tastefully arranged, anchored by a strong rhythm section and a fairly novel bass part. After the opening buildup the song downshifts into a mid-tempo groove, overlaid with a series of syncopated, staggered vocal lines. Sly's in there somewhere, although his vocal isn't even clearly audible until almost halfway through the first chorus. The refrain itself is a little hard to make out ("Why don't you go where your mind is and please stop that..." and then what now?) and much of Sly's lyrics are unintelligible. The band repeats the buildup in the middle, and then returns to the vamp for some long, bent and bluesy harmonized horn and keyboard lines, then more vocals through to the end. It's all capably delivered - zero in on any one component like the bassline or the keyboard interplay and it's fine - it just isn't especially compelling in the aggregate. Again there seem to be shades of P-Funk present here ("America Eats Its Young"-era in particular), albeit without any of the weirdness.

166. Sly & the Family Stone - Family Again (Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jg4rPwJcBE
Absent any context, this sprightly, discofied album closer sounds like little more than an innocuous opportunity for the band to indulge in some spotlight turns (a drum break, a brief keyboard duel, a group vocal breakdown) and some oddball effects (Sly's talkbox bit at the beginning). But in the context of Sly's career and discography, there's an inescapable "uncanny valley" effect at this kind of zombified recreation of the original septet's schtick without any of the original septet. The players are all professionals, none of them embarass themselves, but the "feels like family again" refrain takes on a grimly false ring, and all the twists in the arrangement (even with the addition of strings and hand percussion, which the original septet never indulged in) are both predictable and hollow. This is not the Family; it's an openly crass effort to mimic it and pretend the prior 6-7 years didn't happen, and comes off strangely forced. It's as if Sly was hoping that if he just gave his old schtick enough of a modern sheen, he could trick his audience into re-living his glory days.

After this, Sly ignominiously disappeared for several years. He was gradually entering George Clinton's orbit but was without a record deal, a band, or any kind of stable support system.

From the title down, this album has the feel of Sly wandering about assuring people he's alright really - even if they haven't asked if he's alright. I think it's an enjoyable enough listen in places but, ouch, "Feels like family again"? I think that's Sly trying hard to convince himself before he gets anywhere near convincing anyone else

fwiw, just realized there's a substantial excerpt from the forthcoming Sly Stone memoir right there on the publisher's website.

167. Bonnie Pointer - Jimmy Mack (Bonnie Pointer, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9sM_p17QKU
Motown house producer Jeffrey Bowen had brought in various Sly and P-Funk alumnus for Temptations sessions, and apparently either brought Sly back or re-used tracks for a couple of Bonnie Pointer solo songs in the late 70s. As a result, Funkadelic guitar god Eddie Hazel and Sly appear on a track together, along with Freddy on bass. Sadly, this isn't exactly a showcase for either of their talents. Sly is credited with a barely there, droning ARP synth part, and Eddie sticks to basic comped chords.

168. Bonnie Pointer - Nowhere to Run (Nowhere to Hide) (Bonnie Pointer, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZQOZlFrGcI
Freddie and Sly are both credited with electric rhythm guitar (that fuzz distortion lead is credited to Benny Shultz). Which one is which is impossible to tell. The parts alternate between the furious scratching and some picked breaks, generally providing the rhythmic embellishment for this disco take on the Motown classic. Not terrible as an extended disco jam, but Sly's involvement feels largely perfunctory.

So the verdict on Heard Ya Missed Me? I think Xgau got this one right too:

Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back [Epic, 1976]
The rhythms and vocals may not be compelling, but they're certainly unpredictable. The words aren't great, but they play the margins of black music's romantic-spiritual themes with some finesse. Anyone else and we'd be waiting until he fulfilled his potential. But he already has. B-

169. Sly & the Family Stone - Remember Who You Are (Back On the Righ Track, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WJOw6vZNwU
Sly's first album not produced by Sly, and the extensive credits for longtime sidekick/henchman/enabler Hamp "Bubba" Banks suggest that he had a key role in getting this album together. In many ways this is the underrated gem in the back end of Sly's career; it's brief, consistent, solidly written, tightly arranged and simply delivered. In some ways it's "Fresh" Pt 2. It's also largely out of step with prevailing industry trends, existing in a hermetically sealed off universe of Sly's own, predicting nothing and in dialogue with no one.

Behind the kit is Sly's first black drummer, long-time R&B vet, George Harrison sideman and session pro Alvin Taylor, and on the bass is Keni Burke, of the Five Stairsteps (also a Dark Horse Records alumnus). Together the two provide a methodical and in-the-pocket rhythm section, hearkening back to the Newmark/Allen combo, albeit not as tricky. The rest of the credits are a little harder to work out. Sly's role is clear (vocals, keyboards, harmonica) but there's a bevvy of guitar, horns, and backing vocal credits, including some familiar ones: Rose and Freddie are both credited with backing vocals, and Robinson and Rizzo reappear as well. But in general the feel is of a more intimate ensemble, no more strings or timbales or dense orchestration; from the opening bars of the opening track it's evident that things have been scaled down.

Taylor splashes in with a brief opening fill, followed by a familiar tick-tock pattern, a straight 8th note bassline, and a wash of keyboards and guitars hitting whole notes on the downbeat as they establish a creatively circular four chord progression of minors and 7ths. Burke in particular acquits himself admirably, clearly relishing the opportunity to step into the pantheon of Sly bass players, putting his own muscular spin on a familiar style. For the chorus Sly pivots to a second four chord pattern, drops the minor chords, and brings in a bright, syncopated countermelody from the horns as Taylor opens up on the hi-hat. This verse/chorus pattern repeats throughout the song with minimal variation, the focus is on the disciplined delivery. There's no excess noise, no sloppy edits, no reverb, no distractions, just Sly doing his thing. He's in fine voice on the lead vocal, doubled by multi-tracked, stereo-panned female vocals. Lyrically he's again looking in the mirror, doling out advice about ignoring the haters and being true to yourself with his typical mix of inversions and turnabouts. Not every line connects but his knack for a clever turn of phrase still shines through here and there ("Ever feel like you're nobody / Remember you're nobody else, too").

A deftly executed, if modest, opener.

Wow, I've never heard this album. The drummer is absolutely killing it with those 16th note hats (that is a *fast* tempo for that groove, I could never).

(and yeah everything sounds fantastic)

Check out Alvin Taylor's wiki photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Taylor

OK I've never heard this album, the title scared me because it once again smacked of desperation. This OK though, I least you can hear Sly this time round.

Wow, it's short this album!

By 1979? It’s probably all they could wring out of him.

The cover to this album is hilarious. It’s as if they told him if he dressed up nice for church they’d let him release another album.

I am def. a fan of this song BTW.

I have a white label promo of this record with cool promotional stuff from the label. It rules.

actually it's a test pressing

https://www.discogs.com/release/12376571-Sly-The-Family-Stone-Back-On-The-Right-Track

170. Sly & the Family Stone - Back on the Right Track (Back On the Righ Track, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQZT0yuMHJE
Just from a technical musicianship standpoint, things get a little more interesting here. The intro is in half-time, dominated by some remarkably agile hi-hat work from Taylor and a fleet-fingered descending bass lick, a wah-wah/phased guitar, Sly's organ, and an electric piano filligree filling in the chords. Rose, returning to the mic for the first time in several years, tentatively sings a few "heys" as a lead-in and then the track vaults forward into an up-tempo disco groove, punctuated by a great, nimble horn line as Rose delivers the titular refrain. Burke really outdoes himself with some ridiculously fluid popping as Sly's vocal enters for the verse, then the band modulates up a whole step for the chorus with the horns, Freddie and Rose returning for some swapped backing vocals. Then they repeat the intro (but no longer in half-time) and it's back to the top for another couple of verses and choruses. That's pretty much it in terms of structure, but the song doesn't really need much more - the tempo and rhythm move at a serious clip, and there's plenty for the guitars, organ and vocals to work with, lots of little licks worked into the fabric, the bass leading the way. Again everything is recorded dry and clean, very simple. The lyrics are relatively threadbare, but it's great to hear Sly, Freddie and Rose singing together again.

had not heard that funky temptations byway and it's fantastic

Pretty good but, apart from the vocals, could be anyone tbh.

171. Sly & the Family Stone - If It's Not Addin' Up… (Back On the Righ Track, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir1bHmxF714
Takes an old bass riff and alters the phrasing slightly in order to juxtapose it against a very Newmark-style drum beat, all 16th notes on the hi-hat but laid back on the kick and snare. Really it's that rhythm section that make this song as solid as it is. The other parts, however, are not without their charms. Two guitars, two keyboards, plus a sharply enunciated horn section, are atomized, each cordoned off with their own little pocket of staccato phrases and panned separately across the stereo field, creating a bopping, ping-ponging effect. Surprisingly, there's also a burbling synth that enters midway through, adding some additional color. There's no changes, the dynamics here are all driven by the froth of constantly moving polyrhythms. Again the mix is dry and clear, each part distinct and balanced. Sly's voice sounds a little strained, and he gets some support from both male and female backing vocals (assuming one of those is Freddie) as he runs through a set of lyrics that feature some goofy lines about math and the alphabet along with Sly's usual cautionary admonitions, and a reference to his mother for good measure.

172. Sly & the Family Stone - The Same Thing (Makes You Laugh, Makes You Cry) (Back On the Righ Track, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y_A0_spHfI
A bit underwritten, but still enjoyable for a number of reasons. For one thing there's the talkbox, which fits Sly's usual vocal acrobatics like a glove. For another there's the titular dualistic homily in the lyrics, which does not receive much elaboration but is so prototypically Sly it's amazing that he hadn't used it earlier. The slow funk tempo has a curious dynamic too it, the bass in particular peppering the rhythm with staccato pops that cut across the hi hat pattern. The guitars and organs chop up two chords, with multiple male and female vocals trailing Sly's lead. Every 8 bars the band takes a breath, Taylor hits the splash and then it's back into it, over and done with in less than 3 minutes. Short and sweet.

this one is great!

The groove on 'If It's Not Addin' Up' is clearly meant to evoke 'Thank You...', but the interlocking bass & drum groove is actually really sick.

Ooh yeah, and 'The Same Thing' is even better.

Too funky.

Wow, I was like, “talkbox?” And sure enough, that Charly issue I have of this doesn’t have any on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR9Gm-esaR0

Pretty big “Africa Talks to You” vibe to this one, esp. noticeable sans talkbox.

173. Sly & the Family Stone - Shine It On (Back On the Righ Track, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDmuHy6pGXg
The longest track on the record, a one-chord jam stretched to almost 5 minutes. Again the rhythm section is really putting in the work. Taylor delivers another rock solid, pointillist drum part in the Newmark vein, dipping in and out of half-time but always driving forward with the hi-hat and some fancy footwork. Burke is no slouch either, his bass part is nimble and forceful, knitting together the entire song. Some of the other instrumentation is oddly static; a guitar that snaps between two notes for the entire song, and Sly's organ occasionally stepping in with just a single sustained chord. There's a slightly more adventurous wah wah guitar part, and a barely there electric piano that intermittently pokes through. Otherwise all the real melodic action is in the lead and backing vocals, the punchy horn line, and a wiggly analog synthesizer. The synth is a great addition to the overall sound, even if Sly is oddly behind the times here; he's working with sounds that Worrell and Wonder had already fully integrated into funk almost a decade ago. But this is largely beside the point for a track that works this well. It's a strong groove with plenty of detail to chew on, and Sly's vocal in particular is great, and the lyrics feature some of his best lines on the album, with weight imagery predominating: "Sometimes the pressure could feel like tons / But keep on stickin', stickin' to your guns / When you're tryin' to do your best / Don't you worry about the mess" and "One ounce of love is all they need / And a pound of care you give indeed / But when they notice only one gram / You can assume they don't give a damn".

Definitely a P-Funk feel to this one. This album has been a something of a pleasant surprise so far.

174. Sly & the Family Stone - It Takes All Kinds (Back On the Right Track, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYis-jr7IZ4
Sly liked callbacks, his work was often in dialogue with itself. As with some of the prior tracks - "If It's Not Addin' Up"'s bassline, "Shine It On"'s quote of the descending "yeah yeah yeah" vocal melody from "Sing a Simple Song" (courtesy of Rose) - Sly repurposes another old riff, in this case the lead guitar part from Little Sister's "You're the One", which appears here as the bassline. Similarly, the one-note backing vocal recalls "Sing a Simple Song", and for good measures Sly also quotes "everybody is a star" in the lyrics, and references the album's title track as well. The lyrics in general are a retread of "both sides" tropes, similar to "The Same Thing"; the individual lines are pretty good ("Some of us don’t give a shit or shock you much at all / Others might say “I heard that” about something off the wall") and Sly's delivery is convincing.

All this hall-of-mirrors stuff aside, the song overall is consistent with the other solid, modest tunes on the album. It's a short vamp, no changes apart from a little turnaround at the end of each verse. The rhythm section's mid-tempo funk strut is again both inventive and right in-the-pocket. The airtight production carves out space for all the bopping instrumental accompaniment: electric piano, razor sharp wah wah guitars, trademark swelling horn accents. Sly's lead vocal is fun and bouncy, augmented by both female and male backing vocals. The overall enjoyable delivery papers over the laziness of the songwriting.

Another one that is an alternate version on the Charly issue I have, featuring an unbelievablly strung out vocal from Sly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-x_QUslTA4

175. Sly & the Family Stone - Who's to Say? (Back On the Right Track, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYis-jr7IZ4
The second up-tempo number on the album, this time with some flickers of Sly's old creative spark in the arrangement. He opens the song with a headfake, a neat little syncopated riff from the guitar and bass that otherwise does not reappear in the song, played in unison over a straight 4/4 disco beat, with the 16th notes on the hi-hat. The band catches its breath for a measure as Sly's vocal creeps up and Burke leads the way, slapping and popping into the verse's one chord vamp. He's joined by the standard array of wah wah guitars, stabbed organ chords, and an oddly reggae-ish rhythm guitar part that just chops the up-beats. The drum pattern switches up for the pre-chorus and the chords modulate upwards. P-Funk again seems to be creeping in at the margins, especially with the octave-splitting male/female backing vocals in the prechorus and on those "yabadabadababa" refrains. Then it's back to the top and the pattern repeats. Some pretty goofy lyrics and lazy rhymes, Sly leaning into that pasted-on smile to keep up the levity of the proceedings, even while maintaining his usual "judge not lest ye be judged" posture."

Has anyone seen the On the Sly: In Search of the Family Stone documentary that came out in 2017? I can’t find it anywhere.

― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, July 14, 2023 4:51 PM (one month ago)

Huh, interesting. You all know Questlove is currently working on his Sly documentary, right?

176. Sly & the Family Stone - Sheer Energy (Back On the Right Track, 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRmR_LeKtv4
Sly closes out the album with some extended harmonica soloing, an instrument he hadn't pulled out in years that gives the track a bluesy, country-funk flavor. The mix is cleaner and clearer than the "Riot" era, but it feels cut from a similar cloth: less structured, largely improvised on a few melodic ideas based around a simple tonal center. Taylor and Burke again provide a solid, detailed rhythmic foundation with their lurching, slow-tempo groove, with electric piano and multiple guitars circling around it. There's also some creatively voiced horn lines and nicely harmonized female vocals adding additional melodic ballast, no idea what the lyrics are. It's not a showstopper but it's fine.

1969 was a key pivot point in Sly's career, and a decade later he was at a different kind of crossroads. This is really the end of Sly as a creative force. It's the last time that Sly managed to maintain the focus to follow a full-length album through to its completion. Unfortunately (if not entirely unexpectedly), the album sank without a ripple. George Clinton subsequently threw Sly a lifeline, drawing him into his labyrinthine tangle of recording contracts, which would sustain Sly's increasingly meager output over the next few years.