Sly & The Family Stone - Original Album Classics (2010) {5CD Box Set}

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Sly & The Family Stone - Original Album Classics (2010) {5CD Box Set}

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Sly and the Family Stone were an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music. During the late '60s and early '70s, Sly Stone and his family of funkateers were one of the most popular outfits in the U.S. and beyond. Their blend of classic Soul and future Funk created the blueprint that many other bands still follow over four decades later. This box includes great albums like A Whole New Thing (1967), Dance To The Music (1968), Life (1968), Stand! (1969) and There's A Riot Goin' On (1971).

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Sly & The Family Stone - Original Album Classics (2010) {5CD Box Set}

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Headed by singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, and containing several of his family members and friends, the band was the first major American rock band to have an "integrated, multi-gender" lineup.
Brothers Sly Stone and singer/guitarist Freddie Stone combined their bands (Sly & the Stoners and Freddie & the Stone Souls) in 1967. Sly and Freddie Stone, trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, drummer Gregg Errico, saxophonist Jerry Martini, and bassist Larry Graham completed the original lineup; Sly and Freddie's sister, singer/keyboardist Rose Stone, joined within a year. This collective recorded five Billboard Hot 100 hits which reached the top 10, and four ground-breaking albums, which greatly influenced the sound of American pop music, soul, R&B, funk, and hip hop music. In the preface of his 1998 book For the Record: Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History, Joel Selvin sums up the importance of Sly and the Family Stone's influence on African American music by stating "there are two types of black music: black music before Sly Stone, and black music after Sly Stone". The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.

During the early 1970s, the band switched to a grittier funk sound, which was as influential on the music industry as their earlier work. The band began to fall apart during this period because of drug abuse and ego clashes; consequently, the fortunes and reliability of the band deteriorated, leading to its dissolution in 1975. Sly Stone continued to record albums and tour with a new rotating lineup under the "Sly and the Family Stone" name from 1975 to 1983. In 1987, Sly Stone was arrested and sentenced for cocaine use, after which he went into effective retirement.

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Sly & The Family Stone - Original Album Classics (2010) {5CD Box Set}

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A Whole New Thing is the debut album by band Sly & The Family Stone, released in 1967 on Epic/CBS Records. The album was released to mixed criticism and failed to make an impact from a commercial standpoint and did not chart. CBS Records executive Clive Davis prevailed upon band leader Sly Stone to create a more commercial album; the result was the album Dance to the Music. Unlike later Sly and the Family Stone albums, A Whole New Thing was recorded live in the studio instead of being overdubbed and featured less of a pop feel than later releases such as Dance to the Music and Stand!. The lead vocals are shared between Sly Stone, Freddie Stone, and Larry Graham; Rose Stone would not join the band until they began work on Dance to the Music.

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Sly & The Family Stone - Original Album Classics (2010) {5CD Box Set}

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Dance to the Music is the second studio album by band Sly & The Family Stone, released April 27, 1968 on Epic/CBS Records. It contains the Top Ten hit single of the same name, which was influential in the formation and popularization of the musical subgenre of psychedelic soul and helped lay the groundwork for the development of funk music.
The Family Stone itself never thought very highly of Dance to the Music while they were recording it; its existence was the result of CBS executive Clive Davis' request for Sly Stone to make his sound more pop friendly. To appease his employer, Sly developed a formula for the band's recordings, which would still promote his visions of peace, brotherly love, and anti-racism while appealing to a wider audience. Most of the resulting Family Stone songs feature each lead singer in the band (Sly, Freddie Stone, Larry Graham, and newcomer Rose Stone) sharing the lead vocals by either singing them in unison or taking turns singing bars of each verse. In addition, the songs contained significant amounts of scat singing and prominent solos for each instrumentalist.

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Sly & The Family Stone - Original Album Classics (2010) {5CD Box Set}

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Life is the third studio album by band Sly & The Family Stone, released in September of 1968 on Epic/CBS Records. Unlike its predecessor, Dance to the Music, Life was not a commercial success, although it has received mostly positive reviews from music critics over the years. Many of its songs, including "M'Lady", "Fun", "Love City", as well as the title track, became popular staples in the Family Stone's live show. A middle ground between the fiery A Whole New Thing and the more commercial Dance to the Music, Life features very little use of studio effects, and is instead more driven by frontman Sly Stone's compositions.

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Sly & The Family Stone - Original Album Classics (2010) {5CD Box Set}

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Stand! is the fourth studio album by band Sly & The Family Stone, released May 3, 1969 on Epic Records. Written and produced by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, Stand! was the band's breakout album. It went on to sell over three million copies and become one of the most successful albums of the 1960s. The album sold over 500,000 copies in the year of its release and was certified gold in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America on December 4, 1969. By 1986, it had sold well over 1 million copies and had been certified platinum in sales by the RIAA on November 26 of that same year. Stand! is considered one of the artistic high-points of the band's career and includes several landmark songs, among them hit singles, such as "Sing a Simple Song", "I Want to Take You Higher", "Stand!", and "Everyday People". In 2003, the album was ranked number 118 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

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Sly & The Family Stone - Original Album Classics (2010) {5CD Box Set}

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There's a Riot Goin' On is the fifth studio album by band Sly & The Family Stone, released November 20, 1971 on Epic Records. Recording sessions for the album took place primarily throughout 1970 to 1971 at Record Plant Studios in Sausalito, California. In contrast to their previous studio work with psychedelic soul, as featured on Stand! (1969), There's a Riot Goin' On embraces a darker, more foreboding funk sound, while also rejecting the band's successful melodic formula that was featured on their previous hit singles. The original title of the album was intended to be Africa Talks to You, but was retitled There's a Riot Goin' On in response to Marvin Gaye's landmark album What's Going On (1971), which was released five months prior to Riot.

There's a Riot Goin' On debuted at number-one on the Billboard Pop Albums and Soul Albums charts upon its release, while the album's lead single, "Family Affair" (1971), topped the Pop Singles chart. On November 8, 1972, There's a Riot Goin' On was certified gold in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America, selling over half a million copies in its first year of release. Many critics and fans had mixed feelings on Riot upon its release, but its standing has improved significantly, leading to its praise as one of the greatest and most influential recordings of all time. There's a Riot Goin' On has also been ranked at or near the top of many publications' "best album" lists in disparate genres. Riot later went on to sell over 1 million copies, earning a platinum certification by the RIAA on September 7, 2001. In 2003, the album was ranked number 99 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.