Larry Graham Jr. is an American bassist and baritone singer, with the psychedelic soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone and as the founder and frontman of Graham Central Station. In 1980, he released the single "One in a Million You", which reached the top ten on the US Billboard Hot 100. He is credited with the invention of the slapping technique on the electric bass guitar, which radically expanded the tonal palette of the bass, although he himself refers to the technique as "thumpin' and pluckin'".
Sly and the Family Stone was an American funk band formed in San Francisco, California in 1966 and active until 1983. They are considered to be 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. As frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, he played 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".
Lee Shelton, popularly known as "Stagolee", "Stagger Lee", "Stack-O-Lee", and other variations, was an American criminal who became a figure of folklore after murdering Billy Lyons on December 25, 1895. The murder, reportedly motivated partially by the theft of Shelton's Stetson hat, made Shelton an icon of toughness and style in the minds of early folk and blues musicians, and inspired the popular folk song "Stagger Lee". The story endures in the many versions of the song that have circulated since the late 19th century.
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.
The Hit Factory is a recording studio in New York City owned and operated by Troy Germano. Since 1969, The Hit Factory recording studios have existed in six different locations in New York City as well as facilities in London and Miami. Today the studios are located at 676 Broadway in the Noho neighborhood of New York City.
Gerald L. Martini is an American musician, best known for being the saxophonist for Sly and the Family Stone. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 as a member of Sly and the Family Stone.
Fresh is the sixth album by American funk band Sly and the Family Stone, released by Epic/CBS Records in June 1973. Written and produced by Sly Stone over two years, Fresh has been described as a lighter and more accessible take on the dense, drum machine-driven sound of its landmark 1971 predecessor There's a Riot Goin' On. It was the band's final album to reach the US Top 10, entering the Billboard Album Chart on June 30, and their last of three consecutive number-one albums on the R&B chart. In 2003, the album was ranked number 186 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Little Sister was an American all-female vocal harmony group, which served primarily as the background vocalists for the influential rock/funk band Sly and the Family Stone in concert and on record. Originally a gospel music group called the Heavenly Tones, Little Sister was composed of Vet Stewart, Mary McCreary, and Elva Mouton, and became a recording act of its own for a brief period in 1970–1971.
Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back is the eighth studio album by American funk/soul/rock band Sly and the Family Stone, released by Epic/CBS Records in 1976. This album is an effort to return the idea of the "Family Stone" band to singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone's work, after his previous album, High on You, was released without the Family Stone name. It also reflects the beginnings of change in the concept of "Sly and the Family Stone". The original Family Stone had broken up in 1975, and a new Family Stone was assembled for this album: the only holdover is stalwart Family Stone trumpet player Cynthia Robinson. Vet Stone and Elva Mouton, both formerly members of Family Stone backing band Little Sister, are credited as providing "additional background vocals", and John Colla is credited as providing "alto and soprano saxes, vocals". Colla would go on to become a founding member and integral part of "Huey Lewis and The News", both producing and penning such hits as "Heart of Rock & Roll", "Power of Love", and "If This Is It".
Daniel N. Flickinger was an audio engineer in the late 1960s and 1970s, who designed and manufactured some of the era's most important music recording consoles. He designed recording consoles for Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, The Association, Ike Turner's Bolic Sound, Johnny Cash, and Funkadelic, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Cinderella Records, and United Sound Systems among many others.
The Record Plant is a recording studio established in New York City in 1968 and last operating in Los Angeles, California. Known for innovations in the recording artists' workspace, it has produced highly influential albums, including the New York Dolls' New York Dolls, Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run, Blondie's Parallel Lines, Metallica's Load and Reload, the Eagles' Hotel California, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, and Kanye West's The College Dropout. More recent albums with songs recorded at Record Plant include Lady Gaga's ARTPOP, D'Angelo's Black Messiah, Justin Bieber's Purpose, Beyoncé's Lemonade, and Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next.
There's a Poison Goin' On is the seventh studio album by American hip hop group Public Enemy, released July 20, 1999, on Atomic Pop Records in the United States. Its title is adapted from the title of Sly & the Family Stone's album There's a Riot Goin' On (1971). The album was originally made available via internet on May 18, 1999, via the now defunct Atomic Pop website.
Associated Independent Recording (AIR) is an independent recording company founded in London in 1965 by record producers George Martin, John Burgess, Ron Richards, and Peter Sullivan. In 1970 the company established its own professional audio recording facilities, AIR Studios.
Long Burn the Fire is the second studio album by the Detroit rock band, Black Merda. The band’s name was altered to Mer-Da on the album’s front cover. It was released by Chess Records subsidiary Janus in 1972. The album sleeve features only guitarists Anthony and Charles Hawkins, and bassist VC L. Veasey. Original drummer Tyrone Hite had left the band and was not officially replaced. Later, session drummer Bob Crowder was hired just before the recording sessions. The original album was long out of print before being reissued on CD by TuffCity Records in 1996. All of the album’s tracks are also collected on the 2005 Black Merda compilation The Folks from Mother's Mixer.
Black Messiah is the third studio album by American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist D'Angelo, credited to D'Angelo and the Vanguard. It was released on December 15, 2014, through RCA Records, more than a decade after his previous solo release Voodoo. The album was produced and mostly written by D'Angelo, who collaborated with musicians including drummer Questlove, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarist Isaiah Sharkey, and horn player Roy Hargrove. He pursued an entirely analog and murky funk sound for the record, lending it comparisons to the 1971 Sly & the Family Stone album There's a Riot Goin' On.
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.
Turn Blue is the eighth studio album by American rock duo the Black Keys. It was released through Nonesuch Records on May 12, 2014, and co-produced by Danger Mouse and the duo. The record was their fourth collaboration with Danger Mouse, following their previous studio album, El Camino (2011), which was their biggest commercial and critical success to that point. For Turn Blue, Danger Mouse reprised his role from El Camino as an equal songwriting partner alongside guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney.
The Viscaynes were an American doo-wop group from Vallejo, California, United States, that released a few singles in the early 1960s. They also had a regional hit with the song "Yellow Moon". One of their members Sylvester Stewart, later known as Sly Stone would front the multi-racial group Sly & the Family Stone. They were unique in being one of the very few integrated doo-wop groups of their time.
Pacific High Recording was an independent recording studio in San Francisco. Founded in 1968, the studio was part of the San Francisco sound and the location for recordings by such notable artists as Sly and the Family Stone, the Grateful Dead, The Charlatans, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Van Morrison.
