Greg Errico | |
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 Errico in 1968 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | September 1, 1948 San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, producer |
| Instrument(s) | Drums, percussion |
| Years active | 1965–present |
Greg Errico (born September 1, 1948 [1] ) is an American musician and record producer, best known as the drummer for the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone. [2]
He was a founding member and the original drummer, in December 1966, for Sly & The Family Stone, and in 1971 he became the first member to quit the group, citing the band's continuing turmoil. [3] As a member of Sly and the Family Stone, Errico played at Woodstock music festival in 1969.
Errico toured with jazz-fusion group Weather Report in 1973/74, but never made a studio recording with the group. His performances can be heard on live recordings hosted at the website Wolfgang's Vault. Joe Zawinul said that no one could play his tune "Boogie Woogie Waltz" better than Errico had.
Errico joined the David Bowie band for his Diamond Dogs tour of the US during September 1974. [4]
Errico later collaborated with bands such as Santana, on Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles Live, released June 7, 1972, and with the Grateful Dead. In 1974 he began drumming for the Jerry Garcia Band on and off thru 1984. He also worked with Larry Graham (from Sly & The Family Stone) plus members of the Tower of Power horns, Journey and the Pointer Sisters on the first album for Betty Davis; Errico produced and drummed. He also produced and drummed on the only album by Ike White (Changing Times).
One of his recent projects was producing the Jamie Davis big band album. He also played at the 2006 Grammy Awards, in the Sly & the Family Stone tribute, alongside most of his former bandmates. In recent years he has played drums for the reformed Quicksilver Messenger Service.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. He continued to tour, with The Family Stone, alongside fellow founding member of Sly and the Family Stone Jerry Martini (saxophone). This band also included former Sly and the Family Stone member Cynthia Robinson (trumpet) before she died in 2015. [5]
Errico's intricate drumming, particularly with Sly & the Family Stone, has been sampled on hundreds of occasions by hip hop producers over the years. [6]
Errico was born and grew up in San Francisco, California. Errico still lives in the Bay Area, and continues to play and produce.
A 2014 scientific paper states that Errico is the musician with the highest degree and PageRank centralities, and the second highest Eigenvector centrality, of all musicians of all time. [7]
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Over his career, Errico has played a variety of drum sets, including Slingerland, Ludwig and DW. He currently plays DW drums and Paiste cymbals.
Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán is an American guitarist, best known as a founding member of the rock band Santana. Born and raised in Mexico where he developed his musical background, he rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States with Santana, which pioneered a fusion of rock and roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound featured his melodic, blues-based lines set against Latin American and African rhythms played on percussion instruments not generally heard in rock, such as timbales and congas. He experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s.
Sly and the Family Stone was an American band originating from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, they were pivotal in the development of funk, soul, R&B, rock, and psychedelic music. Their core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, and included Stone's brother and singer/guitarist Freddie Stone, sister and singer/keyboardist Rose Stone, trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, drummer Greg Errico, saxophonist Jerry Martini, and bassist Larry Graham. The band was the first major American rock group to have a racially integrated, mixed-gender lineup.
Sylvester Stewart, better known by his stage name Sly Stone, is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer who is most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, playing a critical role in the development of funk with his pioneering fusion of soul, rock, psychedelia and gospel in the 1960s and 1970s. AllMusic stated that "James Brown may have invented funk, but Sly Stone perfected it," and credited him with "creating a series of euphoric yet politically charged records that proved a massive influence on artists of all musical and cultural backgrounds." Crawdaddy! has called him "the founder of progressive soul".
Graham Central Station was an American funk band named after founder Larry Graham. The name is a pun on New York City's Grand Central Terminal, often colloquially called Grand Central Station.
Stand! is the fourth album by soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone, released in April 1969. Written and produced by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, Stand! is considered an artistic high-point of the band's career. Released by Epic Records, just before the group's celebrated performance at the Woodstock festival, it became the band's most commercially successful album to date. It includes several well-known songs, among them hit singles, such as "Sing a Simple Song", "I Want to Take You Higher", "Stand!", and "Everyday People". The album was reissued in 1990 on compact disc and vinyl, and again in 2007 as a remastered numbered edition digipack CD with bonus tracks and, in the UK, as only a CD with bonus tracks.
Andrew Newmark is an American session drummer who was a member of Sly and the Family Stone and has played with George Harrison, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Ron Wood and Roxy Music.
"Dance to the Music" is a 1967 hit single by soul/funk/rock band Sly and the Family Stone for the Epic/CBS Records label. It was the first single by the band to reach the Billboard Pop Singles Top 10, peaking at #8 and the first to popularize the band's sound, which would be emulated throughout the black music industry and dubbed "psychedelic soul". It was later ranked #223 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
"Sing a Simple Song" is a 1968 song by the soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone, the B-side to their #1 hit "Everyday People". The song's lyrics, sung in turn by Sly Stone, Freddie Stone, Rose Stone, and Larry Graham, with spoken word sections by Cynthia Robinson, offer a simple solution for dealing with the problems and paradoxes of existence: "Sing a simple song!" As with nearly all of Sly and the Family Stone's songs, Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart was credited as the sole songwriter.
"I Want to Take You Higher" is a song by the soul/rock/funk band Sly and the Family Stone, the B-side to their Top 30 hit "Stand!". Unlike most of the other tracks on the Stand! album, "I Want to Take You Higher" is not a message song; instead, it is simply dedicated to music and the feeling one gets from music. Like nearly all of Sly & the Family Stone's songs, Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart was credited as the sole songwriter.
Bill Lordan, is an American rock music drummer who has been in a number of bands, such as The Mystics, Gypsy, Robin Trower Band and Sly & The Family Stone. He began playing in sixth grade when his teacher offered after-school lessons.
Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles! Live! is a live album by Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles, released in 1972.
The Closing of Winterland is a four-CD live album by the Grateful Dead. It contains the complete concert performed on December 31, 1978. The concert was also released as a two-disc DVD. The title derives from the fact that it was the last concert in San Francisco's Winterland Arena, which was shut down shortly thereafter. The Dead celebrated the closing as an approximately five-hour-long party and invited some guests including guitarist John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service and Ken Kesey as well as actor Dan Aykroyd who provided the midnight countdown. It was certified Double Platinum by the RIAA on December 15, 2003 under the category of longform video, selling 200,000 units. The New Riders of the Purple Sage and Blues Brothers opened the show.
Lenny Pickett is an American saxophonist and musical director of the Saturday Night Live band. From 1973 to 1981 he was a member of the band Tower of Power. Pickett has worked extensively as a session musician for a wide range of performers and genres.
Douglass Haywood Rauch was an American bassist.
The Woodstock Experience is a box consisting of a set of studio albums and live performances from the 1969 Woodstock Festival by the artists Santana, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, and Johnny Winter. Each set consists of the 1969 studio album by the artist as well as each artist's entire Woodstock performance. The set was released as both a box containing all five artists, and also as individual releases separated by artist, each containing the studio album and live performance of that artist.
Betty Davis is the eponymous debut studio album by American funk singer Betty Davis, released through Just Sunshine Records in 1973. The album was produced by Greg Errico and features contributions from a number of noted musicians such as Neal Schon, Merl Saunders, Sylvester, Larry Graham, Pete Sears, and The Pointer Sisters.
There's a Riot Goin' On is the fifth studio album by American funk and soul band Sly and the Family Stone. It was recorded from 1970 to 1971 at Record Plant Studios in Sausalito, California and released later that year on November 1 by Epic Records. The recording was dominated by band frontman/songwriter Sly Stone during a period of escalated drug use and intra-group tension.
Peter Roy Sears is an English rock music musician. In a career spanning more than six decades, he has been a member of many bands and has moved through a variety of musical genres, from early R&B, psychedelic improvisational rock of the 1960s, folk, country music, arena rock in the 1970s, and blues. He usually plays bass, keyboards, or both in bands.
Garcia Live Volume Five is a two-CD live album by the Jerry Garcia Band. It contains the complete concert recorded at the Keystone in Berkeley, California on December 31, 1975. It was released by ATO Records on October 21, 2014.
Woodstock – Back to the Garden: 50th Anniversary Experience is a live album by various artists, packaged as a box set of ten compact discs. Released by Rhino Records during the summer leading up to the fiftieth anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, it contains selections from every performance at the music festival, which took place on August 15–18, 1969, in Bethel, New York. The discs also include stage announcements and miscellaneous audio material. The package contains essays by producer Andy Zax and Jesse Jarnow, details about the performers and notable festival figures, and photographs. This box set is a compilation derived from its limited edition parent box set. A smaller three-CD or five-LP sampler was also released.
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