Greatest Hits (Sly & the Family Stone album)

Greatest Hits is a 1970 greatest hits album by soul/rock/funk band Sly & the Family Stone. It includes all of the singles from the albums Dance to the Music (1968), Life (1968), and Stand! (1969), and all of their charting b-sides. The album also includes one non-charting album track, "You Can Make It If You Try" from Stand!, and three non-album singles from 1969: "Hot Fun in the Summertime", "Everybody Is a Star", and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)".

1 Overview
2 Track listing
3 Notes
- 3.1 Album sources
4 Personnel
5 Chart and singles history
6 Samples
7 References

[edit] Overview

Released in the midst of an eighteen-month stretch from late 1969 to late 1971, during which Sly & the Family Stone released no new material, Greatest Hits was designed by Epic Records to appease consumer demand and keep the band's name and music in the public's eye. Greatest Hits peaks at number-two on the Billboard 200, and was the band's second most successful album sales-wise (behind There's a Riot Goin' On).

The songs from this album were remixed into quadraphonic format in 1970 (some of these mixes contain different running times or alternate vocals/instrumentation to the original versions), and Greatest Hits was simultaneously issued with quadraphonic sound. However, Sly Stone and his engineers never got around to making standard stereo mixes of the three non-album singles, and Epic had to resort to taking the mono versions and making simulated stereo versions by electronically rechannelling the mono mixes' frequencies. Stereo mixes of these three songs were finally done when the Sly & the Family Stone catalog was digitally remastered in the 1990s. The album was properly reissued by Epic/Legacy in 2007.

Robert Christgau has called Greatest Hits "among the greatest rock and roll LPs of all time."^[1] In 2003, the album was ranked number 60 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

[edit] Track listing

All songs written by Sylvester Stewart, and produced and arranged by Sly Stone for Stone Flower Productions. Superscripts denote original album sources, referenced below.

"I Want to Take You Higher" – 5:22 ^c
"Everybody is a Star" – 3:00
"Stand!" – 3:08 ^c
"Life" – 2:58 ^b
"Fun" – 2:20 ^b
"You Can Make It If You Try" – 3:39 ^c
"Dance To The Music" – 2:58 ^a
"Everyday People" – 2:20 ^c
"Hot Fun in the Summertime" – 2:37
"M'Lady" – 2:44 ^b
"Sing a Simple Song" – 4:47 ^c
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" – 3:55

[edit] Notes

[edit] Album sources

^a from Dance to the Music (1968)
^b from Life (1968)
^c from Stand! (1969)
"Everybody is a Star", "Hot Fun in the Summertime", and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" are all new to album.
Tracks 1-6 make up Side One on the vinyl release, tracks 7-12 make up Side Two.

[edit] Personnel

Sly Stone: vocals, organ, guitar, piano, harmonica, and more
Freddie Stone: vocals, guitar
Larry Graham: vocals, bass guitar
Rosie Stone: vocals, piano, keyboard
Cynthia Robinson: trumpet, vocal ad-libs
Jerry Martini: saxophone
Greg Errico: drums
Little Sister (Vet Stone, Mary McCreary, Elva Mouton): background vocals

[edit] Chart and singles history

Title	Information
"Hot Fun in the Summertime"	Epic single 10450, 1969 B-side: "Fun"
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"/ "Everybody Is a Star"	Epic single 10555 , 1969 Double A-sided single

Name	Chart (1969 - 1970)	Peak position
Greatest Hits	U.S. Billboard Pop Albums	2
Greatest Hits	U.S. Top R&B Albums	1
"Hot Fun in the Summertime"	U.S. Billboard Pop Singles	2
"Hot Fun in the Summertime"	U.S. Billboard R&B Singles	3
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"/ "Everybody Is a Star"	U.S. Billboard Pop Singles	1
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"/ "Everybody Is a Star"	U.S. Billboard R&B Singles	1