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Comment by harry8 | Hacker News Reader

One story I heard of his influence was that Stevie Wonder did a guest spot in a Sly & the Family Stone gig and could feel the energy of the whole place, heaving.

Took that feeling and with a new record deal giving him creative control did Superstition, Higher Ground and all those classics.

It's hard to be cynical enough about rock history you see on tv, but it's at least plausible that one genius can inspire another, thinking of a Haydn & Mozart kind of thing.

"If You Want Me to Stay" probably my favourite Sly Stone track.

I never got around to listening to his stuff with Funkadelic, maybe today is that day.

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Stevie Nicks wrote Dreams hiding in Sly Stone's basement den.

He led the first popular racially integrated rock band and is among the 3 biggest stars in funk.

The best funk band: early Earth, Wind and Fire (before 1976 when they lost themselves into disco). Their funk was harmonically rich and rhythmically complex: A blend of jazz, soul, funk and R&B. Listen to their live double record Gratitude (1975).

Never been a big funk fan until the unreleased demo instrumentals of midnight express got released on People’s Potential United (check out their catalog if you havent): https://ppudc.bandcamp.com/album/the-midnight-express-show-b...

Also some demo’s by Prince are amazing.

Not sure, but the rawness just breathes life and blows most studio stuff out of the water.

[Edit] bonus end game track: https://youtu.be/dQN3fxoIOpk (thank you Gilles Peterson)

Midnight Express sounds like machine programmed.

The real thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pA2tXOjDto&list=PLxh03o1BpV...

Funkadelic, though.

Put a glide in your stride and a dip in your hip, and come on to the mothership :)

I'd call it James Brown, then Sly. I actually prefer Sly's stuff but you can't really deny the star power of James Brown.

Out of JB, Sly, and George Clinton, Sly's my man.

Not arguing.

Their performances were certainly lively. By the time this one ends, half the audience is dancing on stage with them: https://youtu.be/4URogrXiKsI

And Sly gave several of them a hand to climb up on the stage!

Great story. Thanks. As a musician, it's nice to validate that "feeling" a crowd's energy is very real, even someone with out vision can feel it.

I was listening to an interview of Alan Parsons and when they were talking about 1973’s Dark Side of the Moon, he mentioned that it was not nominated for the album Grammy and that Stevie Wonder won.

So I listened to Wonder’s Inner Visions and it was clear why it won. It is a much better album. It is a pity Inner Visions is largely forgotten.

Innervisions is hardly a forgotten record. To claim its better than Dark Side of the Moon is totally subjective and I would argue that its not. Dark Side works as an album while Innervisions feels like a collection of songs. Also, "Visions" as the second song, just sucks the energy out of a listen. They should have tacked that tune onto the end.

Oh no. No way.

Will never, ever be forgotten due to neglect.

Came right in the middle of arguably the greatest song-writing streak ever heard.

(random google hit about it, bound to be plenty of others others) https://firebirdmagazine.com/lists/steviewonder

I love Dark Side, it's great. Stevie on that form was something else and isn't going to be forgotten for a century or two at the minimum as long as civilisation survives to remember one of its high points. Maybe Sylvester Stewart had an influence in it too.

That's a really good take. I wholeheartedly agree that Inner Visions was a "much better" album than Dark Side of the Moon. It's a real pity one is largely forgotten and the other is not, and I wonder why that might be.

Not forgotten at all!

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