Just bought these three albums as part of a set. I never really made it past Fresh for the longest time, but have been on a major Sly tip lately, so thought I'd check these out.

I know opinions are mixed, but I wanted to start a thread on here to see the general consensus about each album. Am still waiting for the albums to arrive in the mail, but for those who've heard them, what do you make of these albums?

"Small Talk" (kind of) picks up where "Fresh" left off. Great string arrangements throughout..."Loose Booty", "Wishful Thinkin" and "Time For Livin" are standout tracks...You can hear the influence of this record on D'angelo and Van Hunt...Classic record........."High On You" is (to me) Sly's "solo album"...Underrated in his catalog.."Crossword Puzzle", "My World" and "I Get High On You" are great songs/a "must have"...........Not crazy about "Heard Ya Missed Me", but it has some interesting moments..This record has a "funk opera" vibe to it..This was pretty much when Sly's great days were behind him and disco and P-Funk ruled the radio......for the Sly complietist /diehards only.

Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back is bad. But the other two are great albums, they both have some my favorite songs by Sly... Say You Will, Can't Strain My Brain, This Is Love, I Get High On You (do yourself a favor and also find Up The Creek by The Temptations, basically a different version of this song that Sly did uncredited), Crossword Puzzle (the Small Talk remaster from 2007 has a great early demo for this track), Who Do You Love.

Love love love "Small Talk"

The title track from Small Talk is as good as anything he ever did, and This is Love was recorded with the original Family Stone way back before Riot so it's nice to hear them again, the rest of the album is decent to good imho. Crossword Puzzle off High on You is top tier as well.

The rest, well he could just crank those grooves out without thinking much. The main thing I've noticed about Sly's work from these albums onwards is that his songs tend to be very short, all about 3 and a half minutes, usually good but forgettable enough. What happened to the thoughtful lyrics and the stretching of songs and ideas from his previous work? I suspect he might just not have been willing to put push himself anymore. All the albums are enjoyable enough when you put them on though.

[Edited 3/22/18 15:27pm]

Interesting post... Sly was never an artist who make long songs though, with a few exceptions. I did notice that Sly's writing from Riot onwards seemed to change quite a lot, I feel many of his songs got shorter in that sense. I don't really blame him for his final albums, Back On The Right Track and Ain't But The One Way, both were forced and had too much outside input... Maybe under different circumstances, we get different albums. I have heard some unreleased cuts from after One Way and the genius is still there but I don't think he had confidence in his own abilities anymore.

I'm almost scared to ask, but is "I'm Back! Family & Friends" worth a listen?

Been enjoying Small Talk, a lot more than I thought I would. Especially the title track and Say You Will.

[Edited 3/23/18 1:16am]

My opinions:

I would skip "I'm Back," it's really not very good. Apparently the new tracks were Sly vocals from 1989 or so with some new beats made up for that release.

First, the bad. Heard Ya Miss Me is, to me, pretty much a complete miss. There's really not much to enjoy on this one.

Small Talk is where the drugs are really taking him down. After three stone cold classics in a row he sounds either worn out or unable to edit his best stuff down into "classic" form. There are many good tracks here, though and the album is a keeper. Besides what others have already listed I have to say I absolutley love in "Holdin On" when Sly really gets into it and his vocals are really jumbled (in the best way) at 2:40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTxCfJUSC5o

High On You is an almost funk classic. I know some like the instrumentals on this one but if he'd put lyrics to them this would've been close to Fresh. I think this album was recorded twice, but I could just be remembering it wrong.

My favorite songs released after Heard Ya Missed Me:

• Remember Who You Are
• The Same Thing (Makes You Laugh, Makes You Cry)
• Hobo Ken
• Sylvester
• Funk Gets Stronger (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Hydraulic Pump (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Crazay (w/ Jesse Johnson)
  
• Good Time (w/ Earth Wind & Fire)
  

InTime said:

My favorite songs released after Heard Ya Missed Me:

• Remember Who You Are
• The Same Thing (Makes You Laugh, Makes You Cry)
• Hobo Ken
• Sylvester
• Funk Gets Stronger (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Hydraulic Pump (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Crazay (w/ Jesse Johnson)
  
• Good Time (w/ Earth Wind & Fire)
  

I really, really wish we could hear the other versions of Funk Gets Stronger. I love both released versions but Sly's just kills it for me.

DarkHorse77 said:

InTime said:

My favorite songs released after Heard Ya Missed Me:

• Remember Who You Are
• The Same Thing (Makes You Laugh, Makes You Cry)
• Hobo Ken
• Sylvester
• Funk Gets Stronger (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Hydraulic Pump (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Crazay (w/ Jesse Johnson)
  
• Good Time (w/ Earth Wind & Fire)
  

I really, really wish we could hear the other versions of Funk Gets Stronger. I love both released versions but Sly's just kills it for me.

How many other versions exist? I only know about Part 3 which apparently features Eddie Hazel.

InTime said:

DarkHorse77 said:

I really, really wish we could hear the other versions of Funk Gets Stronger. I love both released versions but Sly's just kills it for me.

How many other versions exist? I only know about Part 3 which apparently features Eddie Hazel.

There may only be Part 3. I did see a proposed tracklist of Electric Spanking as a double album and there was an entire side that was Funk Gets Stronger broken up in multiple versions with other tracks between each version.

Spent the last week getting to know Small Talk, which surprised me with both how good it was and also how different it was, with all the violins etc. Gonna give High On You a whirl today.

Small talk is a GREAT album and is terribly underrated. It`s one of my favourite sly albums. High on you is okay, it`s pretty good as well, far from essential listening though. `Heard Ya Missed me` I have never listened to

InTime said:

My favorite songs released after Heard Ya Missed Me:

• Remember Who You Are
• The Same Thing (Makes You Laugh, Makes You Cry)
• Hobo Ken
• Sylvester
• Funk Gets Stronger (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Hydraulic Pump (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Crazay (w/ Jesse Johnson)
  
• Good Time (w/ Earth Wind & Fire)
  

Silvester is great I wish it were longer, much longer. Small Talk is a very good album, different sound from Fresh,Riot and Stand. I love many of the songs off this album among them Can't Strain My Brain which is a masterpiece, Wishful Thinkin, Time For Livin (alternate version), Holding On, Small Talk, Mother Beautiful... in fact I like ,ost of the album. but not Loose Booty.

214 said:

InTime said:

My favorite songs released after Heard Ya Missed Me:

• Remember Who You Are
• The Same Thing (Makes You Laugh, Makes You Cry)
• Hobo Ken
• Sylvester
• Funk Gets Stronger (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Hydraulic Pump (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Crazay (w/ Jesse Johnson)
  
• Good Time (w/ Earth Wind & Fire)
  

Silvester is great I wish it were longer, much longer. Small Talk is a very good album, different sound from Fresh,Riot and Stand. I love many of the songs off this album among them Can't Strain My Brain which is a masterpiece, Wishful Thinkin, Time For Livin (alternate version), Holding On, Small Talk, Mother Beautiful... in fact I like ,ost of the album. but not Loose Booty.

I love "Loose Booty", always felt it influenced Prince's "Emancipation" song. It was clearer to me when I heard the demo version.

214 said:

InTime said:

My favorite songs released after Heard Ya Missed Me:

• Remember Who You Are
• The Same Thing (Makes You Laugh, Makes You Cry)
• Hobo Ken
• Sylvester
• Funk Gets Stronger (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Hydraulic Pump (w/ P-Funk)
  
• Crazay (w/ Jesse Johnson)
  
• Good Time (w/ Earth Wind & Fire)
  

Silvester is great I wish it were longer, much longer. Small Talk is a very good album, different sound from Fresh,Riot and Stand. I love many of the songs off this album among them Can't Strain My Brain which is a masterpiece, Wishful Thinkin, Time For Livin (alternate version), Holding On, Small Talk, Mother Beautiful... in fact I like ,ost of the album. but not Loose Booty.

I think Silvester was just improvisation that was fortunately captured on tape, and that is why the track is so short. Just like the other version of Who In The Funk Do? from George Clinton's Family Series.

I couldn't agree more about Can't Strain My Brain. The song is my top 10 by Sly.

Hamad said:

214 said:

Silvester is great I wish it were longer, much longer. Small Talk is a very good album, different sound from Fresh,Riot and Stand. I love many of the songs off this album among them Can't Strain My Brain which is a masterpiece, Wishful Thinkin, Time For Livin (alternate version), Holding On, Small Talk, Mother Beautiful... in fact I like ,ost of the album. but not Loose Booty.

I love "Loose Booty", always felt it influenced Prince's "Emancipation" song. It was clearer to me when I heard the demo version.

OMG TOTALLY

I love both songs, but never picked up on that. Sure never heard that demo though.

Cinny said:

Hamad said:

I love "Loose Booty", always felt it influenced Prince's "Emancipation" song. It was clearer to me when I heard the demo version.

OMG TOTALLY

I love both songs, but never picked up on that. Sure never heard that demo though.

Cinny said:

Hamad said:

I love "Loose Booty", always felt it influenced Prince's "Emancipation" song. It was clearer to me when I heard the demo version.

OMG TOTALLY

I love both songs, but never picked up on that. Sure never heard that demo though.

Its included in the remastered version of "Small Talk"

Hamad said:

Cinny said:

OMG TOTALLY

I love both songs, but never picked up on that. Sure never heard that demo though.

Its included in the remastered version of "Small Talk"

Oh I thought you meant the demo of "Emancipation" Yeah I have the Sly remastered cube

There is a good live bootleg from the Small Talk era (live in Kansas). Besides the usual cuts, they perform Family Affair, Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey, Time For Livin, Loose Booty, a brief Life And Death In G&A...

InTime said:

There is a good live bootleg from the Small Talk era (live in Kansas). Besides the usual cuts, they perform Family Affair, Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey, Time For Livin, Loose Booty, a brief Life And Death In G&A...

Bootlegs from Sly and The Family Stone really? where?

214 said:

InTime said:

There is a good live bootleg from the Small Talk era (live in Kansas). Besides the usual cuts, they perform Family Affair, Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey, Time For Livin, Loose Booty, a brief Life And Death In G&A...

Bootlegs from Sly and The Family Stone really? where?

Yeah really! I'd love to hear this.

There are quite a few shows floating around. There is one from 1971 where they perform one of the instrumental outtakes (My Gorilla Is My Butler) from Riot.

Send me an orgnote, maybe I can help.