6. Greatest Hits – Sly & The Family Stone (Epic – 1970)
There had been greatest hits collections before Sly’s…but none as perfectly executed and well-timed. The Family Stone got off to a rocky start in 1967 with its hitless debut LP, A Whole New Thing but their joyful music and sparkling image of a band of Blacks & Whites/brothers and sisters was about to rise. The next albums Dance to the Music and Life yielded 1 + 2 hit punches, respectively. It was the fourth album, Stand, that set AM and FM radios ablaze with no less than 5 smash hits that doubled as mindset markers for 1969’s Summer of Love: “Stand,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” “Everyday People,” “You Can Make It If You Try” and “Sing a Simple Song.”
Following an electrifying wee-hours set at Woodstock, the band had arrived at its apex in a mere two and a half years of recording. Superstar songwriter and leader Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart) was beginning to veer off the rails under both the wings and the weight of his fever-pitched rise into power, popularity and persuasion. When Stone failed to deliver a new album as scheduled in 1970, CBS Records President Clive Davis mandated a very special Greatest Hits package – one that sidestepped the rising darkness and foreboding in Sly’s last effort (“Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey” and “Sex Machine”) in favor of all the danceable uplift that got him there…PLUS THREE NEW SONGS that would also be smash hits: “Everybody is a Star,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime” and “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin).”
Again, record companies had assembled greatest hits on artists that maybe included one or two new songs…but none had done one boasting three new hits! Sly & The Family Stone’s Greatest Hits celebrated not only the end of a Peace/Love/Unity era but also the band as it was conceived. Sly turned the corner into the `70s recording his next effort, There’s a Riot Goin’ On, largely alone or with shadowy figures. Click NEXT for the next album.
