Sly & The Family Stone had climbed the mountain, but by July 1974 they were beginning their descent. Drugs, not appearing for concerts, and tensions within the group formed the background for the recording of Small Talk<\/i>. While the album had some credible material and ended up being a commercial success, the creativity of Stand <\/i>and There\u2019s A Riot Goin\u2019 On <\/i>had unfortunately departed. <\/p>\n
The group was now not alone in the funk field. Hundreds of acts had taken Sly\u2019s legacy and run with it. Artists such as Earth, Wind & Fire, George Clinton, Graham Central Station, Mandrill, and even the godfather of soul, James Brown, had superseded Sly\u2019s sound. Groups such as The Ohio Players had taken the rhythms and controversial messages and modernized them, which essentially made Sly obsolete.<\/p>\n
Small Talk <\/i>found Sly Stone putting everything on cruise control. There was not much innovation, nor was there anything particularly terrible. Bassist Larry Graham and drummer Greg Errico had both departed the group, and Sly compensated by moving a number of tracks in a soul direction. <\/p>\n
\u201cSmall Talk,\u201d while not a ballad, is a gentle and idealistic song of family. The album cover shows a happy and domesticated Sly holding his child. Nice track, but it rings hollow now, as a quick divorce would follow. Likewise, \u201cMother Beautiful\u201d was a heartfelt ode to Sly\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
The best track here is \u201cLoose Booty,\u201d as it is the one true funk song on the album. Sly cranks up the brass and the song just gets into a hand-clapping party groove. <\/p>\n
On the other hand, \u201cSay You Will,\u201d \u201cHoldin\u2019 On,\u201d and \u201cWishful Thinkin\u2019\u201d are decent, but more was expected from Sly at the time. But \u201cCan\u2019t Strain My Brain,\u201d with its use of strings, and the almost silly doo-wop style cut \u201cThis Is Love\u201d are less than decent. <\/p>\n
In the final analysis, Small Talk <\/i>has a few classic moments but not enough to raise it above mediocrity. If you would like to invest some time with Sly & The Family Stone, this is not a place to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":30422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7975],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-42085","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sly-the-family-stone","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42085"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42085"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}