Sly and the Family Stone: Still Rolling

Sly and the Family Stone: Still Rolling

Sly and Family, 40 Years Later: Before the meltdowns, paranoia and platinum Mohawk haircuts, Sly and the Family Stone not only invented psychedelic soul but also kicked it into orbit. To mark the San Francisco musical misfits' 40th anniversary, we asked founding member and keyboard player Rose Stone to give us a guided tour of the group's first seven studio albums, freshly remastered and reissued with bonus tracks.

A WHOLE NEW THING (1967)
Despite its innovative mix of rock and soul, Sly and the Family Stone's 1967 debut, "A Whole New Thing," failed to make much of an impact.
Download: "Underdog," "Run, Run, Run," "Trip to Your Heart."
Bonus material: Five rarities, including an instrumental version of "You Better Help Yourself" and single edits of "Underdog" and "Let Me Hear It From You."
Stone says: "We weren't disappointed with the first album. We were an integrated group, so we were different in the way we sounded and looked. We just didn't know how different. We had so much music in us (that) we just wanted to keep going. We were like, 'We have something else! Want to hear it?' "

DANCE TO THE MUSIC (1968)
Even though the group scored its first Top 10 hit with the title track, the album stalled at No. 142 on the Billboard 200.
Download: "Dance to the Music," "Higher," "Soul Clappin.' "
Bonus material: A cover of Otis Redding's "I Can't Turn You Loose" and the previously unreleased "We Love All."
Stone says: "We would go in the stores, they would be playing our song, and we wanted to shout, 'Hey, that's me!' That was a strange feeling. We were our greatest fans. We realized we were on a path, and the path just kept getting broader and broader. We didn't realize we were famous until after the fact."

LIFE (1968)
Released a mere seven months after "Dance to the Music," this release also failed to alight the charts but saw the band growing more confident in its sound and attitude.
Download: "M'Lady," "Dynamite!," "Jane Is a Groupee."
Bonus material: Previously unreleased songs "Seven More Days" and "Pressure," plus an instrumental version of "Sorrow" and single edit of "Dynamite!"
Stone says: "People were still warming up to us. When we look back at the TV shows now, we really did look strange. We were so into ourselves that we never stopped to think how we looked in public. But when you see an old clip of "The Ed Sullivan Show" and you look at the people in the audience, you really see we were a different group. We just thought everyone else looked funny." Continue reading...