Rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particularly in the United Kingdom and in the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style which drew on the genres of blues and blues, from country music. Rock music drew on a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. Musically, rock has centered on the electric guitar as part of a rock group with electric bass and one or more singers. Rock is song-based music with a 4/4 time signature using a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become diverse. Like pop music, lyrics stress romantic love but address a wide variety of other themes that are social or political. By the late 1960s "classic rock" period, a number of distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, southern rock, raga rock, jazz-rock, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock, influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene.
New genres that emerged included progressive rock. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave, post-punk and alternative rock. From the 1990s alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge and indie rock. Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop punk, electronic rock, rap rock, rap metal, as well as conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/post-punk and techno-pop revivals at the beginning of the 2000s. Rock music has embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the hippie counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US in the 1960s. 1970s punk culture spawned the goth and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race and drug use, is seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity.
The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists; the sound of an electric guitar in rock music is supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered in jazz music in the same era, percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ, the synthesizer; the basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed as a rock group. Furthermore, it consists of between three and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist and keyboard player or other instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four.
Melodies originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian, as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s and from the mid 1960s onwards, rock music used the verse-chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock; because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition." Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, rebellion against "The Establishment", social concerns, life styles. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music, rhythm and blues.
Music journalist Robert Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more noise." The predominance of white and middle class musicians in rock music has been noted, rock has been seen as an appropriation of black musical forms for a young and male audience. As a result, it has been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from wh
There's a Riot Goin' On
There's a Riot Goin' On is the fifth studio album by American funk and psychedelic soul band Sly and the Family Stone. It was recorded from 1970 to 1971 at Record Plant Studios in Sausalito and released that year on November 20 by Epic Records; the album's recording was dominated by band frontman Sly Stone during a period of drug use and intra-group tension. Its music embraced a darker and more challenging sound than the optimistic style of the band's previous releases, making use of hard funk rhythms, primitive drum machines, extensive overdubbing, unconventional mixing techniques; the album's planned title was Africa Talks to You, but it was retitled in response to Marvin Gaye's album What's Going On, released six months before. There's a Riot Goin' On reached the Billboard Pop Album and Soul Album charts at number one upon its release, while its lead single "Family Affair" topped the Pop Singles chart. By 2001, it had sold one million copies and been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Received with ambivalence upon its release, the album is now praised as one of the greatest and most influential recordings of all time, ranked at or near the top of many publications' best album lists. In 2003, it was ranked number 99 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Having achieved great success with their 1969 album Stand! and performance at Woodstock, Sly & the Family Stone were due to have submitted an album of new recordings to Epic Records by 1970. However, Sly Stone missed several recording deadlines, worrying CBS executive Clive Davis, a Greatest Hits album was released in an eighteen-month stretch during which the band released no new material, except for the single Thank You. Relationships within the band were deteriorating, with friction between the Stone brothers and bassist Larry Graham. Epic executives requested more product, the Black Panther Party, with which Stone had become associated, was demanding he make his music more militant and reflective of the black power movement, that he replace drummer Greg Errico and saxophonist Jerry Martini with black instrumentalists, replace manager David Kapralik.
After moving to Los Angeles, California in late 1969 Stone and his bandmates began to use cocaine and PCP rather than recording music. During this time Sly & the Family Stone released only one single, "Thank You" / "Everybody Is a Star", issued in December 1969. Although "Star" was a positive song in the vein of their previous hit "Everyday People", "Thank You" featured a darker political theme. By 1970, Stone had become missing nearly a third of the band's concert dates, he hired streetwise friends Hamp "Bubba" Banks and J. B. Brown as his personal managers, these enlisted gangsters Edward "Eddie Chin" Elliott and Mafioso J. R. Valtrano as his bodyguards. Stone assigned these individuals to handle his business dealings, find drugs and protect him from those he considered enemies, among them his own bandmates and staff. A rift developed between Sly and the rest of the band, which led to drummer Gregg Errico's departure in early 1971. Speculation arose as to the release of new studio material. In a December 24, 1970 article for Rolling Stone magazine, journalist Jon Landau wrote.
His last album of new material was released well over a year ago and even'Thank You', his last single, is old by now. Greatest Hits was released only as a last resort in order to get something salable into the record stores, it was a necessary release and stands as the final record of the first chapter in Sly & the Family Stone's career. Whatever the reasons for his recording abstinence, I hope it ends soon so that he can get back to making new music and we can get back to listening to it." Stone's intention of a darker, more conceptual work was influenced by drug use and the events that writer Miles Marshall Lewis called "the death of the sixties". According to The Austin Chronicle, "slowed down, quest for post-stardom identity mirrored black America's quest for post-Sixties purpose." Sly Stone worked on There's a Riot Goin' On alone in a studio that he had built for himself at The Plant Studios known as The Record Plant, in Sausalito, California, or at his home studio in the loft of his Bel Air mansion.
He would lie down in the bed and record his vocals with a wireless microphone system. According to the other Family Stone members, most of the album was performed by him alone and sometimes using a drum machine. Other band members contributed by overdubbing alone with Sly instead of playing together as before. For "Family Affair" and some other selections Stone enlisted several other musicians including Billy Preston, Ike Turner, Bobby Womack instead of his bandmates, several female vocalists omitted from the final mix; the album's muddy, gritty sound was due in part to this overdubbing and erasing and mixing techniques nearly drowned out undubbed sounds. Miles Marshall Lewis stated "Never before on a Sly and the Family Stone album were songs open to so much interpretation, more so, dripping with cynicism. On the other hand you can hardly hear. Like Radiohead's Kid A or the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. more recent to the time, a murkiness in the mix of the record inhibits complete comprehension of the words."
Stone felt that the rhythm box made unrealistic sounds if used as designed, so he resorted to overdubbing the drum sounds manually, again contributing to the difficult mix. In the fall of 1971 Stone delivered the final mixe
Ticknor and Fields
Ticknor and Fields was an American publishing company based in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1832 William Davis Ticknor and John Allen began a small bookselling business which operated out of the Old Corner Bookstore located on Washington and School streets in Boston, Massachusetts; the space had been used by publishers Carter & Hendee, who hired a teenaged James Thomas Fields as an apprentice. When Ticknor and Allen began their business, Fields joined them. A year Allen withdrew from the firm, Ticknor continued business under William D. Ticknor and Company; when John Reed and Fields became partners in 1845, the imprint was changed to Ticknor and Fields. Reed retired in 1854 and the imprint was renamed as Ticknor and Fields, which became well known. During these years the firm purchased and printed the Atlantic Monthly and the North American Review. In 1842 Ticknor became the first American publisher to pay foreign writers for their works, beginning with a check to Alfred Tennyson; these were prosperous years for the firm, they compiled an impressive list of authors, Horatio Alger, Lydia Maria Child, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alfred Tennyson, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, John Greenleaf Whittier.
The Old Corner Bookstore had become the publishing meeting place for these authors. Many writers visited many times a week; the success of the firm was in part to the matched but varied talents of Ticknor and Fields. Ticknor gave his attention to the financial and manufacturing departments while Fields focused on literary relations and social aspects of the business, it was during these years that Ticknor and Fields developed a close relationship with the Riverside Press, founded by Henry Oscar Houghton in 1852. In the spring of 1864, Ticknor accompanied Nathaniel Hawthorne on a trip to restore the author's health, at the urging of his wife Sophia Hawthorne. During the trip, Ticknor became ill with pneumonia. Hawthorne wrote to Fields that "our friend Ticknor is suffering under a billious attack... He had seemed uncomfortable, but not to an alarming degree." Ticknor died on the morning of April 10, 1864. Upon Ticknor's sudden and unexpected death, interests in the firm were carried on by his son Howard M. Ticknor.
During these years the business had outgrown the Old Corner Bookstore and Fields, now in charge of the company, was no longer interested in the retail store. He sold the Old Corner Bookstore on November 12, 1864, moved the publishing house to 124 Tremont Street; the firm began to publish Our Young Folks edited by Howard M. Ticknor; the younger Ticknor soon retired and, in 1868, the firm was reorganized as Fields, Osgood, & Co. Benjamin Holt Ticknor, son of William Davis Ticknor, was admitted at a partner in 1870. On New Year's Day, 1871, Fields announced his retirement from the business at a small gathering of friends, intending to focus on his own writing. On January 2, 1871, the remaining partners bought out Fields's share of the company for $120,000 and it was renamed James R. Osgood & Co. Osgood, who considered Fields a mentor, attracted substantial new talent and published new works by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Bret Harte, William Dean Howells, Henry James, Sarah Orne Jewett, Lucy Larcom, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Celia Thaxter, Charles Dudley Warner.
The firm invested in heliotype printing technology, various periodicals, established a New York office. Within a few years, the company was in financial difficulty and Osgood and B. H. Ticknor were forced to sell off various assets, including many stereotype plates. By December 1878, they were forced to merge with Hurd & Houghton and became Houghton, Co. Henry Oscar Houghton became a partner in the deal; the partnership would last until 1880, when Osgood left to form a second J. R. Company. Houghton's company, now Houghton, Co, retained the rights to the Tickner and Fields backlist; the second J. R. Osgood and Co. was taken over by Benjamin Holt Ticknor in 1885 under the name Ticknor and Company. Ticknor and Company operated until 1889 when it became part of Houghton, Co. In 1908 the name was changed to Houghton Mifflin Company. In 1979, Houghton Mifflin revived the Fields name as and imprint. Chester Kerr was the editor from its reestablishment to 1984. Fiske, John.. Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography, New York: D. Appleton and Company Ticknor, Caroline..
Hawthorne and His Publisher, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company - via the Internet Archive American National Biography Online, retrieved June 25, 2008 The LUCILE Project, retrieved June 25, 2008 Ticknor and Fields listing at Biblio.com Ticknor and Fields records, 1839-1881, Houghton Library, Harvard University
Soul music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community in the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African-American gospel music and blues and jazz. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States, where record labels such as Motown and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying". Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and an tense vocal sound; the style occasionally uses improvisational additions and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflected the African-American identity and it stressed the importance of an African-American culture.
The new-found African-American consciousness led to new styles of music, which boasted pride in being black. Soul music dominated the U. S. R&B chart in the 1960s, many recordings crossed over into the pop charts in the U. S. Britain and elsewhere. By 1968, the soul music genre had begun to splinter; some soul artists developed funk music, while other singers and groups developed slicker, more sophisticated, in some cases more politically conscious varieties. By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres, leading to psychedelic soul; the United States saw the development of neo soul around 1994. There are several other subgenres and offshoots of soul music; the key subgenres of soul include a rhythmic music influenced by gospel. Soul music has its roots in traditional African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues and as the hybridization of their respective religious and secular styles – in both lyrical content and instrumentation – that began in the 1950s.
The term "soul" had been used among African-American musicians to emphasize the feeling of being an African-American in the United States. According to musicologist Barry Hansen,Though this hybrid produced a clutch of hits in the R&B market in the early 1950s, only the most adventurous white fans felt its impact at the time. According to AllMusic, "oul music was the result of the urbanization and commercialization of rhythm and blues in the'60s." The phrase "soul music" itself, referring to gospel-style music with secular lyrics, was first attested in 1961. The term "soul" in African-American parlance has connotations of African-American culture. Gospel groups in the 1940s and'50s used the term as part of their names; the jazz style that originated from gospel became known as soul jazz. As singers and arrangers began using techniques from both gospel and soul jazz in African-American popular music during the 1960s, soul music functioned as an umbrella term for the African-American popular music at the time.
Important innovators whose recordings in the 1950s contributed to the emergence of soul music included Clyde McPhatter, Hank Ballard, Etta James. Ray Charles is cited as popularizing the soul music genre with his series of hits, starting with 1954's "I Got a Woman". Singer Bobby Womack said, "Ray was the genius, he turned the world onto soul music." Charles was open in acknowledging the influence of Pilgrim Travelers vocalist Jesse Whitaker on his singing style. Little Richard, who inspired Otis Redding, James Brown both were influential. Brown was nicknamed the "Godfather of Soul Music", Richard proclaimed himself as the "King of Rockin' and Rollin', Rhythm and Blues Soulin'", because his music embodied elements of all three, since he inspired artists in all three genres. Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson are acknowledged as soul forefathers. Cooke became popular as the lead singer of the gospel group The Soul Stirrers, before controversially moving into secular music, his recording of "You Send Me" in 1957 launched a successful pop music career.
Furthermore, his 1962 recording of "Bring It On Home To Me" has been described as "perhaps the first record to define the soul experience". Jackie Wilson, a contemporary of both Cooke and James Brown achieved crossover success with his 1957 hit "Reet Petite", he was influential for his dramatic delivery and performances. Writer Peter Guralnick is among those to identify Solomon Burke as a key figure in the emergence of soul music, Atlantic Records as the key record label. Burke's early 1960s songs, including "Cry to Me", "Just Out of Reach" and "Down in the Valley" are considered classics of the genre. Guralnick wrote: "Soul started, in a sense, with the 1961 success of Solomon Burke's "Just Out Of Reach". Ray Charles, of course, had enjoyed enormous success, as had James Brown and Sam Cooke — in a pop vein. E
Fresh (Sly and the Family Stone album)
Fresh is the sixth album by American funk band Sly and the Family Stone, released by Epic/CBS Records on June 30, 1973. Written and produced by Sly Stone over two years, Fresh has been described as a lighter and more accessible take on the dense, drum machine-driven sound of its landmark 1971 predecessor There's a Riot Goin' On, it was the band's final album to reach the US Top 10. In 2003, the album was ranked number 186 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time; the album's biggest hit was "If You Want Me to Stay". Other notable tracks include "Frisky" and "Que Sera, Sera", a cover of Doris Day's Academy Award-winning song from Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 film The Man Who Knew Too Much, sung here by Rose Stone. "Que Sera, Sera" is notable as the only cover song issued on an original Family Stone album. The cover photo is by Richard Avedon; the track "If It Were Left Up to Me" an outtake from 1968's Life. As with There's a Riot Goin' On, Stone held on to the Fresh masters well beyond the record's official release remixing and re-recording the tracks.
As a result and different versions of at least ten songs from the album are known to exist. In 1991, Sony Music, by owner of the Epic catalog, accidentally issued a sequencing of Fresh on CD featuring alternate takes of every song except "In Time", which remained unchanged. Sony allowed the alternate version to remain in stores to be bought up by fans and later issued the standard 1973 version of the album. However, the mix-up sparked debate among fans; when Sony BMG reissued Fresh in CD and digital download formats for Sly & the Family Stone's 40th anniversary, five alternate mixes were included as bonus tracks. These tracks are similar, if not identical, to the alternate, accidental 1991 release; the alternate version is known to be accessible in Japan, while it is scarce in the U. S. Jazz legend Miles Davis was so impressed by the song "In Time" from the album that he made his band listen to the track for a full 30 minutes. Composer and music theorist Brian Eno cited Fresh as having heralded a shift in the history of recording, "where the rhythm instruments the bass drum and bass the important instruments in the mix."George Clinton, who has listed Fresh as one of his favorite albums convinced the Red Hot Chili Peppers to cover "If You Want Me to Stay" on their second 1985 album, the Clinton-produced Freaky Styley.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 186 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. All songs written and arranged by Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart, except where noted. Side one "In Time" – 5:48 "If You Want Me to Stay" – 3:01 "Let Me Have It All" – 2:56 "Frisky – 3:12 "Thankful N' Thoughtful" – 4:41Side two "Skin I'm In" – 2:55 "I Don't Know" – 3:51 "Keep on Dancin'" – 2:23 "Qué Será, Será" – 5:23 "If It Were Left Up to Me" – 1:56 "Babies Makin' Babies" – 3:38CD reissue bonus tracks "Let Me Have It All" – 2:19 "Frisky" – 3:27 "Skin I'm In" – 2:48 "Keep On Dancin'" – 2:44 "Babies Makin' Babies" – 4:20 Sly Stone – vocals, guitar, bass guitar, piano and more Freddie Stone – vocals, guitar Rose Stone – vocals, keyboard Cynthia Robinson – trumpet Jerry Martini – saxophone Pat Rizzo – saxophone Rusty Allen – bass guitar on "In Time", "Let Me Have it All", "Keep on Dancin'" Larry Graham – bass guitar on "Que Sera, Sera" and "If It Were Left Up to Me" Andy Newmark – drums Little Sister – vocals List of number-one R&B albums of 1973 Sly and the Family Stone - Fresh album review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, credits & releases on AllMusic Sly and the Family Stone - Fresh album releases & credits on Discogs.com Sly and the Family Stone - Fresh album to be listened as stream on Spotify.com
Dance to the Music (song)
"Dance to the Music" is a 1967 hit single by soul/funk/rock band Sly and the Family Stone for the Epic/CBS Records label. It was the first single by the band to reach the Billboard Pop Singles Top 10, peaking at #8 and the first to popularize the band's sound, which would be emulated throughout the black music industry and dubbed "psychedelic soul", it was ranked #223 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. None of the band members liked "Dance to the Music" when it was first recorded and released; the song, the accompanying Dance to the Music LP, were made at the insistence of CBS Records executive Clive Davis, who wanted something more commercially viable than the band's 1967 LP, A Whole New Thing. Bandleader Sly Stone crafted a formula, blending the band's distinct psychedelic rock leanings with a more pop-friendly sound; the result was what saxophonist Jerry Martini called "glorified Motown beats.'Dance to the Music' was such an unhip thing for us to do." However, "Dance to the Music" did what it was supposed to do: it launched Sly and the Family Stone into the pop consciousness.
Toned down for pop audiences, the band's radical sound caught many music fans and fellow recording artists off guard. "Dance to the Music" featured four co-lead singers, black musicians and white musicians in the same band, a distinct blend of instrumental sounds: rock guitar riffs from Sly's brother Freddie Stone, a funk bassline from Larry Graham, Greg Errico's syncopated drum track, Sly's gospel-styled organ playing, Jerry Martini and Cynthia Robinson on the horns. An unabashed party record, "Dance to the Music" opens with Robinson screaming to the audience, demanding that they "get on up...and dance to the music!" before the Stone brothers and Graham break into an a cappella scat before the song's verses begin. The actual lyrics of the song are self-referential; the song serves as a Family Stone theme song of sorts, introducing Errico and Martini by name. After calling on Robinson and Martini for their solo, Sly tells the audience that "Cynthia an' Jerry got a message that says...", which Robinson finishes: "All the squares go home!"
The Stone Brothers and Graham repeat the a cappella portion before the refrain of the repeated title is mentioned over and over with the sound of the instruments dropping out, except for the electric guitar, being played in the upper register, before the song's fade. The song mentions the line: "Ride, Ride", a lyric from the Wilson Pickett hit song "Mustang Sally". "Dance to the Music" was one of the most influential songs of the late-1960s. The Sly and the Family Stone sound became the dominating sound in African-American pop music for the next three years, many established artists, such as The Temptations and their producer Norman Whitfield, Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Impressions, The Four Tops, The 5th Dimension, War began turning out Family Stone-esque material; the Temptations' single "Cloud Nine" was inspired by "Dance to the Music" and was a top ten hit, winning a Grammy Award. "Dance to the Music" and the Family Stone singles helped lead to the development of funk music. In 1968, Sly and the Family Stone released an alternate version of "Dance to the Music" as a novelty single, under the guise The French Fries.
This recording was a French language version called "Danse à la Musique", with the group's vocals sped-up in a style similar to that of The Chipmunks. In the song "Thank You", the title is mentioned in the third verse, along with "Everyday People". Sly and the Family Stone performed a medley of "Dance to the Music" and "I Want to Take You Higher" on Soul Train on June 29, 1974. In 1980, famous Belgian electro-pop band Telex covered "Dance to the Music" for their second album, Neurovision, it is sampled by The KLF on their 1988 single "Burn the Bastards", where they chant "Jams have a party" instead of "Dance to the Music". It was performed on stage in HBO's 1981 television special The Pee-wee Herman Show; the song was covered by the Simple Minds as part of the medley "Love Song/Sun City/Dance to the Music" on their live album Live in the City of Light. "Dance for Me", a song on Queen Latifah's 1989 debut album All Hail the Queen samples "Dance to the Music". In 1998, "Dance to the Music" was admitted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The song is one of many covers the accordion-based comedy rock band Those Darn Accordions have performed at live shows. Billy Joel covered the song and it is featured on his live album 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert. In 2001, the DVD for the animated film Shrek added "Dance to the Music" to the additional segment "Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party", alongside other classic songs such as "YMCA", "Like a Virgin" and "Baby Got Back"; the song was covered by Martin Lawrence in the film Black Knight. The song was featured in the 2008 Will Ferrell sports comedy Semi-Pro; the cast of the TV show Smash performed this song in the episode "The Coup". Sly Stone: vocals, Hammond organ Freddie Stone: vocals, guitar Larry Graham: vocals, bass guitar Cynthia Robinson: trumpet, vocal ad-libs Jerry Martini: saxophone Greg Errico: drums Written and produced by Sly Stone Selvin, Joel. For the Record: Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History. New York: Quill Publishing. ISBN 0-380-79377-6
Andy Newmark
Andrew Newmark is an American session drummer, a member of Sly and the Family Stone and has played with John Lennon, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Roxy Music. Andrew Newmark was born on July 14, 1950, in Port Chester, New York, raised in the nearby suburb of Mamaroneck, his mother was Bermudian and his father, Charles W. Newmark, was an Assistant District Attorney from 1938 to 1940 in New York City under District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey. Taking up the drums at the age of nine, Newmark honed his craft and was taking paid gigs at age 15. Visiting his mother's native Bermuda throughout his youth, Newmark made the decision to move there at the age of 16. Newmark played in a band that included guitarist Paul Muggleton. One of his first gigs was recording with Carly Simon on her albums No Secrets; these and other sessions segued into a more permanent role as a member of the funk band Sly and the Family Stone from 1972 to 1973. Hired to replace Gerry Gibson, who had replaced founding member Greg Errico, Newmark was invited to audition for Sly Stone by saxophonist Pat Rizzo.
Newmark went on to record one album, Fresh, as the Family Stone's drummer and performed with the band for two years in concert. After leaving Family Stone in 1974, Newmark returned to session work, playing drums on Gary Wright's 1975 album Dream Weaver, he continued performing on Carly Simon's solo albums into the 1990s. Newmark has performed and recorded with John Lennon, Cat Stevens, Joe Walsh, B. B. King, Eric Clapton, David Bowie, Roy Buchanan, Bryan Ferry, Dan Fogelberg, George Harrison, Rickie Lee Jones, Patrick Moraz, Randy Newman, Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Murray Head, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Roxy Music, ABC, Hue and Cry, Laura Nyro, Nicolette Larson, Elkie Brooks, Steve Winwood, Nils Lofgren, George Benson, Michael Franks. In 1980, Newmark was the drummer on John Lennon's last album, Double Fantasy, as well as Milk and Honey released in 1984, he was the featured drummer on Yoko Ono's Season of Glass in 1981. His connection with the Double Fantasy album was reprised in 2012 with his contributions to the Lennon Bermuda tribute album on several tracks, including those by Paul Carrack, Bryan Ferry, Nils Lofgren, Rocky and the Natives.
According to a 2006 Sound on Sound magazine interview with engineer Andy Jackson, Newmark played drums on David Gilmour's On an Island album. Newmark plays on several tracks on David Gilmour's 2015 solo album Rattle That Lock. Newmark uses Remo drum heads, Zildjian cymbals and Vic Firth drumsticks, his drum setup and cymbals vary with who he plays with, but favors a setup consisting of a bass drum, rack tom, snare drum, one or two floor toms. He plays a mix of Zildjian K cymbals. Drums: Yamaha recording custom series: 20"x16" bass drum 12"x10" rack tom 16"x15" floor tom 18"x16" floor tomCymbals: Zildjian: 13" A new beat hi-hats or 14" A new beat hi-hats 8" A splash 16" A rock crash or 17" A thin crash 18" A thin crash 20" A medium ride or 20" K ride or 20" K Constantinople rideDrumheads: Remo Yamaha variation of Remo drumheadsDrumsticks: Vic Firth: Vic Firth 5A drumsticks With Carly Simon Anticipation No Secrets Hotcakes Playing Possum Another Passenger This is My Life Letters Never Sent With Sly and the Family Stone Fresh With Ronnie Wood I've Got My Own Album to Do The First Barbarians: Live from Kilburn Now Look With David Bowie Young Americans With Gary Wright The Dream Weaver With George Benson In Concert-Carnegie Hall Good King Bad Benson & Farrell with Joe Farrell With Bob James Three With Patti Austin End of a Rainbow with Patrick Moraz The Story of I - side 2 with Hank Crawford Hank Crawford's Back With Urbie Green The Fox With Lalo Schifrin Black Widow With Joe Walsh You Can't Argue with a Sick Mind With John Martyn One World With Mark Farner No Frills With Dan Fogelberg Phoenix Exiles With Badfinger Airwaves With John Lennon Double Fantasy Milk and Honey With George Harrison Dark Horse Extra Texture George Harrison With David "Fathead" Newman Mr. Fathead With Roxy Music Flesh and Blood Avalon The High Road With ABC Beauty Stab With Pink Floyd The Final Cut With Roger Waters The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking With David Gilmour On an Island Columbia Records Rattle That Lock Columbia Records With Bryan Ferry Bête Noire Virgin Records Official website Andy Newmark interview.
Keef Trouble interviews Andy Newmark
