Time for Livin’: Sly and the Family Stone’s Small Talk at 50

“Though ‘Can’t Strain My Brain’ put caution tape around everything—it was about a brain that wasn’t just feeling strain, but feeling pain—I kept working.”

This is a jailbreak. Right here and now, I forcibly commute the 50-year sentence handed down to Sly and the Family Stone’s seventh studio album, Small Talk, released in July 1974. This judgment, passed by critics and even audiences, proclaimed that the album was somehow a lesser creation by Sylvester Stewart aka Sly Stone, a funk genius second only to James Brown. 

This is no snap decision on my part, but a conclusion I’ve reached after living with the album for 30 years. The story begins with a friend’s trip to England in the late 80s where he returned with a copy of Fresh, Sly’s 1973 album, which the geniuses at Sony Music had let go out of print. Edsel, the UK reissue label, had given it a necessary reissue. I put it on and was blown away. For so many years, I had believed the rap that Sly’s output after There’s A Riot Goin’ On (1971) was damned near worthless. But here I was rocking in my living room to such majesty as “In Time,” “If You Want Me To Stay,” “Que Sera Sera,” and more. In contrast to the gauzy, slippery sound of Riot – a big part of its appeal to me – Fresh was clean and sharp, with Sly’s programming of the Rhythm Ace drum machine – and his instructions to drummer Andy Newmark how to dance around it – giving it a distinctive sound. 

I got on the phone to my friend: “Why,” I asked incredulously, “is Fresh not in the canon?” He thought for a second. “Jeremy, I don’t know…maybe it’s just TOO funky.” That tracks, I thought. Even the Doris Day cover was so deep in the pocket, it was under the lint.

Then, a year or two later, a used vinyl copy of Small Talk arrived, another gift from the same friend. “What now?” I thought, “Surely, there can’t be another great lost Sly album.” But there was. After a few listens, during which I delighted in the grooves and lyrics, I didn’t even have to make a phone call to figure out where this one had foundered in the court of public opinion. It was just too PERSONAL. The color line in music dictated that white artists could be revealing and granted the title “singer-songwriter” yet Black artists, even those who were arguably singer-songwriters (not to mention producers, engineers, arrangers, and multi-instrumentalists, like Sly), should be confined to mostly singing about generalities so a good time was guaranteed for all. 

But right from the start, with the cover photo by Norman Seeff of Sly, his soon-to-be-wife Kathy Silva, and their child, Sylvester, Jr., Small Talk welcomed us into Sly’s world. Flip the jacket and the theme continues. As Sly noted in his memoir, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (Auwa Books, 2023), “The back cover of Small Talk showed me in bed, just waking up or just going to sleep, hanging in the middle between the two, and also hanging in the middle of the bed. That was my spot, where I felt comfortable. You can say tranquil or you can say tranquilized.”

The welcoming vibe extends to the title track, which opens the album with Sylvester, Jr. fussing as a groove assembles in the studio, fragments making up a whole: a nagging bass riff, guitar sketches, organ swirls, a few drum hits. Sly’s singing seems spontaneous, arising among the chatter and laughter as Kathy Silva tries to soothe the baby. As the song starts to fade, Sly sings, “Don’t let him cry/Small talk/Don’t let him cry/Don’t let that boy cry…” It’s a moment any parent can relate to, especially those who like to make up little songs throughout the day and sing them to their kids. 

So, a family affair of a different sort: Sly even generously gave Silva a co-write on the song. Perhaps people weren’t ready to hear the man who took them higher at Woodstock as a husband and father. But two years later, the world celebrated as Stevie Wonder bathed his daughter during “Isn’t She Lovely,” incorporating her coos and babble into the song.

Beginning with a trademark organ intro, somewhere between a nursery rhyme and a jingle, “Say You Will” blends the public and the personal, launching in with an energized “Give a damn y’all.” Sly was a great sloganeer so this song is connected to his other calls to action (“You Can Make It If You Try,” etc.), but also includes issues closer to home: “Wooden nickel won’t pay my bills/Chip on the shoulder not good for Syl.” Money worries were in the background, especially when it came time to pay for the after-party for his onstage wedding at Madison Square Garden. In the memoir, he suggests that he may have turned in the tapes for Small Talk early to get Epic to free up some cash to fund the festivities. 

The sonics of “Say You Will,” also show Sly at the top of his game, with a classic Cynthia Robinson trumpet obbligato and the wise addition of Sid Page (ex-Dan Hicks And His Hot Licks), whose violin adds some new swoops and swirls to the mix. The liquid bass line was likely Sly himself, reminiscent of one of Riot’s signature sounds. “Mother Beautiful” is also sweetened by Page’s strings and Sly’s warm, powerful vocals were straight out of The Church Of God In Christ, who released his first performance in 1956 as part of The Stewart Four. The song delivers “a simple message: listen to Mother, whether it’s Mother Earth or the mother of your children or the mother who sits in the crowd and tells the world she’s proud of you.” Amen. 

Little Sister, the vocal group led by Sly’s sister, Vet Stewart, and for whom he had produced two hit singles, really shines on “Time for Livin’,” which was the first single from Small Talk. How their voices integrate with and empower Sly’s voice is almost subliminal, their unity perfectly expressing what he calls “a song about coming together to put away fear.” The contrast between the stolid chorus and the galloping verse is pure genius, as is how Sly turns the word “time” into a rhythmic hook as the song heads toward the fade with Page’s violin jamming hard. 

AUDIO: Funkadelic “Can’t Stand the Strain”

Side One ends with “Can’t Strain My Brain,” the title of which was inspired by Funkadelic’s “Can’t Stand The Strain.” Sly describes it as coming “clean about worry and anxiety. The lyrics weren’t abstract. They were concrete enough to weigh me down…” Case in point: “Can’t strain my brain/I know how it feels to worry all the time/Can’t take the pain/I know how it feels to hurry for just a dime.” Sly being Sly, however, the slow, draggy song is lightened by another nursery rhyme melody on the bridge: “This pleasure was made for us to see/That we’re gonna have to be free.” Other pleasures come from the twin saxophones of founding member Jerry Martini and new guy Pat Rizzo. In the book for the Higher box set, Rizzo notes: “That was funk and jazz mixed together. Sly gave me a pretty wide gate, because some of the horn lines were pretty jazzy.”

“Loose Booty” – another title inspired by Funkadelic – kicks off Side Two in furious fashion, with exuberant shrieks from Rose Stone and an even more baffling vocal hook than in “Time For Livin’,” with Sly spitting out “Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego.” The Beastie Boys memorably grabbed that opening sequence for “Shadrach” on Paul’s Boutique, where I unknowingly had my first taste of Small Talk. But the Old Testament names were more than just a hook, as Sly notes in Thank You: “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were figures of resistance. Louis Armstrong had a song about them. Martin Luther King, Jr., mentioned them when he wrote from the Birmingham Jail. I didn’t retell the whole story but I wanted a taste of it in there. Music could help you resist everyday problems. Music could keep you out of the fire.”

The rest of the lyrics for “Loose Booty” are a prescription to “let it all hang out” so you can “leave the blue behind,” but the true message is in the groove driven by the drums of Bill Lordan, another new member of the Family. In the Higher book, Lordan says, “Sly told me to play ‘sloppy tight and raggedy clean,’ which meant keep the feel loose but the timing tight. ‘Loose Booty’ was the best dance/funk I recorded with Sly.”

VIDEO: Beastie Boys “Shadrach”

I’m not going to argue with Lordan, but the next song may have an even more stellar performance from the drummer. “Holdin’ On” starts with a knife-like, clavinet-driven rhythm, over which you hear Sly say, “Gonna punch in,” one of those “live in the studio” moments nerds like me live for. Then everything explodes, horns, violin, voices, but especially the drums, with Lordan doing virtuoso shit on the cymbals, drawing on his prog-rock past. Sometimes that’s all I listen to in the song, the way he hits three – sometimes four – cymbals in sequence to underline Sly’s “Holdin’ on!” The lyrics are telegraphic, more about deepening the rhythm than anything else, interacting with the weave of clavinet, Rusty Allen’s bass, and the horns as Page soars overhead. One key phrase stands out: “I’m a soldier,” Sly repeats, ever on the march against all that would keep him down and with another Lordan cymbal crash for emphasis.

“Wishful Thinkin’,” a spare ballad with some wonderful jazz guitar from Freddie Stone, brings the mood to a calm reflective space and gives Sly a chance to put forth some uplifting and wise observations. Whether he’s singing about himself or people he knew back at Vallejo High, the first verse rings true: “Wishful’ thinkin’ kind of led the class/Your high school was a gas/But don’t let it be the end of you.” Sly’s singing finds him at his eccentric, wayward best, delivering comic relief at one point by descending to his lowest register to declare: “You got that right!”

Studio chatter opens “Better Thee Than Me,” with Page warming up before Little Sister starts testifying. The mid-tempo track has a bit of everything: horns, strings, organ, and passionate vocals from Sly, without completely adding up to a complete thought. “Livin’ While I’m Livin’” also seems to come out of a jam session, a final burst of energy in somewhat chaotic form. After two sketchy songs (frankly par for the course on most of his albums), Sly brings Small Talk home with a brief burst of sheer doo-wop beauty. “Turn the strings up,” he says during the piano intro before the increasingly rapturous group vocals lead the song through its sweet verses. It’s over far too soon and could be seen as the bittersweet sound of Sly’s career coming full circle. Where would he go next?

One place was the road, taking this version of the Family Stone on tour, but it was a fraught time that led to the band’s breakup. “After those gigs,” Sly says in Thank You, “there were crossed wires, pointed fingers. No one could agree on anything except that we couldn’t agree on anything. When people flew back west, it really felt like they were leaving.”

While some of the musicians appeared on the next album, 1975’s High On You, another dose of them at full power can be found on Wings Of Love, the 1976 album by The Temptations that features Sly, Rusty, Freddie, and Pat on three songs: “Sweet Gypsy Jane,” “China Doll,” and “Up The Creek (Without A Paddle,” which Sly co-wrote. It’s a classic track, with a burbling undercurrent, drummer Ollie Brown doing his take on “sloppy tight and raggedy clean,” and singer Dennis Edwards channeling Sly. It just missed the top 20 on Billboard’s Soul chart.

The financial troubles around the time of Small Talk may be why Sly burned the candle at both ends with session work. Aside from The Temptations, he played on “You Can Fly,” a reasonably funky REO Speedwagon song marred by Mike Murphy’s execrable vocals. His keyboard work on Elvin Bishop’s “Ground Hog,” included on 1974’s Let It Flow, fared better, contributing to a fat slab of southern rock. Between recording Small Talk, live shows, television appearances, and his work as a gun for hire, not to mention the pressures of fatherhood and an increasingly burdensome drug habit, it’s no wonder that Sly’s music and life grew more frazzled. Even so, there were many more fine moments to come.

But I’ll wait until next year to propose the rehabilitation of High On You. Until then, I only ask that you revisit Small Talk with new ears, hearing it for the wonderfully funky, beautifully soulful, and deeply personal work that it is. It’s about time we let the final album by Sly and The Family Stone out of jail.

Opening quote from Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (Auwa Books, 2023). Other quotes from Sly and the Family Stone: Higher (Epic Legacy, 2013)

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Jeremy Shatan

Jeremy Shatan is a dad, music obsessive, and NYC dweller, working to enable the best health care at Mount Sinai Health System. He’s also a contributing writer for RockandRollGlobe.com. Follow him on Twitter@anearful.

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