Sly & The Family Stone - 2015 - Live at the Fillmore East October 4th & 5th, 1968

Sly & The Family Stone

2015

Live at the Fillmore East October 4th & 5th, 1968

October 4, 1968 (1st Night) The Early Show

01 Are You Ready 4:57

02 Color Me True 4:54

03 Won't Be Long 6:55

04 We Love All (Freedom) 8:24

05 Medley: Turn Me Loose / I Can't Turn You Loose 5:14

06 Chicken 9:23

07 Love City 8:55

October 4, 1968 (1st Night) The Late Show

01 M'Lady 5:12

02 Don't Burn Baby 4:39

03 Color Me True 6:04

04 Won't Be Long 6:40

05 St. James Infirmary 7:40

06 Medley: Turn Me Loose / I Can't Turn You Loose 5:46

07 Are You Ready 5:45

08 Dance To The Music 5:11

09 Music Lover 8:07

10 Medley: Life / Music Lover 9:11

October 5, 1968 (2nd Night) The Early Show

01 Life 3:05

02 Color Me True 6:03

03 Won't Be Long 7:15

04 Are You Ready 6:20

05 Dance To The Music 5:24

06 Music Lover 6:18

07 M'Lady 5:43

October 5, 1968 (2nd Night) The Late Show

01 M'Lady 5:22

02 Life 3:03

03 Are You Ready 7:59

04 Won't Be Long 7:52

05 Color Me True 6:25

06 Dance To The Music 5:30

07 Music Lover 5:51

08 Love City 5:33

09 Medley: Turn Me Loose / I Can't Turn You Loose 5:25

10 The Riffs 1:48

Bass, Vocals – Larry Graham

Electric Piano, Vocals – Sister Rosie Stone

Guitar, Vocals – Brother Freddie Stone

Organ, Vocals – Sly Stone

Percussion – Greg Errico

Saxophone – Jerry Martini

Trumpet – Cynthia Robinson

Recorded live at The Fillmore East, NYC

When Sly and the Family Stone re0corded their gigs at the Fillmore East in New York City, they were one of America's best live bands, but they were also a one-hit wonder. They'd had a Top 10 single in 1967 with "Dance to the Music", but their follow-up, "Life", and the album of the same title, had both stiffed. The plan, apparently, was to release an album of the Fillmore gigs to show off what the Family Stone could do on stage—and, perhaps, get some traction with the free-form FM radio stations that were popping up all over.

A few months after the shows, "Everyday People" became the massive hit the band needed—a song that echoed their own racial and sexual integration—and the live album was set aside. (Stand!, released in May, 1969, didn't include any of the new songs played at the Fillmore East gigs.) Somehow, the Fillmore tapes were never edited down to an album until 2015, when a vinyl-only double-LP, sequenced by the Roots' "Captain" Kirk Douglas, appeared for Record Store Day.

This wider-scale release, though, isn't that selection: it's a four-disc set of all four Fillmore sets in their entirety. That means we get multiple renditions of the long, jammy pieces that would have been the spine of a late-'60s Fillmore East album: "Are You Ready" and "Music Lover" (both, in their way, prototypes of "I Want to Take You Higher"), a cover of "Won't Be Long" (from Aretha Franklin's second album) sung by keyboardist Rose Stone, an extended version of the Dance to the Music album's "Color Me True", and a frenetic medley of A Whole New Thing's "Turn Me Loose" with Otis Redding's "I Can't Turn You Loose".

A 35-minute, six-song Live at the Fillmore East would have been a drop-dead classic on the order of Sly and the Family Stone's next three actual albums, or nearly so: the missing link between James Brown's extended funk workouts, Norman Whitfield's psychedelic soul, and the progressive rock that was evolving among the Family Stone's Bay Area neighbors. The band's half-dozen-or-so vocalists sound great, especially Sly himself, and the stop-on-a-dime arrangements are thrilling. But if you care about Sly Stone in 2015, after decades of dashed expectations and bungled comebacks, you probably care enough to want to hear the outtakes and alternate versions from the album-that-might-have-been alongside the real thing.

True enough, the minor tracks and oddities on this set are illuminating: a relaxed rendition of (Louis Armstrong's version of) "St. James Infirmary", a show-ending flourish called "The Riffs", a version of "M'Lady" that detours into a long, spectacular vocal breakdown. It's fun to hear how different the band's performances could be from show to show, too. Still, collecting the entire Fillmore East engagement also reveals the Family Stone's curious weaknesses, especially recycling riffs from song to song and relying on a handful of instrumental and vocal tricks.

Sly and the Family Stone were a groove band above all, and their classic lineup rarely got to stretch out on record before it fell apart in the early '70s. Fillmore East isn't the hit-making, up-with-people pop group commemorated on their Greatest Hits, or the embittered, shaken genius-plus-backup of There's a Riot Goin' On and Fresh. (It's not the first live album by the original group, either: their complete set from 1969's Woodstock festival was released in 2009 as The Woodstock Experience.) But this set is the document we've been missing of the onstage Family Stone of legend: the tightly knit extended family that sang and played together, the group that magically united black and white audiences. If it doesn't quite live up to their radiant reputation, it comes pretty close.

Embryonic Sly opening four shows with Eric Burdon & The Animals at Fillmore East in 1968. Shortly before the string of big hits began. The originals clearly show where they were heading but they were still playing covers, as well. There's an infectious instrumental take on "St. James Infirmary" showcasing Cynthia Robinson (trumpet) that I'm currently fixated on. Not quite there yet, but right on the verge of the magic formula. Young, hungry and energy galore!