The Glastonbury mud has barely dried on the Family Stone’s shoes after they performed there on Saturday for about 30,000 people, but they are already back to playing club venues. “I prefer the intimate shows,” claims singer and keys player Alex Davis, whose far-out hat and coat make him look like a funky wizard. It’d be easier to believe him if he didn’t mention Glastonbury about four more times during the set.
You can hardly blame these veteran San Franciscan funkateers – founding members Cynthia Robinson, Greg Errico and Jerry Martini included – if they’re still buzzing after such a dramatic return to prominence. While the Family Stone resumed several years ago, it has been to limited fanfare without Sly Stone, their long-absent paterfamilias (he’s the daddy of backing singer Phunne Stone, his daughter by trumpeter Robinson). Sly’s drug, legal and financial problems are well publicised. Saxophonist Martini reckons we should pay no heed – “he’s still writing songs … don’t listen to the crap you hear on the news” – but it is a brave promoter who’ll ever book him again, judging by recent bizarre public appearances.
The absence of a focal point on stage would be less pronounced if the stodgy sound mix didn’t smother Davis’s vocals. Lengthy drum solos and guitar solos (why plonk one in the middle of such a fantastically measured song as Family Affair?) are standard overindulgences of maverick musicians who lack a creative fulcrum to marshal them. But the band are tremendously tight, and they do the feelgood grooves of Everyday People, Dance to the Music and Stand! skilful and energetic justice. I Want to Take You Higher refuses to quit until it has reached maximum elevation. Guitarist Nate Wingfield declares Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) “the funkiest tune that was ever put on wax”, and few would disagree, as its finger-popping riff inspires wild raptures of dancing. Rumps shaken.
