re: Sly and the Family Stone: Greatest American band or no?

I got to see them at Woodstock and they started playing when everyone was peaking on acid.

I never heard anything as loud as 400,000 people shouting "higher!"

The first time I got to see them live was in a small theater in Atlanta.

Sly was notorious for being late and he was late that night.

When they finally got on stage he apologized for being late and said the band only had time to play for one hour but they were going to play nonstop for that hour and they did.

He and his sister ran through the crowd singing like they did on the Ed Sullivan Show and it was incredible.

I loved that Sly didn't hate white people and always made it clear that black and white people should get along.

Maybe Sly and the Family Stone isn't the greatest American band but it is one of the greatest.

Three pages in and no love for Grand Funk Railroad?

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What I do know is how influential and cutting edge they were in the context of their time and Sly was a massive influence on Prince and the progressive funk movement of the 70s.
What are your thoughts?

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Its subjective ,but he was the template to Princes entire career & every bit the instrumentalist ( although keyboard was Stones main instrument).



I thought you might like this Live Stone performance on Soul Train:

LINK


Sly is on guitar here not keyboards.



Sublime. Funk. They just don't do it this way anymore.

Greatest fro on a lead singer....correct?

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And I'd take the Allman Bros, CCR, The Doors way before the Eagles and Aerosmith



this guy gets it.

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and Sly & the family stone before Aerosmith

Aerosmith blows.

Allman Brothers Band. They had all of the great American genre's mixed in their music: blues, jazz, country, rock.

Update: just listened to There's a Riot Goin' On and it blew my mind. It's probably the most revolutionary funk/soul album made to that point and Sly was spot on in the concept he was going for. The murky production, the manipulated vocals, the drum machines and clavinet just reeks of commentary on urban America in the early 70s (it was ostensibly made in response to Marvin Gaye's What's Goin on) and most definitely made quite the impression on Stevie Wonder and Prince. What's really interesting about this album is, at times, it's barely discernible which instrumental parts are Sly's and what are others. Not only do we have some of the Family Stone (the members had all gotten deeply involved with drugs at this point in their career), we have Billy Preston on keyboards and Ike Turner and Bobby Womack on guitar. It also amazes me that Sly's vocals were recorded as he was laying in his bed presumably under the influence of heavy narcotics. It's just a gritty, realistic, somber album that impresses the hell out of me and that a person had the balls to record such a thing lends credence to his genius. It really does deserve all the acclaim it receives and is quite simply the best album of Sly's career. Sly was one badass motherfricker and this album reflects that sufficiently. Probably the best listening experience I've had with this group and encourage those interested to listen to the whole album uninterrupted.

Caveat: don't listen to this album before Stand! and Greatest Hits. Those two preceding albums provide adequate context into what the group was up to and why they achieved the fame they did, this album takes that aesthetic to a whole different and more progressive level i.e. not for the faint of heart.

From a purely musical standpoint, Tower of Power is the greatest American soul band of all time. There's a reason you don't hear that stuff covered by bar bands.

Read "Mystery Train" and then listen to "there's a Riot Going On." Great album and great explanation of where Sly was coming from when he put that album out and blew everyone's mind.