Sly & The Family Stone: A Whole New Thing (Remastered + Expanded) CD Track Listing

A list by checkmate

Sly & The Family Stone A Whole New Thing (Remastered + Expanded) (1967)
A Whole New Thing (Remastered + Expanded)\n2007 Epic/Legacy\n\nOriginally Released 1967\nCD Edition Released July 18, 1995\nRemastered + Expanded CD Edition Released April 24, 2007\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: Issued in 1967, Sly & The Family Stone's debut album, A Whole New Thing, should have shocked the entire country. Its single, "Underdog" was the perfect blend of James Brown style funk, hard Atlantic style soul ala Otis Redding, gospel-styled backing vocals, psychedelic rock and solid, hip vibes exploding out of San Francisco. That it took another album and "formula" for Sylvester Stewart-former manager of many bands including the Beau Brummels and wildly successful disc jockey, songwriter and arranger-to pump it up and make it simpler is of no consequence because A Whole New Thing, remains some forty years later just what it says it is; the simple truth is fortified, formulaic radio station s had no way of fitting it into a groove their stations could utilize, despite the fact that the LP was, in itself, pure groove sophistication. The 12 cuts that make up the original album were all written by Sly and the arrangements reflected what he wanted but had input form his brother and guitarist Freddy, and horn players Jerry Martini and Cynthia Robinson. Drummer Gregg Errico and legend Larry Graham was the bassist. Rose Stone, Sly's sister provided additional keyboards and vocals. Like most of the records coming out at that time, this one has some momnents over its original 122 tracks that don't quite hold up, but even here, in these moments, such as on "Run, Run, Run," the sounds of a melodica and a vibraphone-cheap ones-interacting with the guitar to both introduce and take the tune out. It's balanced by the very next cut, "Turn Me Loose," that comes stomping out of the gate with alternate lead vocals, changed line to lone with the radical stomp of Otis Redding's live performances on a record and James Brown horn section. But along with the grooves were Sly's lyrics, Underdog is one of the most defiant and uplifting tunes he ever wrote; with his singing of determination in the face of all odds, leaving behind you the naysayers and doubters and the empathy of being an underdog, he lifts the listener to a new emotional and psychological place. The strange place of Freddy's guitar, playing jazz like in a deep funk tune like "Bad Risk," walked the line of psychedelia and jazz and still the rhythm section of Graham and Errico contain him inside the groove even when he solos with all of his reverb and distortion. The beautifully remastered Legacy edition of A Whole New Thing includes five bonus tracks, a mono versions of the singles, "Underdog," and "Let Me Hear It From You, (to be fair a terrible ballad), "Only ONE Way Out Of This Mess," recorded for the band's third LP Life and left off, and "What Would I Do," which was a track left off this album, and finally the unreleased stomping instrumental "You Better Help Yourself." -- Thom Jurek\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: (Collector's Box Set) Sly & the Family Stone: The Collection contains the seven albums the group released on Epic Records between 1968 and 1974 (which were recorded between 1967 and 1971). Sony BMG has simply packaged these discs -- A Whole New Thing, Dance to the Music, Life, Stand, There's a Riot Goin' On, Fresh, and Small Talk -- all of which have been completely remastered and contain bonus material and liner essays, all in a slipcase box. They've all been released separately in digipack, so there isn't anything additional to be had. The price point isn't really different either, and given the wildly varying quality of some of these sides, buying the box is for a very specific kind of fan or collector. -- Thom Jurek \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nThe Product Of Genius, May 21, 2003\nReviewer: Larry E. Notestine (Knoxville, TN USA)\nThis album, along with 'Dance To The Music' and 'Life', comprises what I believe is some of the most important music ever in rock, soul and funk history. Every single song on each album is important. Whether the songs have blazing horns, chicken-pluckin' guitar, rich Hammond B3 chords, or Sly's incredible variety of vocal styles it doesn't matter. I listened to each of these albums every day for the year I was in Southeast Asia, and every note is imprinted on every cell in my body. Even to this day 35 years later I still say, "Sly, you and the gang are something! Keep on smoking!"\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nSly's best, & a great lost album, June 20, 2002\nReviewer: Bruce Merrill (Cambridge, NY USA)\n\nActually, this is Sly's best album, an unrecognized wonder, a great lost album, really. As he went downhill (from drugs), his music became simpler, here it begins at its most clever and ambitious. What sets it apart from his subsequent output is how eclectic and highly arranged his songs are. It's the late sixties; Sly is opening up his kind of R&B-- just as the British Invasion opened up the rock/pop song in general. He was a music major in college, so his beginning the disc with a minor key "Frere Jacques" was a conscious borrowing from Mahler.... Listen to how tight and varied and "Advice" and "Dog" are-- as Sly keeps the beat, but puts the tune through one change after another. Wonderful use of the different voices, distinct and blended. Two excellent touching slow ballads: "Let me Hear it from you" (sung by Larry Graham), and "That kind of person" (by Sly's brother, Freddie). Dig the insanely frantic "Turn Me Loose"-- which they used to attach to their equally frantic version of Otis Redding's "I Can't Turn You Loose." Great drumming! Great sound; beautifully produced, by Sly.\nBut so many of these potent songs fall apart at the end... Sly didn't have the sense of an ending. And then-- is there a connection?-- he fell apart in the end, and became a druggy shadow of the talented wizard that he once was.\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nWHAT A SUPRISE! THE GREAT UNKNOWN SLY ALBUM., November 11, 2000\nReviewer: Steven Litos (Chicago, Il USA)\nWhen I first picked up this CD, I did it only to complete the collection. I was amazed at how great this album is. "Underdog" leads off the set with a bang, and in my opinion Greg Errico's best drumming performance. "Let Me Hear It From You" & "What Would I Do" are lost soul classics. The album's mixing, production, and over all sound are better than any other of Sly's 1960's albums. It's a must listen for headphones. The sound quality is so superb that you will be reaching for the CD case again and again to look for the sound engineer's name. FYI - I read somewhere that the album was done on a 4-Track machine.\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nFantastic Soul -- Not to Be Missed, April 28, 2000\nReviewer: Robert Howe (Bethesda, Maryland, USA)\nThis album has got to be one of the great sleepers of rock history in my opinion, especially if you like soul, the Stax sound, anything with seriously good everything on it. This is Sly's first album, and I'm not an expert on all his work, but that's because I don't like the rest of his work offhand as much as this one (of course some of his well-know later hits are just terrific as well) (maybe I should give the later work more of a chance). \nThe way the drums are played and recorded, everything about this record, is terrific. It's got a hard funk edge as well as great melodies; Sly's singing is not to be missed--it's so soulful. \n\nI highly recommend this to serious musicians as well as anyone who likes good soul music with great drumming and horn arrangements.\n\nSly is a genuis and it really shows here.\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nSo nostalgic it hurts!, August 2, 1999\nReviewer: M. Grindell "mark_grindell" (Shipley,West Yorkshire)\nI heard this fine selection when I was a student in Hertfordshire. I was born in 1960, and for the life of me I can't imagine how I heard any of this material. I must have only been in primary school. And yet this stuff immediately stirred and moved me. It has so much soul, this stuff is irresistable. If you weren't there, it will make you feel like a fully paid up member of the sixties, like you were really one of the dudes... \nIt has so much to offer ("Underdog" really jumps) and the inventiveness of the horn parts... Well, you would get a good deal from this in so many ways, but more than anything, the yearning and longing for the years past when this stuff was being made.\n\nWhat soul... Where are you now, Sly old friend?\n\n\nHalf.com Details \nProducer: Sly Stone \n\nAlbum Notes\nThough it failed to achieve the commercial success of its follow-up, DANCE TO THE MUSIC, Sly & The Family Stone's debut album established a precedent for a new blend of rock, soul, and funk. This was ground zero for a new generation of progressive R&B. Led by the assertive vocals and soulful keyboard work of Sly, the band pumped out energetic, horn-driven grooves that combined the propulsion of Motown with the socially relevant lyrics and hard-edged electricity of late-'60s rock and roll. The opening cut, "Underdog," establishes Sly as a spokesman for the downtrodden, but the booty-shaking groove that carries the song provides the kind of dichotomy between intellectual rage and irresistible funk that was at the heart of the band's finest work.\n\nIndustry Reviews\n3.5 Stars - Good - ...the group's 1967 debut, isn't quite the genre-busting exercise its title promises...[but] the Family Stone's boundless high energy, tight musicianship and soulful convictions get the motivating message out loud and clear...\nRolling Stone Magazine (09/21/1995)\n\n\nROLLING STONE REVIEW\nSly Stone, at one time the San Francisco Bay Area's top rated rhythm and blues disc jockey and also a former A&R man for a now defunct local label (Autumn), once composed a song, with Tom Donahue, called "The Swim." Sly Stone is well-based in composition and production and he does have "a whole new thing."\n\nThe record represents the Bay Area's very first rhythm and blues group to go national. It reflects a combination of San Francisco's 'new thing' and some standard R&B techniques, an approach which is interesting but not entirely effective. None of the tracks particularly stand out as strong. The production--and it is more a production than a performance--is still in the experimentation stage and has not yet come to a satisfactory conclusion. (RS 3 -- Dec 14, 1967)\n\n\n\nROLLING STONE REVIEW\nThe reissue of these long-out-of-print late-'60s albums documents the birth of funk -- the bastard offspring of gutbucket soul and psychedelic rock. The collected early works of Sylvester Stewart, a k a Sly Stone, provide a musical bridge between James Brown's bedrock grooves and George Clinton's cosmic slop. A former DJ and veteran music-biz hustler, Sly is a supernaturally gifted band leader, arranger, player, producer, songwriter and onstage instigator. The lyrics of his catchy choruses tempered uplifting messages with urban reality; his flashy persona and streetwise cool set the style standard for the superbad, superslick early '70s.\n\nThe Family Stone were a comfortable rainbow coalition: Sly's brother Freddie Stone on guitar, sister Rosie on electric piano, cousin Larry Graham on bass and Greg Errico on drums, plus saxophonist Jerry Martini and trumpeter Cynthia Robinson. Their sound was democratic, too: Each instrumental voice was carefully articulated, always in step with the others. Everybody in the group sang, as one crucial Life track puts it, in perfect "Harmony."\n\nA Whole New Thing, the group's 1967 debut, isn't quite the genre-busting exercise its title promises. To contemporary ears, it more closely resembles a slightly. different thing: straight-up, pumping R&B flavored with some freaky trimmings -- a fuzz-tone guitar blurt here ("Run, Run, Run," "Trip to Your Heart") some pointed protest lyrics there ("Underdog," "Dog"). Even when these trappings feel a bit dated, the Family Stone's boundless high energy, tight musicianship and soulful convictions get the motivating message across loud and clear.\n\nTwenty-seven years later, the title track of Dance to the Music provides a sure-fire jolt of pure adrenalin. Overall the album is uneven, but its highs are intense, prolonged, ecstatic. Earthy bass and drums put a spring in your step while seductive melodies and horn lines tickle your mind. Song titles like "Ride the Rhythm" and "Higher" are more than hooks -- they're statements of purpose. And Sly's half-spoken and half-sung band introductions on "Dance to the Music" neatly prefigure the rise of rap. "All we need is a drummer," he declares, "for people who only need a beat."\n\nLife is where Sly's dazzling all-things-to-all-people vision snaps into full focus. "Dynamite!" explodes in a hailstorm of volatile, feedback-laced rock. "Plastic Jim," "Into My Own Thing" and "Love City" connect hippie idealism to wickedly syncopated rhythms. And the joyously hedonistic party numbers -- "Fun," "M'Lady" -- just won't quit. When Sly testifies on "Life," insisting that "you don't have to come down" and "you don't have to die before you live," the ebullient music supports his spiritual tightrope walk.\n\nThe rest, as they say, is history: Sly and the Family Stone's remaining career paralleled the rise and fall of the baby-boom counterculture. They peaked at Woodstock in '69, bottomed out after There's a Riot Goin' On in '71 and eventually broke up. Sly Stone remains a spectral presence on the contemporary scene, a troubling rumor at best, though his profound influence can be felt every time you turn on a radio. While the man may not have survived the '60s intact, surely his music has endured beyond all expectations. (RS 717 -- Sep 21, 1995) -- MARK COLEMAN
This rock cd contains 17 tracks and runs 56min 38sec.
Freedb: df0d4411
Buy: from Amazon.com

Categories

Latest lists

Sly & The Family Stone: A Whole New Thing (Remastered + Expanded) CD Track Listing

Category

Tags

cyList

Legal