I Want to Take You Higher_ The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone - Jeff Kaliss [27]
Changes then in progress in the mode of studio recording may have furthered Sly's own tight control of the process, Don Puluse figures. "The groups had started coming in ... saying, `Hey, we're not gonna record with one guy and mix [i.e., process the recorded tracks] with another guy,"' he explains. "It wasn't like the old three- or four-track recordings, where they did everything at one time, did a little overdubbing, and sent it to a mix room." With more tracks to manage, "This was much more complicated. They would do overdubbing, over a period of weeks or months. Then, if they'd sent it to a new guy, he'd have to start all over. So I wound up [assigned to artists] like Sly, and later [the jazz-rock ensemble] Chicago, people who insisted on doing the mixing right there where they knew the sound, and with the same engineer." Don had the good taste to realize, with Sly's band, that "it would be foolish to try to get ultra-clean sounds, when what was really important was the music. I had done a lot of recording, but Dance to the Music had so much funk to it. Whoa! Where the hell did that come from? It was incredible!"
Funk had just begun to define itself within pop music in the late '60s, though its roots of course reached much further back. Funk and soul scholar and writer Rickey Vincent, in his Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One, singles out a definition of the form by Fred Wesley, a trombonist and collaborator with James Brown, Bootsy Collins, and George Clinton. Says Fred, "If you have a syncopated bass line, a strong, strong heavy back beat from the drummer, a counter-line from the guitar or the keyboard, and someone soul-singing on top of that, in a gospel style, then you have funk." The Family Stone had all of this, as well as an embarrassment of individual and collective uniqueness and talent. Jerry claims that Cynthia was "the first female African American trumpet player in history." While this is unsupportable-Valaida Snow, for one, launched a successful career on vocals and trumpet in 1918-it's evident that female instrumentalists, aside from occasional pianists and guitarists, were rare in rock, and that Cynthia had acquired a strong, spirited, and accurate horn technique in her hometown of Sacramento. "Cynthia," wrote Sly in Dance to the Music's original liner notes, "is one of the most talented trumpets alive and that includes guys!" Jerry himself, who'd played Vegas and overseas venues before anybody else in the Family Stone, was a sophisticated jazz-wise reedman. Together he and Cynthia often gave the impression of a much larger brass section.
Larry laid down his trademark down-and-dirty thumpin' and pluckin' bass, connected through new effects units designed for guitars-fuzz and wah-wah pedals, which altered the instrument's signal to give it a fat or stinging "underwater" tone. Larry's taut, snappy slaps of his Fender Jazz and Vox Constellation basses, making use of melody as rhythm, was a stimulating change-up from the happy bass burble of Paul McCartney or James Jamerson, and he influenced imitators for decades to come.
Freddie possessed, in the opinion of bandmate Jerry, "just about the most innovative guitar style of all.... You ask any of the modern-day rhythm guitarists who they listen to, and Freddie Stone, or Freddie Stewart, would be at the top of the list. There's no funkier or better rhythm guitar player."
His brother Sly, having willed the guitar function to Freddie, had quickly mastered a variety of keyboards, and was heard on both joyful and soulful organ passages throughout the album, with sister Rose partnering prettily on keyboards and solo and harmonized vocals. Sly variously made use of a Farfisa Professional, Yamahas of various years, a Vox Continental, and often a classic Hammond