343. Sly and the Family Stone, "Greatest Hits"

 


This album is like jukebox paradise, which is no doubt how I first encountered a lot of these songs.  This is an easy Top 500 album, just for "Everyday People" and "Hot Fun in the Summertime" alone.  And then, of course, there's the wackily titled "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," which hit #1 in February of 1970 and is a certified jam.

This band has such a fascinating history.  They formed in San Francisco and played at Woodstock.  But by 1970 they had relocated to Los Angeles and Sly was essentially a full-time drug user (coke and PCP, primarily) that it made gigs spotty.  Original drummer Greg Errico left soon after and went on to have a tremendous career, playing with Bowie, Journey, and Jerry Garcia.  Here's a super fucked up Sly on the Dick Cavett show in 1971:

Following decades of drug abuse, Sly ended up living in a camper van in the Crenshaw area of LA, where a retired couple made sure he got at least one meal a day.  He's made some sporadic appearances since then - he showed up at a 2015 event at the Fox Theater in Oakland - but is mostly off the radar.  One wonders what could have been had things gone a little differently.

But this album is such a perfect capsule of a time and place in music - the late 60's, in the US - that it stands up to anything else from that era.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Easy, like I said.

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