I'm Back! Family & Friends [CD]

This seems like this is just a ploy to exploit money out of old music. Taking [what sounds like] very processed/altered vocals (Sly is an old man now, it is hard to believe he has the same vocal range for 40+ years ago) and recreating classic, iconic songs? Additionally, the recent news about him, still an addict, he's physically very damaged, and living out of a car make it seem quite implausible that these vocals are genuine. The guy cannot talk, is totally fried and yet he sings like he did from 1969?!

In theory, it seems interesting to utilize Jeff Beck, Johnny Winter and Ann Wilson but in reality their proweness brings nothing to these songs. Sly & the Family Stone were not a jam band where the rethinking of instrumental solos gives a new dimension to the songs. Rather, they were a funk band, one of the best and certainly pioneering funk bands. They were a sum of their parts and not a band of individuals (how was Sly's solo career?).

The problem with this work is that although these re-working are very interesting and worthy of listening to...for curiosity, the originals are incompareably superior. If I want to listen to the song "Stand", I'm going, every single time, to the original.

The most interesting songs here are Johnny Winter's contribution to "Thank You" since his raw sound is quite recognizeable...and the guitar tones [for some reason] does bring an interesting angle to the tune and Bootsy Collins' always welcome assistance on "Hot FUn in the Summertime" (when it comes to funk, Bootsy can always bring a little something special). Taking The Door's Ray Manzarek's spacy, trippy organ and applying it to "Dance to the Music" is so bizarre and inconsistent to the vibe of that song that it can only be characterized as a totally sucky rendition.

Other than anybody deserving to try to make a living, what is the point of this record?

Oh my god Sly Stone has a real honest to goodness new cd out, called I'm Back. Well, it's not really honest, I don't think -- not an honest effort, anyway -- and little of it is very good.

I hadn't heard about I'm Back, but spotted it at a record store. It has an okay front cover but the back has the feel of a classic cheesy repackage, but you can't judge a book by its cover so I bought it and took a look at the track listing.

The first 7 tracks are songs from his Greatest Hits lp. Hmmm. The 8th track is an "extended mix" of the 1st. Uh-oh. 2 of next 3 are unfamiliar and the other is the gospel standard His Eye Is On The Sparrow. The last 3 are more remixes. Oh, no...

First up is Dance To The Music featuring Ray Manzarek. It's not even really a reinterpretation, which could have been great; it's just a faithful redo, but inferior in every way. When Sly recorded the original his arrangements were bursting with fresh ideas but after nearly 35 years to think about it he's come up with nothing? Did he even do the arrangement? The cd notes are mum. The biggest difference is that keyboards play what had been the horn parts. Ray Manzaek throws in the famous theme from Light My Fire, which may or may not be cute to you. The background vocals are fine, sounding like Sister Rose, Freddie, and Larry (although they're not). Sly introduces his organ as always (although he's not credited as actually playing it), but how much singing did he do on this, anyway? A few lines are unmistakenly his, although they're recorded in such a way that they're indistinct, but aside from that...? On top of which, the sound generally is distant and impersonal.

I admit that after a couple minutes of that I started skipping through the remake tracks and haven't gone back to listen -- so what can I say except maybe Stand! featuring Carmine Appice and I Want To Take You Higher featuring Jeff Beck and the rest are great?

Sly is not credited as having played on the remake tracks; aside from the guest cameos the instruments were all played by Jurgen Engler and Chris Lietz. Hadn't heard of them but Wikipedia tells me they're former members of the German industrial rock band Die Krupps.

The notes say where Sly's vocals and the guest overdubs and even the remixes were done but curiously don't do the same for the basic remake tracks. I don't know anything I didn't read in the cd notes but I have a feeling that Sly just ordered up some basic tracks from these guys in Germany for some reason (nothing against German guys; there's wonderful German funk by the likes of the Whitefield Brothers family of bands), sent copies to his guests so they could overdub their parts, and then added his vocals.

Sly is a fine songwriter, guitarist, and keyboard player; and easily one of the best arrangers of his day -- was he in the building when any but his vocal tracks were created?

As for the 3 tracks of "new" material - the notes imply that they were recorded in the late 80's. They're funky and fine, and reportedly there were others; if they were as good as these I'd much rather that they'd released them instead of the remakes, even if the sound isn't great (and it isn't).

And the remixes? They're not Sly's. (In his heyday Sly was notorious for his attention to mixes).

So, 7 tracks of inferior copycat greatest hits not played by Sly, some alternate remixes of same not made by Sly, and 3 good tracks from a cache of late 80's recordings. Sly is back?

I'm Back is on the Cleopatra label, a little LA label focused on Hard Rock, Goth, and Metal. Nothing wrong with that, but since there's nothing metallic about I'm Back aside from a few of the guests (there's also Bootsy Collins, I should mention) I am left to wonder: Huh?

Any rhyme or reason to any of this? There's just not a lot of evidence of an honest effort by Sly here, unless I'm missing something, and I hope that I am. If he's not interested, why'd he bother, and why should we? Or -- worse -- is this the best he can do now?

Hugely talented -- made some of the best and most creative records of his or any day. This is beyond disappointing.

The foundation of this collection, billed on the back of the CD cover as Sly's "First Full album of new recordings in more than 2 decades!", is a series of tracks which are known in the industry as "sound-alikes." For those who aren't familiar with the term, a sound-alike is a re-recording of a hit song, designed to imitate the original as closely as possible. The purpose of a sound-alike is to create a recording which can pass as the original recording of a popular song for new uses. These new recordings allow licensees to bypass the expensive licensing fees which the owners of hit recordings demand and are typically used in commercials or for background music in television or motion pictures. Normally, the original artist would not participate in a sound-alike, but in this case Sly did come in and re-record his vocal tracks.

Suffice to say that what you will hear on this recording is not a newly re-energized Sylvester Stewart going back into the studio to try to reinterpret his classic funk masterpieces with a modern twist. Rather, it is Sly in a vocal booth overdubbing his vocals to a track with session musicians and vocalists who sat down and learned to play the arrangements from the original recording note for note in an attempt to make recordings which could pass for the originals to untrained ears.

To try to add some creative merit to this collection, the producers took the sound-alike recordings (presumably created for licensing purposes just as much or more than for this CD release) and hired a number of well known musicians (including Ann Wilson, Johnny Winter, Bootsy Collins, etc.) to record overdubs which could be billed as special guest appearances on this "new" album by Sly. Those guest appearances along with the limitations of the studio session musicians and the equipment they used to try to imitate the original recordings are basically the only deviation from the originals arrangements in the first seven tracks on this CD.

Track 8, "Dance To the Music (Extended Mix)" is basically the live arrangement of "Dance to the Music" that Sly & The Family Stone often performed in the late 60's and early 70's with the song "Music Lover" integrated into the arrangement.

In addition to the re-recordings of classic Sly & The Family Stone songs, this collection also includes three previously unreleased songs that Sly recorded in 1988 and 1989. Yes indeed, the newest songs on this album of new recordings were written more than 20 years ago! These songs are an interesting listen for Sly collectors such as myself, but the recordings are of demo quality and come nowhere near the level of quality of Sly's past work. Sadly, it's not all that surprising that these songs haven't seen the light until now.

This collection is rounded out three "Bonus Mixes" which are semi-modern electronic dance remixes of the sound-alike recordings. I would think these are pretty much unbearable to listen to for any fans of Sly's original music.

Suffice to say, this collection is not successful in its attempt to clone the amazing, masterful, funky, soulful recordings that Sly, along with his Family Stone bandmates (Freddie, Larry, Greg, Rose, Cynthia and Jerry) created more than 40 years ago (an impossible task). I wouldn't say its an entirely uninspired re-creation. The session musicians did a decent job in their performances (though they really should have used real horn players on all of the songs), but ultimately what we get here is a pointless exercise of unnecessary wheel re-invention for the purpose of financial gains with a few rare demos thrown in; not a new creative effort from Mr. Stewart.

So long Sly, the party was fun while it lasted!