9. Sly & The Family StoneStand!

This is an amazing album. Sly had two or three great albums, like Dance To The Music, I love that record. I saw Sly play live a few times, but often he wouldn’t show up. This was 69, so Woodstock happened and both Sly and Santana had played it. With Sly And The Family Stone, they were just an amazing live band, they were exciting, but obviously the drugs got them. If you look through this list, many of the acts were touched by drugs in a really negative way. I saw the Questlove documentary, and it was pretty good, but maybe he wanted to stay away from the drugs stuff. I did a documentary about funk called Finding The Funk and we interviewed Sly. I did it with Nelson George. We fell out over the film, but we’ve now sort of reconnected. I felt guilty about it. I wanted the film to be about how hip hop killed the funk band, but Nelson wanted it to be just about funk. 

But Stand!, it’s so political, but it’s also commercial. I mean, ‘Don’t Call me N****r, Whitey’, followed by ‘I Want To Take You High’, then ‘Somebody’s Watching You’, ‘Everyday People’… every song is a hit, and every song is different in a way. It’s funny that it was also 69, what a year. When we did Finding The Funk, we would ask people about their favourite albums, and so many people said Stand! I think it is such a touchstone for other people.