Sly Stone (1976) Heard Ya Missed Me - LOST70sGEMS

The 1976 album, Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back by Sly Stone was my favourite with it's mix of strong melodies still fresh to this day; funk meets soul in it's most authentic and original form. I'll skip over the catchiest song of this whole collection, Mother Hippie, as it was already covered in a prior post at; http://lost70sgems.blogspot.com/2020/02/sly-stone-1975-mother-is-hippie.html

The title track starts with a bouncy flute or piccolo led digression before a steel drum initiates the 'ah ahah' chanting with a freaky crowd mayhem in the background while the exuberant chanting reminds me of a child making that noise for another spoonful of babyfood when being fed. The bass throughout is some of the most catchy playing rolling along with the abrupt shifts in in melody, the horns come in with a Zapata type of blasts while a clavinet crawls underneath for the bridge. But that sweet flute soft disco jam of the intro is an excellent eclectic addition. The ending brings the lubricious bass, the fills of Mexican horn blasts and ahahas together in a never ending weave of symmetry; shame the flute line didn't also fit into the weave though the chanting does resemble the flute line.

Everything in You starts right out of the gate with a gospel flavoured call to let everything in you come out as a disco chunky strums and caressing soft soul vocals 'ba ba bah' while strings cut through. It displays all their talents a great mix of laidback yet tight rhythms, dexterous vocals and diverse yet clean musical interplay from another juicy bass line to the clear-cut strings, to the string plucks, to the incredible vocal lines of Sly and the spirited delivery of the backing harmonies. Blessing in Disguise is a perfect companion to the title track with another mellifluous flute passage leading to more strong soul group harmonies while strings underscore their passion and the vibrato of these singers has to be pointed out as the most melodious to ever grace a record, the group in the mid 70s was undoubtedly about vocal harmony as much as peaceful harmony; though they achieved both on record. While disco took the charts, Sylvester Stone was proving no one could create a better groove and yet retain soulful grit and sweet melodicism like him, sorry Bee Gees haha.

A work up of rapid tabla as organ blaring horns and slashing strings build in stages to a climax as we enter chanky funky tune, The Thing, with the raga sounding strings cutting in ribbons as the typical funky walking beat plods along as the fighty harmonies attack from all sides with the dramatic instrumentation. The drawling wah wah middle section is a great moment of darker experimental soul rock as the note modulates in one drawn out wah while the odd strings ecstatically zip along in striking additions while Sly effortlessly wails in an upper register.