There's a Riot Goin' On
Encyclopedia
There's a Riot Goin' On is the fifth studio album
by American funk
and soul
band Sly & the Family Stone
, released November 20, 1971 on Epic Records
. Recording sessions for the album took place primarily throughout 1970 to 1971 at Record Plant Studios
in Sausalito, California
. In contrast to their previous studio work with psychedelic soul
, as featured on Stand!
(1969), There's a Riot Goin' On embraces a darker, more foreboding funk sound, while also rejecting the band's successful melodic formula that was featured on their previous hit singles. The original title of the album was intended to be Africa Talks to You, but was retitled There's a Riot Goin' On in response to Marvin Gaye
's landmark album What's Going On
(1971), which was released five months prior to Riot.
There's a Riot Goin' On debuted at number-one on the Billboard Pop Albums
and Soul Albums
charts upon its release, while the album's lead single, "Family Affair
" (1971), topped the Pop Singles
chart. On November 8, 1972, There's a Riot Goin' On was certified gold
in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America
, selling over half a million copies in its first year of release. Many critics and fans had mixed feelings on Riot upon its release, but its standing has improved significantly, leading to its praise as one of the greatest and most influential recordings of all time. There's a Riot Goin' On has also been ranked at or near the top of many publications' "best album" lists in disparate genres. Riot later went on to sell over 1 million copies, earning a platinum certification by the RIAA on September 7, 2001. In 2003, the album was ranked number 99 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
.
Following the massive critical and commercial acclaim of their previous studio album, 1969's Stand!
and their performance at Woodstock, and the new found fame it engendered for the band, Sly & the Family Stone were due to have submitted an album of new recordings to Epic Records
in 1970. However, creative head of the group and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone
missed several recording deadlines, worrying CBS
executive Clive Davis
. The band's Greatest Hits
album had been released in the midst of an eighteen-month stretch from late 1969 to late 1971, during which the band released no new material. With the newfound fame and success came other problems. Relationships within the band were deteriorating, as there was friction between the Stone brothers, Sly and Freddie
, and bassist Larry Graham
. Meanwhile, Epic executives requested more product. In addition to this, the Black Panther Party
, with which Stone may have become associated, demanded that Sly make his music more militant
in style and reflective of the black power
movement, replace Greg Errico and Jerry Martini with black instrumentalists, and replace manager David Kapralik.
After moving to Los Angeles, California
in fall 1969, Sly Stone and his bandmates quickly became heavy users of illegal drugs, primarily cocaine
and PCP
. As the band members became increasingly focused on drug use and partying (Sly Stone carried a violin
case filled with illegal drugs wherever he went), recording slowed significantly. Between summer 1969 and fall 1971, Sly & the Family Stone released only one single, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
" / "Everybody Is a Star
", issued in December 1969. Although "Star" was another positive-message song in the vein of their previous hit "Everyday People" (1968), the single's lead A-side featured a darker theme by Stone, who declared that he could no longer pretend to be something they were not (peaceful, loving, and happy) and sarcastically thanked the audience "for letting me be myself again." "Thank You" reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100
chart in February 1970. Foreshadowing the new musical direction, deep funk
, which Sly Stone would experiment later with, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" was the final single issued in the 1960s by the band and marked the beginning of a twenty-month gap without new material. By 1970, Sly Stone had become erratic and moody, missing nearly a third of the band's concert dates and spending most of his time using drugs. Meanwhile, he hired streetwise friends Hamp "Bubba" Banks and J.B. Brown as his personal managers, whom after which enlisted gangster
s Edward "Eddie Chin" Elliott and Mafioso
J.R. Valtrano as Sly's bodyguards. In addition, Stone assigned these individuals to handle his business dealings, to retrieve drugs, and to protect him from those he considered as enemies, some of whom were his own bandmates and staff. A rift developed between Sly and the rest of the band, which led to drummer Gregg Errico's departure from the band to pursue other ventures in early 1971. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hits record, "Thank You"'s popularity cooling off and the band's absence from the media, speculation by fans and critics arose as to the release of new studio material. In a December 24, 1970 article for Rolling Stone
magazine, journalist Jon Landau
elaborated on the anticipation of the group's next record:
Influenced by drug use and the pivotal events which had led to, what writer Miles Marshall Lewis
called, "the death of the sixties", including political assassinations, police brutality, the decline of the civil rights movement and social disillusionment, Stone had sought to create a darker, more conceptual work in contrast to the optimistic and radio-friendly work prior to There's a Riot Goin' On. A music writer later noted that, "slowed down, [Sly's] quest for post-stardom identity mirrored black America's quest for post-Sixties purpose."
, white
, and black
American flag with sun
s in place of the star
s. No other text or titles appear on the cover, although Epic executives added a "Featuring the Hit Single 'Family Affair'" sticker to the LP for commercial viability and identification purposes. Family Stone A&R
director Steve Paley took the photograph. Three of the custom flags were created: one for Sly, one for Epic Records, and one for Paley. The album was later reissue
d with a more conventional, alternative cover featuring a photograph of Sly in concert and the traditional album titles and text. In an interview with Jonathan Dakss, webmaster
of the official Sly & the Family Stone website
, Stone explained the album cover's concept in relation to Riot' s theme, stating "I wanted the flag to truly represent people
of all colors. I wanted the color black because it is the absence of color. I wanted the color white because it is the combination of all colors. And I wanted the color red because it represents the one thing that all people have in common: blood
. I wanted suns instead of stars because stars to me imply searching, like you search for your star. And there are already too many stars in this world. But the sun, that's something that is always there, looking right at you. Betsy Ross
did the best she could with what she had. I thought I could do better."
The outer album sleeve features a photo collage
, by artist Lynn Ames, depicting American
cultural images of the early 1970s. Featured on this collage were color photos and black & whites of the Family Stone, the Capitol, a grinning boy in plaid
pants, the American flag with a peace sign in place of the stars, the Marina City twin towers
of Chicago, a Department of Public Works caution sign, a piece of the Gettysburg Address
, the tail end of a gas guzzler, drummer Buddy Miles
, the Lincoln Memorial
, soul musician Bobby Womack
, a bulldog
, several anonymous smiling face
s, and Sly's pit bull
, Gun.
Sly Stone worked on There's a Riot Goin' On mostly alone in a studio that he had especially built for himself at The Plant Studios, also known as The Record Plant, in Sausalito, California
, or at home in a studio located in the loft of his Bel Air mansion. The Record Plant studio included a bed and a wireless microphone system, and Stone would often simply lay down in the bed and record his vocals while in repose. According to the other Family Stone members, most of the album's instrumentation was performed by Sly alone in the studio via overdubbing
and, for some of the material, used a rhythm box in place for drummer Gregg Errico. When the other band members contributed instrumentation to Riot tracks, they also did so by overdubbing alone with Sly, instead of playing in unison as was usual for them on previous recordings. For "Family Affair" and some of the other selections on the album, Stone enlisted several of his industry peers and musicians, including contemporary soul acts Billy Preston
, Ike Turner
, and Bobby Womack
in order to provide instrumentation on Riot, instead of his bandmates. Stone had also enlisted several random female vocalists to contribute with background singing, but was unsatisfied and manually omitted their vocals from the tapes. The album's muddy, gritty sound was due in part to this excessive use of overdubbing and erasing parts of the reel-to-reel tapes.
In Fall 1971, Stone personally drove the Riot masters to the CBS Records offices, relieving the worried Clive Davis. CBS issued "Family Affair" as the first single
; it was the band's first single in nearly two years. It became the fourth and final number-one pop hit for the band, and it was a notable departure from the sound of their earlier hits. A somber, electric piano
-based record, Sly and sister Rose Stone
sing about the good and bad aspects of family, with Sly delivering his part in a low, depressed tone. The song's rhythm is provided by a drum machine
(or rhythm box), making it one of the earliest hit recordings to feature use of such a device (the first was another Sly Stone production, Little Sister
's "Somebody's Watching You").
The swampy texture of the song's production, as well as the album's production, was engendered by Sly Stone's excessive overdubbing, multi-track and mixing
techniques, which were notable for nearly drowning out undubbed sounds. Writer Miles Marshall Lewis
later wrote of the album's production effect on Stone's vocals, stating "Never before on a Sly and the Family Stone album were songs open to so much interpretation, and even more so, dripping with cynicism. On the other hand you can hardly hear what he's saying for most of the album. Like Radiohead's Kid A
or even 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, if used the way it was designed to be used, would make unrealistic sounds, and resorted to holding down five buttons, running the tape, then rewinding, holding down a different set of five buttons, and overdubbing.
-like sound as the result of Sly's extensive re-recording and overdubbing. The energetic "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
" (included on Greatest Hits) is reworked as the slower "Thank You For Talking to Me Africa". In an article for Allmusic, critic Matthew Greenwald praised the song's concept, writing:
"Runnin' Away" and "(You Caught Me) Smilin'" were Riot's other singles. The former features Rose Stone singing the lead vocals in unison with her brother Sly, and the latter was the first Family Stone recording for Texan Gerry Gibson, formerly of Roy Head
and The Traits, who replaced Gregg Errico as the Family Stone's drummer. Errico had gradually withdrawn from the band early in 1971, as a result of Sly Stone's increased drug use and now unpredictable demeanor. "Smilin'" is a hymn to getting high. Thom Jurek of Allmusic stated that it is introduced by a "slow, wispy soul that sounds like it's drifting in from a distant radio somewhere". On its composition, Jurek also wrote, "Sister Rose's voice is all sweet, and at first so is Sly's, but as the horns and bassline come stepping in, Sly's voice gets heavy and is distorting in places deliberately. The delicate keyboard lines, luxuriant and in the pocket as they are, cannot keep the voice contained. There's a minimal instrumental break in the tune and it suddenly fades just as it emerged." Side one technically concludes with the album's title track, which is silent, and listed as being zero minutes and zero seconds long. For many years, it was speculated that this cryptic track listing and the title of the album were in reference to a July 27, 1970 riot in Chicago, Illinois for which Sly & the Family Stone had been blamed. The band was to play a free show that day at the band shell in Grant Park (Chicago)
. However, the concert crowd became restless before the band made it onstage and began rioting. Over a hundred people were injured, including several police officers, and the reason given to the press was that the band was late and/or refused to perform. The back cover of the original LP jacket featured a photo collage that included a picture of the band shell in Grant Park overlaid with a photo of a police car. However, when Sly Stone was visited by web technician Johnathan Dakss of the band's official website in 1997, Stone dismissed this rumor. Instead, he told Dakks that the "There's a Riot Goin' On" track had no running time because "I felt there should be no riots."
writer Robert Hilburn
expressed a mixed response towards the band's stylistic change from their previous "soulflavored" sound of songs such as "Everyday People" and "Hot Fun in the Summertime
", while stating "there is little on the album that is worth your attention". While Sly Stone's previous body of work consisted of mostly optimistic R&B and psychedelic soul music, some major music publications praised this new, darker direction and composition. In his review for Rolling Stone
magazine, music journalist Vince Aletti
wrote that "At first I hated it for its weakness and its lack of energy and I still dislike these qualities. But then I began to respect the album's honesty". Aletti cited it as "one of the most important fucking albums this year" and "the new urban music... not about dancing to the music, in the streets. It's about disintegration, getting fucked up, nodding, maybe dying. There are flashes of euphoria, ironic laughter, even some bright stretches but mostly it's just junkie death, oddly unoppressive and almost attractive in its effortlessness". A columnist for Hit Parader
magazine gave Riot a favorable review, and stated that the album has "a lot that makes Sly the in-person rave that he is."
In his consumer guide for The Village Voice
, critic Robert Christgau
gave There's a Riot Goin' On an A- rating, which he later revised to A+, indicating "an organically conceived masterpiece that repays prolonged listening with new excitement and insight. It is unlikely to be marred by more than one merely ordinary cut". Christgau noted that "what's expressed is the bitterest ghetto pessimism" and complimented its "subtle production techniques and jarring song compositions", while citing it as "one of those rare albums whose whole actually does exceed the sum of its parts". There's a Riot Goin' On was included on several music publications' "End of the Year" lists and critics' polls, including The Village Voices Pazz & Jop
albums list at number seven. The album achieved commercial success with two hit singles and debuting at number-one on the Billboard Pop Albums
and Soul Albums chart. In his book Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music, which was published four years following the album's release, music critic and writer Greil Marcus
cited There's a Riot Goin' On as "Muzak
with its finger on the trigger."
wrote of the album's significance in a May 2007 article for Rolling Stone, stating "1969's Stand! revealed the magnificence of which this band would all too briefly be capable... Sly Stone had 'Made It'. But its temptations and contradictions ate him up. The result was the prophetic 1971 There's a Riot Goin' On, recorded in anarchic, druggy torpor over a year, or was it two, Stone didn't know the difference. Its taped-over murk presaging Exile on Main St.
, its drum-machine beats throwing knuckleballs at Miles
and JB
, it was darker than the Velvet Underground and Nico and funkier than shit, yet somehow it produced two smash hits, including the stark, deep "Family Affair". Yahoo! Music
's S.L. Duff viewed that it "seemed dense and impenetrable" in comparison to "the get-on-up funk of Stand! [...] but it took time for the whole work to sink in. Still sounds new today". In a retrospective review, Zeth Lundy of PopMatters
called There's a Riot Goin' On "a challenging listen, at times rambling, incoherent, dissonant, and just plain uncomfortable" with "some episodic moments of pop greatness to be found" and viewed it as a radical departure from the band's previous work, calling it "a complete 180 in style and sound and attitude, spun round from the high-energy, lucid singles 'Thank You (Falentinme Be Mice Elf Agin)' and 'Hot Fun in the Summertime', released just two years earlier". Lundy wrote that it moved toward the "sort of euphoria-indifferent groove that would define the band’s post-Stand! proto-funk" and elaborated on its musical significance at the time, stating:
In a 2003 article for Rolling Stone, a contributor commented on the album's overall change in direction by Sly Stone for Riot by writing, "Sly and the Family Stone created a musical utopia: an interracial group of men and women who blended funk, rock and positive vibes... Sly Stone ultimately discovered that his utopia had a ghetto, and he brilliantly tore the whole thing down on There's a Riot Goin' On, which does not refute the joy of his earlier music." In addition to being featured near the top of several major publications' "best album" lists, There's a Riot Goin' On was also ranked at number 99 on Rolling Stones 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, one of four Sly & the Family Stone entries to be included on the list; it is the second highest of the band's entries, preceded by Greatest Hits
(#60), and followed by Stand!
(#118) and Fresh
(#186). The Swedish music magazine POP selected Riot as #1 on their list of the 100 Best Albums in the World, hailing it as the best album of all time.
and Funkadelic
, the Ohio Players
, and similar acts. There's a Riot Goin' On, as well as the follow-up efforts Fresh
, and Small Talk are considered among the first and best examples of the matured version of funk music, after prototypical instances of the sound in Sly & the Family Stone's 1960s work. The album's unique sound also influenced legendary jazz musicians Miles Davis
and Herbie Hancock
to crossover to the jazz-funk
genre. From the 1970s on, Riot's songs have been extensively covered and sample
d. Among the artists who have covered or reworked songs from Riot include Iggy Pop
, John Legend
, Lalah Hathaway
, Ultramagnetic MC's, De La Soul
, Beastie Boys
, Gwen Guthrie
, and many others. The funk music genre in general, including the works of Sly & The Family Stone and James Brown
& The J.B.'s
, had great influence on pioneering hip hop
acts, such as Afrika Bambaataa
, DJ Kool Herc
and many others who have sampled their music.
Dave Rosen of Ink Blot magazine wrote in retrospect of the album's effect on music, stating "Riot still sounds remarkably different from all other music even 27 years later (ironically in spite of the fact that the record has had such broad influence), so it should be easy to imagine the confusion it inspired upon its release... Sly employed the unconventional (and possibly entirely original) technique of mixing live drums with what was at the time a primitive drum machine... The introspective, yet political lyrics, the hard and dirty funk grooves, the inspirational, yet depressing songs—all of these elements would come to influence not only peers like Marvin Gaye and James Brown, but two generations of rappers and funkateers who paid homage to Sly's vision by making his samples and beats an essential backbone of their own innovations. Sly's Riot is still goin' on." In his book There's a Riot Goin' On, author Miles Marshall Lewis described There's a Riot Goin' On in retrospect as "one of the most powerful and haunting albums to inspire the hip hop movement."
Side one
Side two
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
and soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. 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...
band Sly & the Family Stone
Sly & the Family Stone
Sly and the Family Stone were an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music...
, released November 20, 1971 on Epic Records
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...
. Recording sessions for the album took place primarily throughout 1970 to 1971 at Record Plant Studios
Record Plant Studios
The Record Plant was a series of three famous recording studios which were founded by Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone, beginning in New York City in 1968. The next year, Kellgren and Stone opened a second studio in Los Angeles. In 1972, the company expanded again with a third location in Sausalito,...
in Sausalito, California
Sausalito, California
Sausalito is a San Francisco Bay Area city, in Marin County, California, United States. Sausalito is south-southeast of San Rafael, at an elevation of 13 feet . The population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to...
. In contrast to their previous studio work with psychedelic soul
Psychedelic soul
Psychedelic soul, sometimes called black rock, is a sub-genre of soul music, which mixes the characteristics of soul with psychedelic rock...
, as featured on Stand!
Stand!
Stand! is the fourth studio album by soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone, released May 3, 1969 on Epic Records. Written and produced by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, Stand! was the band's breakout album. It went on to sell over three million copies and become one of the most...
(1969), There's a Riot Goin' On embraces a darker, more foreboding funk sound, while also rejecting the band's successful melodic formula that was featured on their previous hit singles. The original title of the album was intended to be Africa Talks to You, but was retitled There's a Riot Goin' On in response to Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
's landmark album What's Going On
What's Going On
What's Going On is the eleventh studio album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released May 21, 1971, on the Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records...
(1971), which was released five months prior to Riot.
There's a Riot Goin' On debuted at number-one on the Billboard Pop Albums
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and Soul Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...
charts upon its release, while the album's lead single, "Family Affair
Family Affair (Sly & the Family Stone song)
"Family Affair" is a 1971 number-one hit single recorded by Sly & the Family Stone for the Epic Records label. Their first new material since the double a-sided single "Thank You "/ "Everybody is a Star" nearly two years prior, "Family Affair" became the fourth and final number-one pop hit for the...
" (1971), topped the Pop Singles
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart. On November 8, 1972, There's a Riot Goin' On was certified gold
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
, selling over half a million copies in its first year of release. Many critics and fans had mixed feelings on Riot upon its release, but its standing has improved significantly, leading to its praise as one of the greatest and most influential recordings of all time. There's a Riot Goin' On has also been ranked at or near the top of many publications' "best album" lists in disparate genres. Riot later went on to sell over 1 million copies, earning a platinum certification by the RIAA on September 7, 2001. In 2003, the album was ranked number 99 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
.
Conception
Stand!
Stand! is the fourth studio album by soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone, released May 3, 1969 on Epic Records. Written and produced by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, Stand! was the band's breakout album. It went on to sell over three million copies and become one of the most...
and their performance at Woodstock, and the new found fame it engendered for the band, Sly & the Family Stone were due to have submitted an album of new recordings to Epic Records
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...
in 1970. However, creative head of the group and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone
Sly Stone
Sly Stone is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly & the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of...
missed several recording deadlines, worrying CBS
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
executive Clive Davis
Clive Davis
Clive Davis is an American record producer and music industry executive. He has won five Grammy Awards and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer. From 1967 to 1973 he was the President of Columbia Records. He was the founder and president of Arista Records from 1975...
. The band's Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits (Sly & the Family Stone album)
Greatest Hits is a greatest hits album by soul/funk band Sly & the Family Stone, released November 21, 1970 on Epic Records. It includes all of the singles from the albums Dance to the Music , Life , and Stand! , and all of their charting b-sides...
album had been released in the midst of an eighteen-month stretch from late 1969 to late 1971, during which the band released no new material. With the newfound fame and success came other problems. Relationships within the band were deteriorating, as there was friction between the Stone brothers, Sly and Freddie
Freddie Stone
Freddie Stone is an African-American musician, best known for his role as co-founder, guitarist, and vocalist in the band Sly & The Family Stone, the frontman for which was his brother Sly Stone...
, and bassist Larry Graham
Larry Graham
Larry Graham, Jr. is an African American bass guitar player, both with the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk band Sly & the Family Stone, and as the founder and frontman of Graham Central Station...
. Meanwhile, Epic executives requested more product. In addition to this, the Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
, with which Stone may have become associated, demanded that Sly make his music more militant
Militant
The word militant, which is both an adjective and a noun, usually is used to mean vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in 'militant reformers'. It comes from the 15th century Latin "militare" meaning "to serve as a soldier"...
in style and reflective of the black power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
movement, replace Greg Errico and Jerry Martini with black instrumentalists, and replace manager David Kapralik.
After moving to Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
in fall 1969, Sly Stone and his bandmates quickly became heavy users of illegal drugs, primarily cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
and PCP
Phencyclidine
Phencyclidine , commonly initialized as PCP and known colloquially as angel dust, is a recreational dissociative drug...
. As the band members became increasingly focused on drug use and partying (Sly Stone carried a violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
case filled with illegal drugs wherever he went), recording slowed significantly. Between summer 1969 and fall 1971, Sly & the Family Stone released only one single, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
"Thank You " is a 1969 hit single recorded by Sly and the Family Stone, recognized as one of the greatest and most influential funk songs of all time. The song, double a-sided with "Everybody Is a Star", reached number one on the soul single charts for five weeks, and reached number one on the...
" / "Everybody Is a Star
Everybody Is a Star
"Everybody Is a Star", released in December 1969, is a 1970 hit single recorded by Sly & the Family Stone. The song, double a-sided with "Thank You ", reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1970 and was the final classic-era Family Stone recording...
", issued in December 1969. Although "Star" was another positive-message song in the vein of their previous hit "Everyday People" (1968), the single's lead A-side featured a darker theme by Stone, who declared that he could no longer pretend to be something they were not (peaceful, loving, and happy) and sarcastically thanked the audience "for letting me be myself again." "Thank You" reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart in February 1970. Foreshadowing the new musical direction, deep funk
Deep Funk
Deep Funk is a genre of funk music which, unlike traditional mainstream funk, has a more soulful, rawer, grittier, and "heavier" sound. The term "deep funk" is also the name of the scene of collectors, DJ's, and musicians who are into deep funk as a genre....
, which Sly Stone would experiment later with, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" was the final single issued in the 1960s by the band and marked the beginning of a twenty-month gap without new material. By 1970, Sly Stone had become erratic and moody, missing nearly a third of the band's concert dates and spending most of his time using drugs. Meanwhile, he hired streetwise friends Hamp "Bubba" Banks and J.B. Brown as his personal managers, whom after which enlisted gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
s Edward "Eddie Chin" Elliott and Mafioso
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
J.R. Valtrano as Sly's bodyguards. In addition, Stone assigned these individuals to handle his business dealings, to retrieve drugs, and to protect him from those he considered as enemies, some of whom were his own bandmates and staff. A rift developed between Sly and the rest of the band, which led to drummer Gregg Errico's departure from the band to pursue other ventures in early 1971. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hits record, "Thank You"'s popularity cooling off and the band's absence from the media, speculation by fans and critics arose as to the release of new studio material. In a December 24, 1970 article for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine, journalist Jon Landau
Jon Landau
Jon Landau is an American music critic, manager and record producer, most known for his association in all three capacities with Bruce Springsteen.He is currently the head of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame....
elaborated on the anticipation of the group's next record:
Influenced by drug use and the pivotal events which had led to, what writer Miles Marshall Lewis
Miles Marshall Lewis
Miles Marshall Lewis is an American pop culture critic, essayist, literary editor, fiction writer, and music journalist. He is a graduate of Morehouse College, class of 1993....
called, "the death of the sixties", including political assassinations, police brutality, the decline of the civil rights movement and social disillusionment, Stone had sought to create a darker, more conceptual work in contrast to the optimistic and radio-friendly work prior to There's a Riot Goin' On. A music writer later noted that, "slowed down, [Sly's] quest for post-stardom identity mirrored black America's quest for post-Sixties purpose."
Album artwork
The original cover art for Riot featured a redRed
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
, white
White
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...
, and black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
American flag with sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
s in place of the star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s. No other text or titles appear on the cover, although Epic executives added a "Featuring the Hit Single 'Family Affair'" sticker to the LP for commercial viability and identification purposes. Family Stone A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
director Steve Paley took the photograph. Three of the custom flags were created: one for Sly, one for Epic Records, and one for Paley. The album was later reissue
Reissue
A reissue is the repeated issue of a published work. In common usage, it refers to an album which has been released at least once before and is released again, sometimes with alterations or additions....
d with a more conventional, alternative cover featuring a photograph of Sly in concert and the traditional album titles and text. In an interview with Jonathan Dakss, webmaster
Webmaster
A webmaster , also called a web architect, web developer, site author, or website administrator is a person responsible for maintaining one or many websites...
of the official Sly & the Family Stone website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
, Stone explained the album cover's concept in relation to Riot
People
People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:* as the plural of person or a group of people People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:*...
of all colors. I wanted the color black because it is the absence of color. I wanted the color white because it is the combination of all colors. And I wanted the color red because it represents the one thing that all people have in common: blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
. I wanted suns instead of stars because stars to me imply searching, like you search for your star. And there are already too many stars in this world. But the sun, that's something that is always there, looking right at you. Betsy Ross
Betsy Ross
Betsy Ross is widely credited with making the first American flag. There is, however, no credible historical evidence that the story is true.-Early life:...
did the best she could with what she had. I thought I could do better."
The outer album sleeve features a photo collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
, by artist Lynn Ames, depicting American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cultural images of the early 1970s. Featured on this collage were color photos and black & whites of the Family Stone, the Capitol, a grinning boy in plaid
Plaid (pattern)
For other meanings, see plaid.A plaid is a pattern consisting of crossed horizontal and vertical bands in two or more colors in woven cloth.Common examples of plaid patterns include:*Tartan, the pattern most commonly associated with plaid....
pants, the American flag with a peace sign in place of the stars, the Marina City twin towers
Marina City
Marina City is a mixed-use residential/commercial building complex occupying an entire city block on State Street in Chicago, Illinois. It lies on the north bank of the Chicago River in downtown Chicago, directly across from the Loop district...
of Chicago, a Department of Public Works caution sign, a piece of the Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and is one of the most well-known speeches in United States history. It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery...
, the tail end of a gas guzzler, drummer Buddy Miles
Buddy Miles
George Allen Miles, Jr. , known as Buddy Miles, was an American rock and funk drummer, most known as a founding member of The Electric Flag in 1967, then as a member of Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys from 1969 through to January 1970.-Early life:George Allen Miles was born in Omaha, Nebraska on...
, the Lincoln Memorial
Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial is an American memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The architect was Henry Bacon, the sculptor of the main statue was Daniel Chester French, and the painter of the interior...
, soul musician Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Robert Dwayne "Bobby" Womack is an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s where he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group The Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career has spanned more than 40...
, a bulldog
Bulldog
Bulldog is the name for a breed of dog commonly referred to as the English Bulldog. Other Bulldog breeds include the American Bulldog, Olde English Bulldogge and the French Bulldog. The Bulldog is a muscular heavy dog with a wrinkled face and a distinctive pushed-in nose...
, several anonymous smiling face
Smile
A smile is a facial expression formed by flexing the muscles near both ends of the mouth. The smile can also be found around the eyes . Among humans, it is an expression denoting pleasure, joy, happiness, or amusement, but can also be an involuntary expression of anxiety, in which case it is known...
s, and Sly's pit bull
Pit bull
A Pit bull is any of several breeds of dog in the molosser breed group.Many jurisdictions that restrict pit bulls, including Ontario, Canada,, Miami, Florida, U.S...
, Gun.
Production
Sly Stone worked on There's a Riot Goin' On mostly alone in a studio that he had especially built for himself at The Plant Studios, also known as The Record Plant, in Sausalito, California
Sausalito, California
Sausalito is a San Francisco Bay Area city, in Marin County, California, United States. Sausalito is south-southeast of San Rafael, at an elevation of 13 feet . The population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to...
, or at home in a studio located in the loft of his Bel Air mansion. The Record Plant studio included a bed and a wireless microphone system, and Stone would often simply lay down in the bed and record his vocals while in repose. According to the other Family Stone members, most of the album's instrumentation was performed by Sly alone in the studio via overdubbing
Overdubbing
Overdubbing is a technique used by recording studios to add a supplementary recorded sound to a previously recorded performance....
and, for some of the material, used a rhythm box in place for drummer Gregg Errico. When the other band members contributed instrumentation to Riot tracks, they also did so by overdubbing alone with Sly, instead of playing in unison as was usual for them on previous recordings. For "Family Affair" and some of the other selections on the album, Stone enlisted several of his industry peers and musicians, including contemporary soul acts Billy Preston
Billy Preston
William Everett "Billy" Preston was a musician who gained notoriety and fame, first as a session musician for the likes of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and The Beatles, and later finding fame as a solo artist with hits such as "Space Race", "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from...
, Ike Turner
Ike Turner
Isaac Wister Turner was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. In a career that lasted more than half a century, his repertoire included blues, soul, rock, and funk...
, and Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Robert Dwayne "Bobby" Womack is an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s where he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group The Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career has spanned more than 40...
in order to provide instrumentation on Riot, instead of his bandmates. Stone had also enlisted several random female vocalists to contribute with background singing, but was unsatisfied and manually omitted their vocals from the tapes. The album's muddy, gritty sound was due in part to this excessive use of overdubbing and erasing parts of the reel-to-reel tapes.
In Fall 1971, Stone personally drove the Riot masters to the CBS Records offices, relieving the worried Clive Davis. CBS issued "Family Affair" as the first single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
; it was the band's first single in nearly two years. It became the fourth and final number-one pop hit for the band, and it was a notable departure from the sound of their earlier hits. A somber, electric piano
Electric piano
An electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...
-based record, Sly and sister Rose Stone
Rose Stone
Rose Stone is an African-American singer and keyboardist. She is best known as one of the lead singers in Sly & the Family Stone, a popular psychedelic soul/funk band founded by her brothers, Sly Stone and Freddie Stone...
sing about the good and bad aspects of family, with Sly delivering his part in a low, depressed tone. The song's rhythm is provided by a drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
(or rhythm box), making it one of the earliest hit recordings to feature use of such a device (the first was another Sly Stone production, Little Sister
Little Sister (band)
Little Sister was an American all-female vocal harmony group, which served primarily as the background vocalists for the influential rock/funk band Sly & the Family Stone in concert and on record...
's "Somebody's Watching You").
The swampy texture of the song's production, as well as the album's production, was engendered by Sly Stone's excessive overdubbing, multi-track and mixing
Audio mixing (recorded music)
In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
techniques, which were notable for nearly drowning out undubbed sounds. Writer Miles Marshall Lewis
Miles Marshall Lewis
Miles Marshall Lewis is an American pop culture critic, essayist, literary editor, fiction writer, and music journalist. He is a graduate of Morehouse College, class of 1993....
later wrote of the album's production effect on Stone's vocals, stating "Never before on a Sly and the Family Stone album were songs open to so much interpretation, and even more so, dripping with cynicism. On the other hand you can hardly hear what he's saying for most of the album. Like Radiohead's Kid A
Kid A
Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in October 2000 by the Parlophone label. A commercial success worldwide, Kid A went platinum in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. Despite the lack of an official single or music video as publicity, Kid A...
or even the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St.
Exile on Main St.
Exile on Main St. is the tenth British and 12th American studio album by English rock band The Rolling Stones. Released as a double LP in May 1972, it draws on many genres including rock and roll, blues, soul, R&B, gospel and country. The release of Exile on Main St. met with mixed reviews, but is...
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, if used the way it was designed to be used, would make unrealistic sounds, and resorted to holding down five buttons, running the tape, then rewinding, holding down a different set of five buttons, and overdubbing.
Content
Most of Riot features Sly alone on lead vocals – Rose is the only other member of the band who sings solo lead parts on the album. The entire record features a dampened, dubDub music
Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...
-like sound as the result of Sly's extensive re-recording and overdubbing. The energetic "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
"Thank You " is a 1969 hit single recorded by Sly and the Family Stone, recognized as one of the greatest and most influential funk songs of all time. The song, double a-sided with "Everybody Is a Star", reached number one on the soul single charts for five weeks, and reached number one on the...
" (included on Greatest Hits) is reworked as the slower "Thank You For Talking to Me Africa". In an article for Allmusic, critic Matthew Greenwald praised the song's concept, writing:
"Runnin' Away" and "(You Caught Me) Smilin'" were Riot's other singles. The former features Rose Stone singing the lead vocals in unison with her brother Sly, and the latter was the first Family Stone recording for Texan Gerry Gibson, formerly of Roy Head
Roy Head
Roy Head is an American singer, best known for his hit "Treat Her Right."-Career:Head achieved fame as a member of a musical group out from San Marcos, Texas known as The Traits. The group's sponsor landed their first recording contract in 1958 with TNT Music in San Antonio, Texas while they were...
and The Traits, who replaced Gregg Errico as the Family Stone's drummer. Errico had gradually withdrawn from the band early in 1971, as a result of Sly Stone's increased drug use and now unpredictable demeanor. "Smilin'" is a hymn to getting high. Thom Jurek of Allmusic stated that it is introduced by a "slow, wispy soul that sounds like it's drifting in from a distant radio somewhere". On its composition, Jurek also wrote, "Sister Rose's voice is all sweet, and at first so is Sly's, but as the horns and bassline come stepping in, Sly's voice gets heavy and is distorting in places deliberately. The delicate keyboard lines, luxuriant and in the pocket as they are, cannot keep the voice contained. There's a minimal instrumental break in the tune and it suddenly fades just as it emerged." Side one technically concludes with the album's title track, which is silent, and listed as being zero minutes and zero seconds long. For many years, it was speculated that this cryptic track listing and the title of the album were in reference to a July 27, 1970 riot in Chicago, Illinois for which Sly & the Family Stone had been blamed. The band was to play a free show that day at the band shell in Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...
. However, the concert crowd became restless before the band made it onstage and began rioting. Over a hundred people were injured, including several police officers, and the reason given to the press was that the band was late and/or refused to perform. The back cover of the original LP jacket featured a photo collage that included a picture of the band shell in Grant Park overlaid with a photo of a police car. However, when Sly Stone was visited by web technician Johnathan Dakss of the band's official website in 1997, Stone dismissed this rumor. Instead, he told Dakks that the "There's a Riot Goin' On" track had no running time because "I felt there should be no riots."
Initial reaction
Upon its release, There's a Riot Goin' On was met with divided reaction from fans and music critics who were not used to the album's sound and lyrical content. Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
writer Robert Hilburn
Robert Hilburn
Robert Hilburn is a pop music critic and author. As critic and music editor of the Los Angeles Times from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles have appeared in hundreds of publications around the world...
expressed a mixed response towards the band's stylistic change from their previous "soulflavored" sound of songs such as "Everyday People" and "Hot Fun in the Summertime
Hot Fun in the Summertime
"Hot Fun in the Summertime" is a 1969 song recorded by Sly & the Family Stone. The single was released in the wake of the band's high-profile performance at Woodstock, which greatly expanded their fanbase. The song peaked at number 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart and number 3 on...
", while stating "there is little on the album that is worth your attention". While Sly Stone's previous body of work consisted of mostly optimistic R&B and psychedelic soul music, some major music publications praised this new, darker direction and composition. In his review for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine, music journalist Vince Aletti
Vince Aletti
Vince Aletti is an American music journalist and photography critic.Vince Aletti was the first person to write about disco , writing a weekly column about disco for the music trade magazine Record World and reporting about early clubs like David Mancuso's Loft for The Village Voice in the late...
wrote that "At first I hated it for its weakness and its lack of energy and I still dislike these qualities. But then I began to respect the album's honesty". Aletti cited it as "one of the most important fucking albums this year" and "the new urban music... not about dancing to the music, in the streets. It's about disintegration, getting fucked up, nodding, maybe dying. There are flashes of euphoria, ironic laughter, even some bright stretches but mostly it's just junkie death, oddly unoppressive and almost attractive in its effortlessness". A columnist for Hit Parader
Hit Parader
Hit Parader is an American music magazine focusing on the genres of hard rock, pop, and heavy metal.The magazine was originally started as a pop song lyric magazine by Charlton Publications in 1942. Charlton sold off the magazine before the company went under in 1991...
magazine gave Riot a favorable review, and stated that the album has "a lot that makes Sly the in-person rave that he is."
In his consumer guide for The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, critic Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave There's a Riot Goin' On an A- rating, which he later revised to A+, indicating "an organically conceived masterpiece that repays prolonged listening with new excitement and insight. It is unlikely to be marred by more than one merely ordinary cut". Christgau noted that "what's expressed is the bitterest ghetto pessimism" and complimented its "subtle production techniques and jarring song compositions", while citing it as "one of those rare albums whose whole actually does exceed the sum of its parts". There's a Riot Goin' On was included on several music publications' "End of the Year" lists and critics' polls, including The Village Voices Pazz & Jop
Pazz & Jop
The Pazz & Jop critics' poll is a poll of music critics run by The Village Voice newspaper. It is compiled every year from the top ten lists of hundreds of music critics...
albums list at number seven. The album achieved commercial success with two hit singles and debuting at number-one on the Billboard Pop Albums
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and Soul Albums chart. In his book Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music, which was published four years following the album's release, music critic and writer Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
cited There's a Riot Goin' On as "Muzak
Muzak
Muzak Holdings LLC is a company based in metro Fort Mill, South Carolina, United States, just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded in 1934, Muzak Holdings is best known for distribution of background music to retail stores and other companies....
with its finger on the trigger."
Retrospect
Following initial mixed reaction to the album, There's a Riot Goin' On has earned a legacy as one of the greatest and most influential albums ever recorded, while earning several accolades. Renowned music writer and journalist Robert ChristgauRobert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
wrote of the album's significance in a May 2007 article for Rolling Stone, stating "1969's Stand! revealed the magnificence of which this band would all too briefly be capable... Sly Stone had 'Made It'. But its temptations and contradictions ate him up. The result was the prophetic 1971 There's a Riot Goin' On, recorded in anarchic, druggy torpor over a year, or was it two, Stone didn't know the difference. Its taped-over murk presaging Exile on Main St.
Exile on Main St.
Exile on Main St. is the tenth British and 12th American studio album by English rock band The Rolling Stones. Released as a double LP in May 1972, it draws on many genres including rock and roll, blues, soul, R&B, gospel and country. The release of Exile on Main St. met with mixed reviews, but is...
, its drum-machine beats throwing knuckleballs at Miles
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
and JB
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
, it was darker than the Velvet Underground and Nico and funkier than shit, yet somehow it produced two smash hits, including the stark, deep "Family Affair". Yahoo! Music
Yahoo! Music
Yahoo! Music, owned by Yahoo!, is the provider of a variety of music services, including Internet radio, music videos, news, artist information, and original programming...
's S.L. Duff viewed that it "seemed dense and impenetrable" in comparison to "the get-on-up funk of Stand! [...] but it took time for the whole work to sink in. Still sounds new today". In a retrospective review, Zeth Lundy of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
called There's a Riot Goin' On "a challenging listen, at times rambling, incoherent, dissonant, and just plain uncomfortable" with "some episodic moments of pop greatness to be found" and viewed it as a radical departure from the band's previous work, calling it "a complete 180 in style and sound and attitude, spun round from the high-energy, lucid singles 'Thank You (Falentinme Be Mice Elf Agin)' and 'Hot Fun in the Summertime', released just two years earlier". Lundy wrote that it moved toward the "sort of euphoria-indifferent groove that would define the band’s post-Stand! proto-funk" and elaborated on its musical significance at the time, stating:
In a 2003 article for Rolling Stone, a contributor commented on the album's overall change in direction by Sly Stone for Riot by writing, "Sly and the Family Stone created a musical utopia: an interracial group of men and women who blended funk, rock and positive vibes... Sly Stone ultimately discovered that his utopia had a ghetto, and he brilliantly tore the whole thing down on There's a Riot Goin' On, which does not refute the joy of his earlier music." In addition to being featured near the top of several major publications' "best album" lists, There's a Riot Goin' On was also ranked at number 99 on Rolling Stones 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, one of four Sly & the Family Stone entries to be included on the list; it is the second highest of the band's entries, preceded by Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits (Sly & the Family Stone album)
Greatest Hits is a greatest hits album by soul/funk band Sly & the Family Stone, released November 21, 1970 on Epic Records. It includes all of the singles from the albums Dance to the Music , Life , and Stand! , and all of their charting b-sides...
(#60), and followed by Stand!
Stand!
Stand! is the fourth studio album by soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone, released May 3, 1969 on Epic Records. Written and produced by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, Stand! was the band's breakout album. It went on to sell over three million copies and become one of the most...
(#118) and Fresh
Fresh (Sly and the Family Stone album)
Fresh is the sixth album by American funk/soul/rock band Sly & the Family Stone, released by Epic/CBS Records on June 30, 1973...
(#186). The Swedish music magazine POP selected Riot as #1 on their list of the 100 Best Albums in the World, hailing it as the best album of all time.
Influence
Along with its critical recognition as one of the greatest albums of all time, the music on There's a Riot Goin' On is also considered one of the first instances of the type of funk music later popularized by George ClintonGeorge Clinton (funk musician)
George Clinton is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and launched a solo career in 1981. He has been cited as one of the foremost...
and Funkadelic
Funkadelic
Funkadelic was an American band most prominent during the 1970s. The band and its sister act Parliament, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
, the Ohio Players
Ohio Players
The Ohio Players were an American funk and R&B band, most popular in the 1970s. They are best known for their double #1 hit songs "Fire" and "Love Rollercoaster".- Biography :...
, and similar acts. There's a Riot Goin' On, as well as the follow-up efforts Fresh
Fresh (Sly and the Family Stone album)
Fresh is the sixth album by American funk/soul/rock band Sly & the Family Stone, released by Epic/CBS Records on June 30, 1973...
, and Small Talk are considered among the first and best examples of the matured version of funk music, after prototypical instances of the sound in Sly & the Family Stone's 1960s work. The album's unique sound also influenced legendary jazz musicians Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
and Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
to crossover to the jazz-funk
Jazz-funk
Jazz-funk is a sub-genre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat , electrified sounds, and often, the presence of the first electronic analog synthesizers...
genre. From the 1970s on, Riot's songs have been extensively covered and sample
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
d. Among the artists who have covered or reworked songs from Riot include Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
, John Legend
John Legend
John Roger Stephens , better known by his stage name John Legend, is an American singer, musician, and actor. He is the recipient of nine Grammy Awards, and in 2007, he received the special Starlight award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.Prior to the release of his debut album, Stephens' career...
, Lalah Hathaway
Lalah Hathaway
Eulaulah Donyll Hathaway best known as Lalah Hathaway referred to as the First Daughter of Soul, is a contemporary R&B and jazz singer. She is the daughter of soul singer Donny Hathaway and a classically trained vocalist. In 1990, Lalah Hathaway released a self-titled album. The album's first...
, Ultramagnetic MC's, De La Soul
De La Soul
De La Soul is an American hip hop trio formed in 1987 on Long Island, New York. The band is best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative hip hop subgenres...
, Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....
, Gwen Guthrie
Gwen Guthrie
Gwen Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter, who also sang backing vocals for Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, and Madonna, among others, and who wrote songs made famous by Ben E. King, and Roberta Flack....
, and many others. The funk music genre in general, including the works of Sly & The Family Stone and James Brown
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
& The J.B.'s
The J.B.'s
The J.B.'s were James Brown's band during the first half of the 1970s. On record the J.B.'s were sometimes billed under various alternate names such as The James Brown Soul Train, Maceo and the Macks, A.A.B.B., The First Family and The Last Word...
, had great influence on pioneering hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
acts, such as Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal...
, DJ Kool Herc
DJ Kool Herc
Clive Campbell , also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music, in The Bronx, New York City...
and many others who have sampled their music.
Dave Rosen of Ink Blot magazine wrote in retrospect of the album's effect on music, stating "Riot still sounds remarkably different from all other music even 27 years later (ironically in spite of the fact that the record has had such broad influence), so it should be easy to imagine the confusion it inspired upon its release... Sly employed the unconventional (and possibly entirely original) technique of mixing live drums with what was at the time a primitive drum machine... The introspective, yet political lyrics, the hard and dirty funk grooves, the inspirational, yet depressing songs—all of these elements would come to influence not only peers like Marvin Gaye and James Brown, but two generations of rappers and funkateers who paid homage to Sly's vision by making his samples and beats an essential backbone of their own innovations. Sly's Riot is still goin' on." In his book There's a Riot Goin' On, author Miles Marshall Lewis described There's a Riot Goin' On in retrospect as "one of the most powerful and haunting albums to inspire the hip hop movement."
Original LP
All songs written, produced and arranged by Sylvester Stewart for Stone Flower Productions.Side one
- "Luv n' Haight" – 4:01
- "Just Like a Baby" – 5:12
- "Poet" – 3:01
- "Family AffairFamily Affair (Sly & the Family Stone song)"Family Affair" is a 1971 number-one hit single recorded by Sly & the Family Stone for the Epic Records label. Their first new material since the double a-sided single "Thank You "/ "Everybody is a Star" nearly two years prior, "Family Affair" became the fourth and final number-one pop hit for the...
" – 3:06 - "Africa Talks to You 'The Asphalt Jungle'" – 8:45
- "There's a Riot Goin' On" – 0:00
Side two
- "Brave & Strong" – 3:28
- "(You Caught Me) Smilin'" – 2:53
- "Time" – 3:03
- "Spaced Cowboy" – 3:57
- "Runnin' Away" – 2:51
- "Thank You for Talkin' to Me AfricaThank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"Thank You " is a 1969 hit single recorded by Sly and the Family Stone, recognized as one of the greatest and most influential funk songs of all time. The song, double a-sided with "Everybody Is a Star", reached number one on the soul single charts for five weeks, and reached number one on the...
" – 7:14
CD reissue
Bonus tracks for 2007 Epic/Legacy limited edition compact disc reissue. The title track, which was originally no time, was placed at four seconds for the reissue and was accompanied by previously unreleased bonus material.- "Runnin' Away" (mono single version) – 2:44
- "My Gorilla Is My Butler" (instrumental) – 3:11
- "Do You Know What?" (instrumental) – 7:16
- "That's Pretty Clean" (instrumental) – 4:12
Chart positions
- Album
Chart (1971–1972) Peak
positionsU.S. Billboard Pop Albums Billboard 200The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...1 U.S. Billboard Top Soul Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop AlbumsTop R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...1
- Singles
Name Chart (1971–1972) Peak
positions"Family Affair" U.S. Billboard Pop Singles 1 "Family Affair" U.S. Billboard R&B Singles 3 "Family Affair" UK Singles Chart 14 "Runnin' Away" U.S. Billboard Pop Singles 23 "Runnin' Away" U.S. Billboard R&B Singles 15 "Runnin' Away" UK Singles Chart 17 "(You Caught Me) Smilin'" U.S. Billboard Pop Singles 42
Chart procession and succession
Musicians
- Larry GrahamLarry GrahamLarry Graham, Jr. is an African American bass guitar player, both with the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk band Sly & the Family Stone, and as the founder and frontman of Graham Central Station...
– bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, backing vocals - Greg ErricoGreg ErricoGreg Errico, sometimes missspelled as Gregg Errico, is an Italian American musician/record producer, best known for being the drummer for the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk band, Sly & the Family Stone...
– drumDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
s - Gerry Gibson – drums
- Bobby WomackBobby WomackRobert Dwayne "Bobby" Womack is an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s where he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group The Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career has spanned more than 40...
– guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... - Freddie StoneFreddie StoneFreddie Stone is an African-American musician, best known for his role as co-founder, guitarist, and vocalist in the band Sly & The Family Stone, the frontman for which was his brother Sly Stone...
– guitar - Ike TurnerIke TurnerIsaac Wister Turner was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. In a career that lasted more than half a century, his repertoire included blues, soul, rock, and funk...
– guitar - Sly StoneSly StoneSly Stone is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly & the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of...
– arrangementArrangementThe American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
s, drums, drum programming, keyboard programming, synthesizers, guitar, bass, keyboardsKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
, vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments... - Billy PrestonBilly PrestonWilliam Everett "Billy" Preston was a musician who gained notoriety and fame, first as a session musician for the likes of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and The Beatles, and later finding fame as a solo artist with hits such as "Space Race", "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from...
– keyboards - Jerry MartiniJerry MartiniJerry Martini is an American musician, best known for being the saxophonist for the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk band Sly & the Family Stone...
– tenor saxophoneTenor saxophoneThe tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble... - Cynthia RobinsonCynthia RobinsonCynthia Robinson is an American musician, best known for being the trumpeter and vocalist in the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk band Sly & the Family Stone...
– trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air... - Rose StoneRose StoneRose Stone is an African-American singer and keyboardist. She is best known as one of the lead singers in Sly & the Family Stone, a popular psychedelic soul/funk band founded by her brothers, Sly Stone and Freddie Stone...
– vocals, keyboards - Little SisterLittle Sister (band)Little Sister was an American all-female vocal harmony group, which served primarily as the background vocalists for the influential rock/funk band Sly & the Family Stone in concert and on record...
– backing vocals
Production
- Sly Stone – producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
- Engineers
- Chris Hinshaw
- Jack Ashkinazy
- James Conniff
- James Greene
- Robert Gratts
- Willie Greer
- Rich Tilles
- Artwork (collage, cover design)
- Lynn Ames
- John Berg
- Photography (reissue)
- Debbie King
- Don Hunstein
- Fred Lombardi
- Howard R. Cohen
- Joey Franklin
- Linda Tyler
- Lynn Ames
- Ray Gaspard
- Steve Paley
- Sylvester Stewart
External links
- Albums lyrics at SlyAndTheFamilyStone.net
- There's a Riot Goin' On professional reviews at SuperSeventies.com
- Soul Survival: Music Reviews at The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...