In celebration of the group's 40th anniversary, Epic/Legacy Records has deemed it the right time to reissue Sly & The Family Stone's seven LPs, with the usual digital re-mastering, revised liner notes, and bonus tracks included. These new CD packages provide a thorough look at the birth and death of Sly Stone's American dream.

The ghost of Sly Stone loomed over the 2006 Grammy Awards...only he wasn't quite dead.

A strange menagerie of performers assembled that night  to pay tribute to the mercurial talent that had spawned some of the hippie generation's most uplifting psalms and whose later work soundtracked its self-destruction. The cast included various nu-soul luminaries, an American Idol champion, a former member of ‘90s boy band LFO, lite rock kingpins Maroon 5, will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, and—most inexplicably—a screeching Steven Tyler with his guitar-wielding lapdog Joe Perry. In its own dysfunctional way, the tribute proved fitting—only Sly's bountiful influence could touch such a strange assortment of musicians.

But the festivities weren't over.

"Hey Sly!" called out Tyler in a fit of staged spontaneity, "let's do it like we used to do it!"

Suddenly, the man himself emerged from backstage, with the demeanor of an irate grandfather awoken by the noisemaking of his youngers. Sly walked with a noticeable stoop, his chin lowered to his chest. Large wraparound shades concealed his eyes. And then there was that mohawk, riding defiant and platinum atop his bald head. Positioning himself behind a keyboard at center stage, the wrinkled performer led a rendition of "I Want To Take You Higher," a staple of his band's Woodstock-era set. Backing him up were several members of the original Family Stone and all of the aforementioned musicians. The result proved bewildering—vocal cues were dropped, Sly only recited the chorus a few times and then left the stage well before the number's conclusion, giving a brief wave to the crowd as he went. So ended Sly's first public appearance in 13 years. But given the arc of his band's career, perhaps an uneven comeback was more appropriate than a triumphant one.

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A Whole New Thing (1967)

That career officially began in the most unlikely of ways—with the Family Stone's interracial, mixed gender horn section blowing eight bars of "Frere Jacques." Considering that the group's sound was destined to detonate in a colorful mess of soul, funk, rock and pop, a French children's song seems an unusual point of departure. But this move was quintessential Sly. As a San Francisco area DJ, the likes of Bob Dylan and Otis Redding intermingled freely on his play lists, and he had previously worked the production boards for artists ranging from the pop soul of Bobby Freeman to the folk rock of the Beau Brummels. Coming of age in the vibrant, ever-shifting musical landscape of the 1960s, Sly (born as Sylvester Stewart) was drunk off the era's sound, and wanted to form an outfit that could reflect his diverse tastes—in short, a "whole new thing."

So he assembled the Family, which included his brother Freddie on guitar, Larry Graham on bass, Cynthia Robinson on trumpet, with white dudes Jerry Martini on saxophone and Gregg Errico playing drums. Sly's little sister Rose would join shortly after on piano. Though Sly would write, compose and arrange all of the group's material, there was an egalitarian sense of community inherent in the group's construction. Sly, his siblings, Graham, and Robinson would all take turns as the group's mouthpiece, and in the beginning songs and concerts were arranged so as to spotlight each member's abilities. All of the band's initial publicity painted the group as a joyous, utopian ideal sprung vibrantly to life: whites and blacks, men and women, playing inspiring, exciting, politically conscious music together. It was a perfect band for its place and time—San Francisco, epicenter of the Summer of Love. Sly, of course, had very consciously arranged things so. According to his white bandmate Jerry Martini, Sly chose him and drummer Errico purposefully.

"There was a shit-pot full of black drummers that could kick Gregg's ass and there was a lot of black saxophone players that could kick mine. He knew exactly what he was doing," Martini said, as quoted in Miles Marshall Lewis' There's A Riot Goin' On.

The Family bonded as a unit over a relentless schedule of gigging and studio work, which tightened them into one of the most thrilling live acts of their time—culminating in an explosive, late-night performance at the original Woodstock Festival.

Their recorded output, however, has proven an even more enduring legacy—and it all kicks off with that curious horn overture that announces the arrival of "Underdog," the leadoff track on the group's debut album, A Whole New Thing. Gregg Errico's toms rumble ominously underneath the melody, before Sly's shout of "Hey, dig!" kicks the song into high gear.

"I know how it feels to expect to get a fair shake / but they won't let you forget/ that you're the underdog/ and you got to be twice as good," preaches Sly, before his backing choir intones, "yeah yeah!"

Here Sly deploys the first of what would be many sociopolitical-themed salvos in his music, but this one might have been his most fiery. There are no easy slogans being chanted here, just a restless hunger to overcome societal injustice. "I'm the un-der-dog!" the whole band chants, implying that their struggle is a shared one. And yet amidst the vitriol shine specks of Sly's trademark optimism: "I don't mind, ‘cos I can handle it!" and "it's gonna be all right!" he cries during the chorus.

Musically as well as lyrically, this song sets the Family Stone template. The rhythm section locks into a tight, syncopated groove, Freddie's guitar shoots out clipped S.O.S. signals, and the horn section punches its way to the top of the mix. On this debut album, the band is already stretching its wings, looking to see how many genres it can cram beneath its all-inclusive tent. The Family still flocks close to contemporary soul, particularly on ballads like "Let Me Hear It From You" (sung by Graham in a rare lead vocal turn). But they're still eager to tinker with the formula: "Run, Run, Run" rocks loose and fast, and features the group's first use of wordless vocal interludes—an art that they would refine significantly on subsequent efforts. "I Cannot Make It," meanwhile, integrates surprisingly Beatlesque harmonies into its verses, showing that the group was also closely attuned to the pop side of the radio dial.

Besides "Underdog," the other major stylistic triumph on this record is clearly "Trip to Your Heart." Its acid rock ambiance undoubtedly impregnated George Clinton's mind with the potent twins of Parliament and Funkadelic, and its menacing melody later served as the foundation for LL Cool J's (don't call it a) comeback smash "Mama Said Knock You Out." The song stumbles in with a dissonant collection of screams and cymbals, before taking listeners on a haunted house ride to the center of Sly's drug-addled imagination.

Not all of the songs here are nearly as arresting (especially the side two material), but A Whole New Thing stands as an ambitious, entertaining debut. For all of its artistic merit, the record failed miserably at the record store counter. Having defined their sound and message, the Family would next set its sights on conquering the charts. | B

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