SLY & THE FAMILY STONE – STAND LP – Nr MINT A1/B1 UK 1969 ORIG FUNK

Sly & The Family Stone – Stand
(Direction Records  1969  S863655)
Matrix No’s: A1/B1 – UK Pressing

 Vinyl in Nr MINT condition
(there are a few light surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality)

EJ Day Front Laminated Sleeve in Nr MINT- condition
– a little discolouration on back
Original CBS “Tony Bennett” Inner Sleeve in Nr MINT condition

Sly and the Family Stone were an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco. Active from 1967 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music. 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.

Stand! is the fourth studio album by soul/funk band Sly and 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.

Track listing

All songs written, produced and arranged by Sly Stone for Stone Flower Productions.

Side one

1. “Stand!” – 3:08
2. “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey” – 5:58
3. “I Want to Take You Higher” – 5:22
4. “Somebody’s Watching You” – 3:20
5. “Sing a Simple Song” – 3:56

Side two

1. “Everyday People” – 2:21
2. “Sex Machine” – 13:45
3. “You Can Make It If You Try” – 3:37

Personnel

• Sly Stone: vocals, organ, guitar, piano, harmonica, vocoder, and bass guitar on “You Can Make It If You Try.”
• Freddie Stone: vocals, guitar
• Larry Graham: vocals, bass guitar (tracks one through seven)
• Rose Stone: vocals, piano, keyboard
• Cynthia Robinson: trumpet, vocal ad-libs, background vocals on “I Want to Take You Higher”
• Jerry Martini: saxophone, background vocals on “I Want to Take You Higher”
• Greg Errico: drums, background vocals on “I Want to Take You Higher”
• Little Sister (Vet Stone, Mary McCreary, Elva Mouton): background vocals on “Stand!”, “Sing a Simple Song”, “Everyday People”, and “I Want to Take you Higher”
• Engineers: Don Puluse, Brian Ross-Myring, Phil Macey