| 1. L O V I N U |
| 2. One Way |
| 3. Ha Ha Hee Hee |
| 4. Hobo Ken |
| 5. Who In The Funk Do You Think You Are |
| 6. You Really Got Me |
| 7. Sylvester |
| 8. We Can Do It |
| 9. High Yall |
Editorial Reviews
Product Description
UK reissue of the funk legend's 1983 album for WEA. Tracks include, ''One Way' and 'You Really Got Me'.
Starting off with the poppy bass and horn lines on L.O.V.I.N.U., Sly keeps the old Family Stone vibe together. The old school funk of the title track keeps it going. HA, HA, HEE, HEE, written by Pat Rizzo, who ended up replacing original member Jerry Martini, also has a nice old band vibe to it -- breezy and light, not dark and heavy.
HOBO KEN follows next, ostensibly a sort of a tribute to his last manager, Ken Roberts. "Hobo Ken, be your friend/If you let him" it goes over and over. The uptempo standout WHO IN THE FUNK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE tells us, "Remember facts are easy to find/If in the max/Is what you're trying to climb". Huh?
The zoned out version of the Kinks' YOU REALLY GOT ME doesn't work. The 44 second confessional SYLVESTER, however, works and might have been something more had Syl made it longer.
WE CAN DO IT sounds like a rote workout with horn charts galore that fail to cover up the lack of anything here. HIGH Y'ALL closes the album with a little play on S&FS' earlier hit I WANT TO TAKE YOU HIGHER and tries to capture some of the old spark. However it degenerates into the same canned generic funk that permeated the tune before.
Overall "Ain't But the Way" is an interesting view into Sly's final released recording, now about 25 years old, before he went off to a reclusive life of being an ex-rockstar living in the 90210 zip code.
Album credits include original members, his brother Freddie Stewart, Jerry Martini, Rose Banks, Cynthia Robinson and latter-day members, sax player Pat Rizzo and drummer Andy Newmark (a well-known LA session drummer later on), as well as scads of LA session players.
Sly we're still waiting for your follow up album!
By 1976, Sly's career was at an extremely low point. He hadn't had a significant commercial hit in years, he had lost his management, the original Family Stone was long gone, Sly's drug problems were apparently getting the best of him, and former bassist Larry Graham was putting Sly to shame (on record and in concert) with his more funky, pop, and upbeat version of the original Family Stone formula with his band Graham Central Station. In fact, Sly was struggling so much at this time that he actually toured (in support of his attempt at Philly International soul "Heard Ya Missed Me, Now I'm Back") as an opening act for the famous P-Funk Earth Tour in late 1976. It was a sad irony to see Sly opening for two bands (P-Funk and Bootsy's Rubber Band) that had been so inspired by HIM in the first place. At the end of tour, in fact, two of Sly's backup singers (one of which was his cousin) defected and joined P-Funk where they later recorded as The Brides of Funkenstein.
Sly dropped out of visibility, surfacing two years later in 1978 when he had left Epic and signed to Warner Brothers, and began working on his latest in a series of "comeback" LPs, "Back On the Right Track." Opinions are varied on the musical quality of this album (I think there are some great songs on there, but nothing resembling a chart hit) but commercially, it fared poorly. That must have hurt Sly after all the comeback hype. I don't think he even toured in support of the album. And I remember seeing Sly on the Mike Douglas show at this time. He was dispirited and so out of it on drugs that he could barely speak. Mike and the other guests just stared at him in disbelief.
He dropped out of sight again until around 1980, when word was that Sly was now in George Clinton's camp. The plan was for Sly to guest on some P-Funk releases, and for Clinton to produce (or co-produce) Sly's next album for Warners. This made sense, since Sly and Clinton were label mates at Warners (via Funkadelic and Bootsy). Clinton was talking the Sly project up in the press, Sly made cameo appearances during P-Funk's 1981 tour, and he and original Family Stone trumpeter Cynthia Robinson are on two versions of "Funk Gets Stronger" from Funkadelic's summer 1981 LP "The Electric Spanking of War Babies." Supposedly, the original version took up an entire side of a projected double album, but was later edited down. Personally, I love these tracks but objectively, they sound as if the main priority in the studio that day was getting extremely high, there happened to be a few instruments laying about, and the tape recorder was running. The same can be said for most of the Sly/P-Funk collaborations, the most significant of which is the P-Funk All Stars' 3-part "Hydraulic Pump" 12-inch (the complete version is available on the P-Funk All-Stars CD "Hydraulic Funk"). Like a lot of Sly's material with P-Funk (which is spread out over several releases), it sounds like they were trying to take a little bit of music and make a lot of out of it.
By late 1981, Clinton had become involved in a bitter dispute with Warners, with the end result that Funkadelic left Warners (they haven't released an album under the Funkadelic name since then). That also threw a wrench into the Sly project, which hadn't yet been completed. And supposedly, Sly just vanished, leaving the album unfinished. Warners brought producer Stewart Levine in to salvage and complete the project, and the album was released two years later in the spring of 1983 with the title "Ain't But the One Way." The cover photo (with Sly jumping over a fence wearing camouflage pants) dated back 5 years to the "Back On the Right Track" photo sessions. Sly must have been long gone if they couldn't even get an up-to-date photo for the cover of his album!
If you look at the album's personnel listing, you will see the names of many original Family Stone members, and also the names of many studio session players. That suggests that the basic tracks were cut with Sly, Clinton, the Family Stone (maybe augmented by some players from P-Funk), and that the project was completed later with Levine and the studio musicians. That's probably why the album has a glossy, generic sound to it. If you listen closely, you can hear traces of the Sly/Clinton approach underneath, especially in Sly's lyrics, singing attitude, and electric piano playing. If you want to compare the two approaches, listen to the demo version of "Who In the Funk Do You Think You Are" from the first volume of George Clinton's Family Series, and compare it with the Levine-produced version on the "...One Way" album.
As far as the music, it sounds far more inventive and inspired than Sly's previous LP "Back On The Right Track." Hardcore Sly fans know that there is not a single Sly LP without at least a few moments of genius, however fragmentary. If you're sensitive to Sly's musical "codes," you can hear that they had some good ideas going, lyrically and musically. You can hear Sly's stoned wit in good effect. But you can also hear that the ideas were left in a skeletal and incomplete state, and were completed by someone else with a very different production concept. The strongest songs to me are the poignant rehab ballad "Ha Ha Hee Hee," the cover of the Kinks "You Really Got Me," the vignette "Sylvester" (another song seemingly dedicated to Sly's mother), the "I Want to Take You Higher" retread (called "High Y'all"), and a few others.
You have to give Clinton credit for inspiring Sly to break out of the playing-it-safe mold of his recent records and push the envelope here. And Stewart Levine also deserves a bit of credit for achieving a professional sound in the end with what he had to work with.
If they had completed this album with the original team, it would probably have been the strongest and most interesting Sly album in a LONG time. It might have even been a commercial success. But unfortunately, it fell victim to music business chicanery and drug excess. "Ain't But The One Way" turned out to be Sly's de-facto farewell to the music business. He hasn't relased an album since then and for the rest of the 1980s, it seemed like he was in the news for one drug-related offence after another. The funny thing about it is that on the Mike Douglas show I mentioned above, one of the few coherent things I remember Sly saying was - and this is a quote as best I can remember - "I'm gonna release one more album and if it doesn't go platinum - BYE Y'ALL..."
UK reissue of the funk legend's 1983 album for WEA. Tracks include, ''One Way' and 'You Really Got Me'.
Ain't But the One Way,Sly & the Family Stone,Wea/Warner,R&B/Soul,Soul/R & B
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Ain't But the One Way
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ASIN: B000025199 Release Date: 2000-07-31 |
Tracks:
- L.O.V.I.N.U.
- One Way
- Ha Ha, Hee Hee
- Hobo Ken
- Who in the Funk Do You Think You Are
- You Really Got Me
- Sylvester
- We Can Do It
- High, Y'all
Album Description
UK reissue of the funk legend's 1983 album for WEA. Tracks include, ''One Way' and 'You Really Got Me'.Album Details
Reissue of 1983 Release. Only Recommended for Hard Core Fans.Customer Reviews:
Sly Is This Really The Last We'll Be Hearing From You?.......2006-11-28
Sly's Last Stand: Who In the Funk Do You Think He Was? Syl's Final Album.......2006-09-05
Starting off with the poppy bass and horn lines on L.O.V.I.N.U., Sly keeps the old Family Stone vibe together. The old school funk of the title track keeps it going. HA, HA, HEE, HEE, written by Pat Rizzo, who ended up replacing original member Jerry Martini, also has a nice old band vibe to it -- breezy and light, not dark and heavy.
HOBO KEN follows next, ostensibly a sort of a tribute to his last manager, Ken Roberts. "Hobo Ken, be your friend/If you let him" it goes over and over. The uptempo standout WHO IN THE FUNK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE tells us, "Remember facts are easy to find/If in the max/Is what you're trying to climb". Huh?
The zoned out version of the Kinks' YOU REALLY GOT ME doesn't work. The 44 second confessional SYLVESTER, however, works and might have been something more had Syl made it longer.
WE CAN DO IT sounds like a rote workout with horn charts galore that fail to cover up the lack of anything here. HIGH Y'ALL closes the album with a little play on S&FS' earlier hit I WANT TO TAKE YOU HIGHER and tries to capture some of the old spark. However it degenerates into the same canned generic funk that permeated the tune before.
Overall "Ain't But the Way" is an interesting view into Sly's final released recording, now about 25 years old, before he went off to a reclusive life of being an ex-rockstar living in the 90210 zip code.
Album credits include original members, his brother Freddie Stewart, Jerry Martini, Rose Banks, Cynthia Robinson and latter-day members, sax player Pat Rizzo and drummer Andy Newmark (a well-known LA session drummer later on), as well as scads of LA session players.
Sly we're still waiting for your follow up album!
The True Story Behind This Album.......2004-08-21
By 1976, Sly's career was at an extremely low point. He hadn't had a significant commercial hit in years, he had lost his management, the original Family Stone was long gone, Sly's drug problems were apparently getting the best of him, and former bassist Larry Graham was putting Sly to shame (on record and in concert) with his more funky, pop, and upbeat version of the original Family Stone formula with his band Graham Central Station. In fact, Sly was struggling so much at this time that he actually toured (in support of his attempt at Philly International soul "Heard Ya Missed Me, Now I'm Back") as an opening act for the famous P-Funk Earth Tour in late 1976. It was a sad irony to see Sly opening for two bands (P-Funk and Bootsy's Rubber Band) that had been so inspired by HIM in the first place. At the end of tour, in fact, two of Sly's backup singers (one of which was his cousin) defected and joined P-Funk where they later recorded as The Brides of Funkenstein.
Sly dropped out of visibility, surfacing two years later in 1978 when he had left Epic and signed to Warner Brothers, and began working on his latest in a series of "comeback" LPs, "Back On the Right Track." Opinions are varied on the musical quality of this album (I think there are some great songs on there, but nothing resembling a chart hit) but commercially, it fared poorly. That must have hurt Sly after all the comeback hype. I don't think he even toured in support of the album. And I remember seeing Sly on the Mike Douglas show at this time. He was dispirited and so out of it on drugs that he could barely speak. Mike and the other guests just stared at him in disbelief.
He dropped out of sight again until around 1980, when word was that Sly was now in George Clinton's camp. The plan was for Sly to guest on some P-Funk releases, and for Clinton to produce (or co-produce) Sly's next album for Warners. This made sense, since Sly and Clinton were label mates at Warners (via Funkadelic and Bootsy). Clinton was talking the Sly project up in the press, Sly made cameo appearances during P-Funk's 1981 tour, and he and original Family Stone trumpeter Cynthia Robinson are on two versions of "Funk Gets Stronger" from Funkadelic's summer 1981 LP "The Electric Spanking of War Babies." Supposedly, the original version took up an entire side of a projected double album, but was later edited down. Personally, I love these tracks but objectively, they sound as if the main priority in the studio that day was getting extremely high, there happened to be a few instruments laying about, and the tape recorder was running. The same can be said for most of the Sly/P-Funk collaborations, the most significant of which is the P-Funk All Stars' 3-part "Hydraulic Pump" 12-inch (the complete version is available on the P-Funk All-Stars CD "Hydraulic Funk"). Like a lot of Sly's material with P-Funk (which is spread out over several releases), it sounds like they were trying to take a little bit of music and make a lot of out of it.
By late 1981, Clinton had become involved in a bitter dispute with Warners, with the end result that Funkadelic left Warners (they haven't released an album under the Funkadelic name since then). That also threw a wrench into the Sly project, which hadn't yet been completed. And supposedly, Sly just vanished, leaving the album unfinished. Warners brought producer Stewart Levine in to salvage and complete the project, and the album was released two years later in the spring of 1983 with the title "Ain't But the One Way." The cover photo (with Sly jumping over a fence wearing camouflage pants) dated back 5 years to the "Back On the Right Track" photo sessions. Sly must have been long gone if they couldn't even get an up-to-date photo for the cover of his album!
If you look at the album's personnel listing, you will see the names of many original Family Stone members, and also the names of many studio session players. That suggests that the basic tracks were cut with Sly, Clinton, the Family Stone (maybe augmented by some players from P-Funk), and that the project was completed later with Levine and the studio musicians. That's probably why the album has a glossy, generic sound to it. If you listen closely, you can hear traces of the Sly/Clinton approach underneath, especially in Sly's lyrics, singing attitude, and electric piano playing. If you want to compare the two approaches, listen to the demo version of "Who In the Funk Do You Think You Are" from the first volume of George Clinton's Family Series, and compare it with the Levine-produced version on the "...One Way" album.
As far as the music, it sounds far more inventive and inspired than Sly's previous LP "Back On The Right Track." Hardcore Sly fans know that there is not a single Sly LP without at least a few moments of genius, however fragmentary. If you're sensitive to Sly's musical "codes," you can hear that they had some good ideas going, lyrically and musically. You can hear Sly's stoned wit in good effect. But you can also hear that the ideas were left in a skeletal and incomplete state, and were completed by someone else with a very different production concept. The strongest songs to me are the poignant rehab ballad "Ha Ha Hee Hee," the cover of the Kinks "You Really Got Me," the vignette "Sylvester" (another song seemingly dedicated to Sly's mother), the "I Want to Take You Higher" retread (called "High Y'all"), and a few others.
You have to give Clinton credit for inspiring Sly to break out of the playing-it-safe mold of his recent records and push the envelope here. And Stewart Levine also deserves a bit of credit for achieving a professional sound in the end with what he had to work with.
If they had completed this album with the original team, it would probably have been the strongest and most interesting Sly album in a LONG time. It might have even been a commercial success. But unfortunately, it fell victim to music business chicanery and drug excess. "Ain't But The One Way" turned out to be Sly's de-facto farewell to the music business. He hasn't relased an album since then and for the rest of the 1980s, it seemed like he was in the news for one drug-related offence after another. The funny thing about it is that on the Mike Douglas show I mentioned above, one of the few coherent things I remember Sly saying was - and this is a quote as best I can remember - "I'm gonna release one more album and if it doesn't go platinum - BYE Y'ALL..."
Modern Sly.......2003-09-15
Not on Par.......2002-07-07
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Golden Greats: Greatest Broadway Hits
Manufacturer: Golden Greats ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD All Works by Bernstein
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ASIN: B00005USEJ Release Date: 2002-02-26 |
Tracks:
- Ouverture - Orchestra
- Something Wonderfull - Dorothy Sarnoff
- Doin' What Comes Natur'lly - Ethel Merman
- Life Upon the Wicked Stage - Colette Lyons
- So in Love - Patricia Morison
- You'll Never Walk Alone - Jan Clayton, Christine Johnson
- Bill - Carol Bruce
- Hello, Young Lovers - Gertrude Lawrence
- Bloody Mary - Male Chorus
- I Can't Say No - Celeste Holm
- This Was a Real Nice Clambake - Jan Clayton,
- Oklahoma! - Alfred Drake
- Sue Me - Vivian Blaine, Sam Levene
- Woman Is a Sometime Thing - Edward Matthews
- Some Enchanted Evening - Ezio Pinza,
- I Got Plenty O' Nuttin' - Todd Duncan, Todd Duncan
- Guys and Dolls - Douglas Deane, Stubby Kaye, Johnny Silver
- It Ain't Necessarily So - Lawrence Tibbett
- Make Believe - Jan Clayton
- Wonderful Guy - Mary Martin
- They Say It's Wonderful - Ethel Merman
- When the Children Are Asleep - Jean Darling, Eric Mattson
- More I Cannot Wish You - Pat Rooney, Sr., Pat Rooney, Sr.
- Puzzlement - Yul Brynner
- I Got Lost in His Arms - Ethel Merman
Tracks:
- Overture...Summertime - Anne Brown
- Why Can't You Behave? - Lisa Kirk, Harold Lang
- Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man - Carol Bruce
- There's No Business Like Show Business - Chorus
- If I Were a Bell - Isabel Bigley
- People Will Say That We're in Love - Alfred Drake, Joan Roberts
- Bess, You Is My Woman Now - Anne Brown
- Luck Be a Lady Tonight - Robert Alda
- Shall I Tell You What I Think of You? - Gertrude Lawrence
- Girl That I Marry - Ray Middleton
- Nobody Else But Me - Jan Clayton
- Carousel Waltz - Orchestra
- Dites-Moi - Barbara Luna
- Ol' Man River - Kenneth Spencer
- Summertime
- Many a New Day - Joan Roberts
- Blow High, Blow Low - Murvyn Vye
- It Takes a Long Pull to Get There - Edward Matthews
- You've Got to Be Carefully Taught - Billy Tabbert
- We Open in Venice - Alfred Drake
- I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair - Mary Martin
- Who Do You Love, I Hope? - Kathleen Carnes, Robert Lenn
- I've Never Been in Love Before - Robert Alda
- Tom, Dick or Harry - Lisa Kirk
- I Whistle a Happy Tune - Gertrude Lawrence
Tracks:
- New York, New York - Lynn Murray, Lynn Murray
- Almost Like Being in Love - Marion Bell, Dave Brooks, David Brooks
- Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - Vivienne Segal
- Beat out Dat Rhythm on a Drum - June Hawkins
- How Are Things in Glocca Morra? - Ella Logan
- Old Devil Moon - Ella Logan
- South American Way - Carmen Miranda
- September Song - Walter Huston
- This Is the Army, Mister Jones - Irving Berlin
- Takin' a Chance on Love - Ethel Waters
- My Heart Belongs to Daddy - Mary Martin
- Anything Goes - Jeanne Aubert & The Four Admirals
- You're the Top - Jeanne Aubert & The Four Admirals
- I Get a Kick Out of You - Ethel Merman
- Night and Day - Fred Astaire
- I Got Rhythm - Red Nichols & His Orchestra
- Someone to Watch Over Me - Gertrude Lawrence
- Fascinatin' Rhythm - Adele Astaire, Fred Astaire
- Strike Up the Band - Red Nichols & His Orchestra
- Makin' Whoopee - Eddie Cantor
- Heatwave - Ethel Waters
- Easter Parade - Clifton Webb
- She Didn't Say Yes - Peggy Wood
- I've Told Every Little Star - Mary Ellis
- Johnny One Note - Lynn Murray, Lynn Murray
Album Description
Import exclusive, budget price compilation featuring Broadway classics like 'You'll Never Walk Alone', 'Summertime', & There's No Business Like Show Business', performed by Ethel Merman, Gertrude Lawrence, Celeste Holm, & many more. 75 tracks in all. Standard double jewel case. Disky. 2001.Album Details
3 CD setCustomer Reviews:
A bargain collection of showtunes.......2005-08-19
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Ain't but the One Way
Sly & The Family Stone Manufacturer: Phantom Sound & Vision ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General
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ASIN: B0000DERI4 Release Date: 1996-11-21 |
Album Description
Their 1982 album for Warner Brothers. Nine tracks, including'One Way', 'L.O.V.I.N.U.', 'Ha Ha, Hee Hee' and a cover ofthe Kinks' 'You Really Got Me'.Christian Music:
- All True Man [Import]
- Battle of the Bands: Round 4 [Import]
- Best of Frankie Avalon [Import]
- Best Of [Import]
- Big Boy [CD-single]
- Black Energy, Vol. 2: The Power of Soul & Hip Hop [Import]
- Body and Soul: Platinum
- Casanova (Your Playing Days Are Over)
- Caught Up [CD-single] [Enhanced] [Import]
- Chess Club Rhythm & Soul
Christian Music
MOZART: Symphony No. 41 - Ansermet - Orchestra de la Suisse Romande