Stand!

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Stand!
Stand! cover
Studio album by Sly & the Family Stone
Released May 3, 1969
Recorded San Francisco Bay Area, California; fall 1968 - spring 1969
Genre Psychedelic soul/funk
Length 41:27
Label Epic
BN 26456
Producer(s) Sly Stone
Professional reviews
Sly & the Family Stone chronology
Life
(1968)		 Stand!
(1969)		 Greatest Hits
(1970)


Stand! is the fourth album for the soul/rock/funk band Sly & the Family Stone, released in May of 1969 (see 1969 in music). 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 became one of the most successful albums of the 1960s.

Stand! is considered one of the artistic high-points of the band's career, and includes many landmarks songs, such as the up-tempo numbers "Sing a Simple Song" and "I Want to Take You Higher", messages of encouragement in "You Can Make It If You Try" and "Stand!", and political and social commentary tracks in "Everyday People" and "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey."

Contents

[edit] Background

Stand! was recorded on the heels of Life, a commercially unsuccessful album. Despite the Family Stone's early 1968 single "Dance to the Music" being a top ten hit in the United States, none the band's first three albums charted above 100 on the Billboard 200. Stand! broke this trend, reaching number thirteen on the Billboard 200, and launching Sly Stone and his bandmates Freddie Stone, Larry Graham, Rose Stone, Cynthia Robinson, Jerry Martini, and Greg Errico into the pop music mainstream.

Much of the album was recorded in the San Francisco area at studios such as Pacific High Recording Studios. The band’s A&R director and photographer Stephen Paley recalled how "together" Sly Stone was while working on Stand!, down to his constant referencing of Orchestration, a how-to book on orchestral arrangement by Walter Piston. Stone's inspired attitude while working on the album would contrast sharply with the erratic behavior and work ethic he would develop after becoming dependent upon cocaine within a year of the release of Stand!

[edit] Overview

Stand! begins with the title track, which opens with a drum roll from Gregg Errico before launching into Sly Stone's appeal to his audiences to both "stand" for what you believe in and to also "stand [up]" for yourself. Like many of the selections on the album, "Stand" blends the Family Stone's by then trademark rhythmic style with a pop crossover-friendly feel and simplicity. Sly sings lead himself on "Stand", which plays out as a mid-tempo number for two minutes before launching into a gospel break for the final forty-five seconds of the song. Most of the Family Stone was unavailable for the session where Sly recorded the final version of the gospel extension, and he, Errico, and horn players Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini used session players instead. Errico recalls that many liked the gospel extension more than they did the song proper: "People would always ask, 'why didn't you go there and let that be the song?'"

The second track on the album is "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey", a criticism of racism. The song has very few lyrics, save for a verse by Rose Stone and the song's push-and-pull chorus, which parodies racial unrest in the United States by reducing the concept to two bickering and irresolvable lines:

"Don't call me 'nigger', whitey."
"Don't call me 'whitey', nigger."

Instead of words, the rest of the vocals on "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" comprise of Sly, Rose, their brother Freddie Stone, and Larry Graham scatting back and forth, with Sly's scatting delivered given a wah-wah sound through the use of an early model of a vocoder. The song builds in dynamics and intensity over its six-minute running time, reflecting the rising tension of the race riots that had been escalating in America since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. the previous April.

Once "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" concludes, the album launches into the high-tempo "I Want to Take You Higher". Lacking an overt social message, the song is dedicated to the feeling of euphoria that music gives. Freddie Stone, Larry Graham, Rose Stone, and Sly Stone each take turns delivering the lead vocal, which shifts back and forth across the stereo spectrum as the band plays with a heavily rock-influenced feel. All seven members of the band deliver the shouted backing vocals on the recording, and Sly Stone, Robinson, Freddie Stone, Graham, and Martini are all given instrumental solos.

"Somebody's Watching You" follows "I Want to Take You Higher", and its somber, paranoid feel contrasts sharply with the track that precedes it. Sly Stone, Graham, Freddie Stone, and Rose Stone deliver the song's lead vocal in unison, with the song lyrics reflecting the constant need for a successful person to always have to watch his back. The song's slightly pessimistic tone would be expanded upon later in the band's career with "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" and the There's a Riot Goin' On LP. "Somebody's Watching You" would be covered as a Top 40 hit for the Family Stone's background vocal group, Little Sister, whose version was the first Top 40 single to feature use of a drum machine.

Side A concludes with "Sing a Simple Song", which, while up-tempo like "I Want to Take You Higher", features more of a James Brown-inspired soul sound than "Take You Higher" does. "Sing a Simple Song" seeks to teach its listeners to motivate themselves by taking the time out to "sing a simple song" and "try a little do re mi fa so la ti do". "Sing a Simple Song's" syncopated guitar licks and horn riffs were almost instantly influential, and shortly after its release, bands such as The Meters and Booker T & the M.G.'s and vocal acts such as Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Temptations, and The Jackson 5 were extensively covering the number.

"Everyday People", already a number-one hit single in the United States by the time of the album's release, opens Side B. The most familiar selection on the album, "Everyday People" is an overt criticism of racism and prejudices of all kinds, and features Sly delivering most of the leads alone. Rose Stone's taunting sing-song chorus of "there is a blue one, who can't accept the green one, for living with the fat one trying to be a skinny one" seeks to parody and belittle racism just as "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" does, but with more of the pop crossover feel of the title track. For this song, Larry Graham introduced the beginnings of the slap-pop style of bass playing he would later expand upon for "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" .

The second track on Side B is "Sex Machine", a thirteen-minute jam, which features Sly again scatting through a vocoder, and allowing each band member an extended solo. Gregg Errico's solo closes out the song; while he was recording his solo, the other band members were apparently standing around him and making fun of him, which is why they are all heard bursting into laughter during the final seconds of the track.

Stand! concludes with "You Can Make It If You Try", another inspirational message track in the vein of "Stand!" Its lyrics, delivered in turns by Sly Stone, Freddie Stone, and Larry Graham, urge the audience to "push a little harder," "dig a little deeper," and "don't let the 'plastic [people]' get you down." For this track, Sly Stone plays the bass instead of Larry Graham; Graham recalls that Stone had a distinct way of playing the bass which suited "You Can Make It If You Try" better than Graham's techniques.

[edit] Other notes

  • The success of Stand! secured Sly & the Family Stone a gig at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival, which became on of the most iconic music festivals of the rock and roll era. The Family Stone's set, performed at three o' clock in the morning on August 16, 1969, included "Everyday People", "Music Lover", and much of the rest of the band's repertoire. "Music Lover" contains a repeating lyric of "wanna take you higher" (which was expanded into "I Want to Take You Higher" for Stand!), and Sly Stone used the lyric to create a chant, interspersed with an inspirational dialogue, which resulted in the thousands of festival goers all chanting "higher!" along with Sly. Many music critics, as well as the members of the band itself, see the Woodstock performance as the zenith of the band's performance career.
  • Stand! is among the most sampled recordings in popular music history; late 20th century hip hop producers were particularly fond of sampling Gregg Errico's drum lines from "Sing a Simple Song" and "You Can Make It If You Try", and either looping the tracks or chopping them up and using the drum sounds. The drums from these two tracks can be found on literally hundreds of hip-hop and contemporary R&B songs, by artists such as LL Cool J, The Jungle Brothers, Digital Underground, Ice Cube, TLC, Jodeci, and many more.
  • Arrested Development, an act heavily influenced by Sly & the Family Stone, borrowed from some of the tracks on Stand! for various tracks on their 1992 debut album 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of.... Several 3 Years, 5 Months... tracks contain samples of Stand! tracks, most prominently the vocals samples from the end of "Sing a Simple Song" included in Arrested Development's "Mr. Wendel", and Arrested Development's "People Everyday" borrows the chorus from "Everyday People".

[edit] Track listing

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

[edit] 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

[edit] Side two

  1. "Everyday People" - 2:21
  2. "Sex Machine" - 13:45
  3. "You Can Make It If You Try" - 3:37

[edit] CD bonus tracks

Added for 2007 limited edition compact disc reissue:

  • "Stand!" (mono single version)
  • "I Want To Take You Higher" (mono single version)
  • "You Can Make It If You Try" (mono single version)
  • "Soul Clappin' II" (previously unreleased)
  • "My Brain (Zig-Zag)" (previously unreleased instrumental)

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Chart and singles history

Name Chart (1969 - 1970) Peak
position
Stand! U.S. Billboard Pop Albums 13
Stand! U.S. Top R&B Albums 3
"Everyday People" U.S. Billlboard Pop Singles 1
"Everyday People" U.S. Billboard R&B Singles 1
"Sing a Simple Song" U.S. Billlboard Pop Singles 89
"Sing a Simple Song" U.S. Billboard R&B Singles 28
"Stand!" U.S. Billlboard Pop Singles 22
"Stand!" U.S. Billboard R&B Singles 14
"I Want to Take You Higher" U.S. Billlboard Pop Singles 38
"I Want to Take You Higher" U.S. Billboard R&B Singles 24

[edit] References

  • Selvin, Joel (1998). For the Record: Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History. New York: Quill Publishing. ISBN 0-380-79377-6.

[edit] Samples

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