Sly & the Family Stone’s 10 Best Songs (Staff Picks)

Opening with a drum roll and the shouted titular command, Sly & the Family Stone made sure their first masterpiece LP immediately snapped listeners to attention. But “Stand!” is too melodic and empathetic to ever risk coming off didactic, with even directives like “Stand for the things you know are right/ It’s the truth that the truth makes them so uptight” delivered so tenderly it sounds like the band realizes it’s not telling you anything you don’t already know. And unlike too many protests, this one ends in unequivocal victory, as the song closes with a glorious parade of trumpets and jubilant “na-na-na-na-na“s. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER

With lullaby organs and a drum groove so clipped and woozy it almost sounds like it’s predicting J Dilla, “Just Like a Baby” made it clear early in There’s a Riot Goin’ On that the Woodstock-era triumphalism of Stand! was well over. While even that album’s angriest songs had energy and purpose to them, the band’s uncertainty is felt throughout the narcotic groove and buried, often wordless vocals here, but with results just as spellbinding — and arguably even funkier. Future generations would agree, as you can hear traces of “Baby” in everything from D’Angelo’s Voodoo to Childish Gambino’s “Awaken, My Love!” — A.U.

A Doris Day song from an Alfred Hitchcock movie might seem like unlikely material for a gospel-inflected funk cover, but Sly Stone never played by anyone’s rules (even his own). Stone spent much of There’s a Riot Goin’ On and follow-up album Fresh tearing down the utopian hippie view of America he’d built in the ‘60s, and “Que Sera, Sera” — which arrived on the latter album’s side two – seems to be his shoulder-shrugging admission that just like everyone else, he ultimately has no idea what the hell is going on in this life. But when the funk is this mellow and the organ playing this heavenly, uncertainty doesn’t sound so quite so scary. — JOE LYNCH

Underpinned by a bold lead bass line, this 1973 hit that reached No. 12 on the Hot 100 features one of Sly’s most impressive vocal performances, as he both growls and croons in due course to a girlfriend about what he needs to stay in a relationship. One of the most iconic basslines in funk, its genius is in its steady simplicity, allowing the organ, piano and horn flourishes to really breathe, and Sly’s voice to shine, with no line delivered in the same way twice. Its parent album, Fresh, is one notorious for its overdubs, but even still “Stay” has an improvisational feel, melding the backline rigor with the expressive fluidity that is a hallmark of great funk records. — DAN RYS

Something of a thesis statement for the Family Stone, “Family Affair” — which became the band’s third and final No. 1 on the Hot 100 in late 1971 — is a more laid-back groove, with Sly’s voice melting and oozing all over the track as he sings about sibling, parental and newlywed relationships, and what keeps them all together. Trading off vocals with his sister Rose, Sly keeps it simple, with a bass, rhythm guitar and keyboard holding down most of the track, a breezy wah-wah guitar providing flourishes here and there. But as with much of Sly’s work, it’s the sum of its parts that makes “Family Affair” such an enduring cut more than 50 years later.  — D.R.

As the multi-racial, multi-gender Sly & the Family Stone emerged in the mid-’60s, its demographic composition wasn’t the only radical thing about it – it also fused the worlds of R&B, soul, and rock and roll in ways that thrilled audiences, but confounded the suits. When the band’s 1967 debut, A Whole New Thing, flopped, management told Stone it was “too funky” and that he should “just do something simple.” “I said, ‘OK, something simple, huh?'” Stone later recounted. That something simple: “Dance to the Music,” which with its relentless rhythm section and direct lyrics, commands listeners to do just that. Stone would go on to make higher-concept music, but “Dance To The Music” is a foundational text in psychedelic soul — and, perhaps more importantly, was a big enough hit that it afforded the ambitious musician the considerable creative freedom he would need moving forward. — ERIC RENNER BROWN

Opening in medias rock, “I Want to Take You Higher” is a blunt battering ram of blues, psych, soul and funk that was initially stowed away as the B-side to “Stand!”, but hit America’s eardrums so hard that it went top 40 in its own right. This rallying cry is the sound of Sly Stone and his merry pranksters pushing James Brown’s meticulously timed funk off its foundations, destabilizing it with the untethered energy of an off-the-rails rock n’ roll jam session. The studio version feels like it might fling off into the ether at a moment’s notice — and in concert (including at Woodstock), it often did. — J.L.

For those rare times in life when there’s no riot goin’ on and nothing immediately pressing to take a stand over, there can simply be “Hot Fun in the Summertime.” Sly & the Family Stone’s most classic-sounding pop song — tone down a couple of those vocal ad libs and it could’ve easily been a Nat King Cole composition — remains an essential seasonal standard for its sun-tanned horns, nostalgic lyrics and impossibly breezy sway, one of the most topical bands of its era proving it could be be just as potent blissing out in the shade for two and a half minutes. But like all truly great good-time songs, “Summertime” also comes tinged with the unmistakable sadness of knowing it’s all too good to last: “First of the fall, and then she goes back/ Bye, bye, bye, bye.” — A.U.

This is the rare example of a band figuring itself out in a transitional period while still delivering its best work. Sly and the Family Stone achieved so much and evolved so quickly from 1967-69, it’s no wonder that Stone felt compelled to craft a song that served as both a meta victory lap and farewell to his bright, buoyant first chapter before segueing into a lyrically and sonically murkier second act. But how many artists can write a song about their biggest, most beloved hits that’s also better than damn near all of them? Larry Graham’s slap bass gets a lot of the credit, but the tightly wound guitars, woozy horns and staccato vocals are equally hypnotic. — J.L.

Sly & The Family Stone’s first of three No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 was more than a massive hit – it was a reflection of contemporary American society. Released in November 1968, as one of the most tumultuous years in American history drew to a close, “Everyday People” uses near-childlike simplicity (“There is a blue one who can’t accept the green one/ For living with a fat one, trying to be a skinny one”) to urge Americans to come together despite their differences. The song had an immediate impact and a lasting influence, from helping to mint a new catchphrase (“different strokes for different folks,” originally popularized by Muhammad Ali and later the inspiration for the title of the TV show Diff’rent Strokes) to featuring an early instance of the slap-bass technique. And few moments in Sly’s catalog are as singularly stunning as when he and his bandmates arrive at the first chorus shout: “I am everyday people!” — E.R.B.