Sly & The Family Stone - Family Affair (EN extended remix)
We'll kick off the BBQ weekend and holiday dance party with a very necessary memorial to an irreplaceable cultural figure.
I've been working on this thing, so I could say I came up with something worthy of today's icon. I think I succeeded, but then I just spent days manually making all the tunes in it the same volume, so I might be a little judgmentally compromised right this second.
When he passed away at 82 this past June 9th, he left a legacy that will define, animate and tower over everything that will come after, like a looming shadow of light.
When Sly and the Family Stone first hit in 1967, their advent literally altered the DNA of music from the first note.
Of course he hadn't come from nowhere. He had a degree in Composition from SF State and a very popular radio show on KSOL-FM in San Francisco well before he became, arguably, the first modern Rock Star.
But when the band hit, at the height of Summer of Love hysteria, it turned a regional Bay Area figure into a global superstar that helped redefine and recalibrate the whole paradigm of popular music.
To repeat the umpteenth cliché about how No One Had Ever Seen Anything Like This Before, that bands didn't typically have multigender and multiracial makeups prior to these guys, is beyond the obvious.
Everything about them -- not just their appearance -- was totally unprecedented, principally the way they pretzeltwisted James Brown's New Bag and the multicolored psychedelic pastiche then prevalent in Pop into something irresistible in its Sunny Soul Funkness, which could break your hips and blow your mind at the same time.
There's no overstating Sly Stone's importance to the All Of Everything, and most of it's been said a million times even before he died.
Like, for instance, this compilation of covers of his tunes that came out -- just weeks before he left us, in what must surely be the most timely reissue promotion in music business history -- on the swell Ace label over in the UK. It features a 22-track compendium of some of the many versions of Sly and the Family Stone classics by other artists: tribute takes of his tunes that have made their way into the world since the mid-1960s.
Of course, once my mania mind gets a hold of an idea such as that, it will only be a matter of time before I jinn up a rejoinder to it that's 3 times as long and features even weirder and more obscure choices, some of which are/were harder to find in lossless form than the narrative illusion formerly known as American Democracy.
So anyway... if you want me to stay, I'll be around today. Happy 4th of July, and here goes your holiday weekend Party Mix in 3....2...1...
Various Artists
Let Me Hear It from You
50 States of Sly & The Family Stone
1968-2024
01 Rabbits & Carrots - La Gente de Diario (Everyday People) (1970)
02 Bettye LaVette - Thankful N' Thoughtful (2012)
03 Alessi Brothers - Hot Fun In the Summertime (1979)
04 The Reverend Shawn Amos feat. Denise Carite - Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey (2024)
05 Earthworm - Loose Booty (2021)
06 Charles Earland - Sing a Simple Song (1970)
07 Paul Haig - Running Away (1982)
08 Afro-Cuban Band - Life and Death in G and A (1975)
09 Jimmy Stone - Family Affair (1972)
10 Scar, CeeLo Green & Big Boi - (You Caught Me) Smilin' (2006)
11 Diplomats of Solid Sound - You Can Make It If You Try (2003)
12 The Pastels - Everybody Is a Star (2003)
13 Philly Cream - M'Lady (1978)
14 Wade Marcus - Thank You Falettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin (1971)
15 Dillard-Hartford-Dillard - The Same Thing (1977)
16 Go Mod Go! - Underdog (2021)
17 Tony! Toni! Toné! - Stand (1995)
18 SFJAZZ Collective - I Want to Take You Higher (2019)
19 The Bar-Kays - Dance to the Music (1970)
20 Arusha - Life (2007)
21 Billy Paul - Everyday People (1970)
22 George Howard - Africa Talks to You 'The Asphalt Jungle' (1998)
23 Bobby Powell - Into My Own Thing (1971)
24 West Street Mob - Sing a Simple Song (1982)
25 Soul Searchers W.G.R. - Love City (1970)
26 Caesar Frazier - Runnin' Away (1972)
27 The Charlatans & The Chemical Brothers - Time For Livin' (1995)
28 Etta James - If You Want Me to Stay (1998)
29 S'Express - Hey Music Lover (1989)
30 Byron Lee & The Dragonaires - Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey (version) (1970)
31 Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra, - Skin I'm In (2011)
32 Little Sister - Somebody's Watching You (1970)
33 Bobby Hutcherson - Family Affair (1971)
34 KC & The Sunshine Band - Thank You (1983)
35 Prince - Poet (Mace2TheO soundcheck edit-EN remux) (1985)
36 Woody Herman - Sex Machine (1969)
37 Sa-Ra Creative Partners - Just Like a Baby (2009)
38 Bobby Broom - Stand! (2001)
39 Sounds of Blackness - You Can Make It If You Try (1997)
40 Jiro Inagaki & His Friends - Loose Booty (1975)
41 Syunsuke Ono - Thank You for Talkin' to Me Africa (2012)
42 Eric Burdon & The Animals - I'm an Animal (1968)
43 The Meters - Sing a Simple Song (1969)
44 Turkuaz - Babies Making Babies (2018)
45 Kool & The Gang - I Want to Take You Higher (1971)
46 Maceo Parker - In Time (1990)
47 Material - Let Me Have It All (1982)
48 The Nineteenth Whole - You Caught Me Smilin' Again (1972)
49 Quinteto Academico - Let Me Hear It from You (1968)
50 Jazz Crusaders - Thank You (1970)
51 Sly & The Family Stone - Family Affair (EN extended remix) (bonus track) (1971)
Total time: 3:45:04
disc breaks go after Tracks 18 & 36
3CD compendium of cover versions of songs by Sly & The Family Stone
intended as a companion/rejoinder to the 2025 Ace Records compilation Everybody Is a Star: The Sly Stone Songbook
selected, assembled, sequenced & remastered by EN, June/July 2025
1.36 GB FLAC/direct link
1.36 GB FLAC/direct link
I mastered my thing to play at essentially the same volume as the Ace CD, so if you get that one you can plug them together and enjoy the full Family Stone songbook experience on Sly shuffle play. Heck, I even remixed a full, longer playout version of the original Family Affair, straight from the 16-track stems. Who says I don't bring the favors to the party?
I'll be back with more July beyond Sly in a few days, but I wanted to brew this up in his honor, to thank him for letting me be myself. Again.--J.
3.15.1943 - 6.9.2025
dance to the music