![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan8.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride4.jpg)
Glenn’s tribute to Sly
An acclaimed pioneer of psychedelia, funk, soul, and racial integration in music, Sly Stone (real name Sylvester Stewart) of the Sly and the Family Stone fame has passed away at the age of 82. Louder Sound quotes Glenn Hughes in their obituary:
The big turning point for me was when I first went over to America with my band Trapeze in the very early 70s. I turned on the radio and heard Sly & The Family Stone. The likes of Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding and Donnie Hathaway had influenced me vocally, but Sly Stone’s music had a deeper resonance. Especially on [fifth album] There’s A Riot Goin’ On. Thank You For Takin’ To Me Africa, Family Affair… songs like that. It sounded just superhuman to me.
When Sly sang he used two or three different voices, which influenced the way I started to sing, from real deep down to kinda screamy – that was just me. Well, it was going to be me.
When you play Stormbringer and you listen to You Can’t Do It Right, Hold On and Love Don’t Mean A Thing – the way Ritchie played, it’s funky. The way Ritchie hooked in with me, Paicey and Lordy, that’s some funky stuff. We didn’t use the word ‘funk’ then because that might’ve offended some rock fans. But it’s the whole core of who I am. Thanks to Sly Stone, when I joined Purple I added a swagger that wasn’t there before. I feel good about that.
Thanks to MacGregor for pointing this out.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Glenn’s first solo album, Play Me Out, the first song on that? Basically a Sly Stone tribute:
https://youtu.be/FMMTvg426Y0
That Woodstock performance by Sly was legendary stuff too:
https://youtu.be/tQ0PSpHFV_s
June 11th, 2025 at 04:45Thanks for that Sly and the Family Stone clip Uwe. The Ed Sullivan one, kicking serious butt there, quite a bouncy tune. Before all the shite of drugs etc kicked in, a shame as we often say. That drummer Greg Errico, an excellent player indeed and still going to this day. Rest easy Sly, where ever you are.
June 11th, 2025 at 07:29Great stuff indeed. I always thought it a pity that there are not that many artists around that combine funky grooves with a bit hard edged sounds and heavy riffing. GH did it with Trapeze and in DP, Mother’s Finest spring to mind, who were excellent but never made the big time, Dan Reed Network too… I never understood why many bands (or rather their fans obviously) prefer a steamhammer approach to their rhythm. Why not groove and blast at the same time? It can be done. Just ask Ted.
June 11th, 2025 at 08:56I think it was Simon Robinson who “mistakenly” named Stormbringer “Deep Purple in Funk”…
June 11th, 2025 at 10:54@1…Uwe that first album with Glenn is so different then the next two, i need a woman 👩🏻
June 11th, 2025 at 11:31You know what’s definitely weird? That throughout all his decades of making music, Glenn who has soaked up Black Music so much was never seen with Black musicians much. Sure, he met Stevie Wonder and auditioned for Earth, Wind & Fire (turned down for being “too rock”), but you never saw him with Black cats in one of his bands. He’s championed all-Black band Living Color and even his sartorial style owes as bow to Black fashion, but he regularly surrounds himself with only white musicians.
I’m far from asserting any racial bias with him – I remember a German review of Play Me Out that stated: “Former DP bassist Glenn Hughes embraces Black Music on this record with so much sweaty sincerity and true soul, you cannot help but applaud him. And be touched by it.”, but is he maybe overawed by the people that have musically influenced him so much? He has said he lives in fear of rejection, yet I’m pretty sure that even an artistic recluse such as Prince would have jammed with him given the chance (Prince regularly had white people in his backing bands as did Rick James).
Just wondering. If I ever met him, that is the one question I would ask him. Sort of “Why did you never create your own Mother’s Finest?”
I’m with my long lost twin brother Max, I don’t get the funk-antagonism prevailing in rock either – some of it permeates even this site here, all that accusatory moaning of “But Glenn brought funk to DP!” as if it was some kind of venereal disease. Christ, even a band as white bread heavy metal as Judas Priest dabbled with funk:
https://youtu.be/KATlCwKZKp4
And the guys from whiter than white AOR outfit Night Ranger, Brad Gillis (who followed Bernie Tormé in Ozzy’s band) and Jack Blades, used to play with ex-Sly & the Family Stone members (Jerry Martini) in San Francisco local heroes Rubicon
https://youtu.be/r6kkcN2dZBI
https://youtu.be/l31O6whUdGk
Yup, same two guys you see here rock in’ out, singing + playing bass and playing lead guitar (on the right – Jeff Watson, who would go on to play with JoLT and Bob Daisley in Mothers Army, is the guy on the left):
https://youtu.be/GSWPTU_krTY
And those well-rehearsed Rubicon Black Funk dance band choreo moves & routines always stuck with them too @02:58 … 🤣
Lovely band, Night Ranger, great fan of theirs.
You know, not all good energy music needs to be rock:
https://youtu.be/nMb1i88BkMM
June 11th, 2025 at 15:31@ 6 – Shame on Uwe, it is Living Colour, the correct spelling. When asked about that by Robert Fripp (who admired the band) in a 1990’s guitar interview, Vernon Reid simply said, because that is the correct spelling man, ha ha ha. I could put that down to a simple little ‘typo’ though Uwe, we all make them, however the jury is still out on that one at present! Cheers.
June 11th, 2025 at 22:24Just listen to Glenn’s solo album Feel, and you get the Funk and Soul sound of say, maybe… Play Me Out.
June 12th, 2025 at 11:50In this particular theat(r)e(r) of expression, I labo(u)r with all that weird archaic m(o)ustached Brit spelling much as I am enamo(u)red with Brit culture. 🫣
Honestly, I didn‘t know Vernon‘s men spelled themselves with an ‘o’, they’re friggin’ Yanks, not Limeys! I went to an American school, wrote and spoke American English for most of my professional life, have my autocorrect set to American English and even have an American accent when speaking – duh! 😂
But Brit expressions creep in all the time too – that comes from having worked in a Brit law firm for so long, reading Brit music magazines in the past and present plus also The Guardian as one of my dailies.
June 12th, 2025 at 13:15