Various
Sly & The Family Stone: Different Strokes By Different Folks (Sony Legacy)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in The Boston Globe, February 10, 2006

Sly and the Family Stone’s “Dance To The Music” was devastatingly simple: a moment-by-moment status check on the instruments, the title exhortation, and you’re moving. Contrast that with Black Eyed Pea will.i.am’s version, where he demands “Get your ass on the floor ’cause I said so” and then follows it up with unfettered braggadocio, and the power of what Stone accomplished nearly 40 years ago becomes all the more clear. Different Strokes By Different Folks takes on a variety of different approaches, from covers to remixes to what are effectively new songs built on samples of Sly tunes. The latter largely fail; Nappy Roots and Martin Luther’s “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey” fails to recognize that the original didn’t need a lengthy rap to be plenty articulate. The covers fare better, with “Family Affair” by John Legend, Joss Stone and Van Hunt coming off like a cross between Al Green, Parliament and Prince, while Steven Tyler and Robert Randolph nail an appropriately churchified “(I Want To Take You) Higher.” Moby pulls off a nifty “Love City” remix, with the Family Stone’s vocals flitting in and out over a skittery drumbeat, but it’s “You Can Make It If You Try” that’s the most perplexing, as Buddy Guy and John Mayer sing and play guitar over the original. Get rid of Guy and Mayer and it’d be perfect.

Back to reviews