'Stand!' & 'There's a Riot Goin' On'

Culturally, it’s hard to find a musical artist that was on par with Sly and the Family Stone. The band encompassed the late 1960s and early 1970s like very few ever did.

There was the rock and hippie angle with socially conscious lyrics of both Stand! and There’s a Riot Goin’ On. Shortly after the success of Stand!, the band played Woodstock already making them a pillar of the cultural times.

Furthermore, with the song "Everyday People,"

they actually coined a phrase, “Different strokes for different folks.” How culturally impactful is that?

Their biggest impact is being virtually the first band of note to have a multi-ethnic and multi-gender band including Sly’s brother and sister, and two white guys, who the Black Panthers were later put pressure on Stone to replace with African American players.

After the success of Stand! the band really hit a rough patch, which in many ways was exacerbated by his rampant drug use. He would later end up broke and busted multiple times for drug possession (it’s rumored that he carried a violin case full of illicit drugs around). It resulted to ruin his career as it was always a gamble of him or a bandmate missing a show. He retired until recently when he’s gigged with family and friends. Otherwise, he’s been a recluse and rumored to be living in a van down by the river, quite literally. 

'John Mayall's Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton' & 'Disreali Gears'

I'm no Eric Clapton fan but it's interesting that four albums from four different facets of his career made it to the 1,001 list including these two, 461 Ocean Boulevard and Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs. And all of them recorded within a decade of each other and it doesn't include a Blind Faith record and Clapton missed out on The Yardbirds' eponymous record by a year (Jeff Beck was featured on that album).

John Mayall is interesting because he's this singer that just took any musician to join his group of white British kids singing black American blues songs. Mick Taylor followed Clapton as guitar player. The band also included John McVie and Mick Fleetwood.

Funny, in 2008 Mayall "broke up" the Blueb

reakers so he could concentrate on playing with other people. This despite the entire 40 years of the Bluesbreakers is Mayall playing with four dozen different players. Then someone convinced him to get the band back together which required getting a new bass player, guitarist and drummer.

Clapton left after the one album upon seeing Buddy Guy in concert and sparking a desire to have a power trio. So he joined up with Jack Bruce (another Bluesbreaker) and Ginger Baker to form Cream and record their mega-hit record, Disreali Gears featuring "Sunshine of Your Love" and "Strange Brew." Unlike the Bluesbreakers, this is real hippy shit. So it can be ignored pretty easily.

'Rapture'

Anita Baker? Why don’t you bake it yourself.

Zing.

The lady can sing. That’s for sure.

'C'est Chic' & 'Risqué'

I went in expecting a gigantic disco jerkoff, but instead got two pretty fun R&B albums with the bare minimum of schlock.

Chic is a pretty interesting band because it was started by Niles Rodgers and some friends. Over the years, the band is constructed by about 10 members and about 40 ex-members.

They had two gigantic albums at the end of the 1970s and it was promptly sampled by about every hip-hop act over the course of the next 30 years. They probably made more on royalties from sampling than they did selling records.

Now their music is played on Rush Limbaugh's radio show.

'Live at the Regal'

Artists and musicians very quickly find themselves cornered. Maybe it's partly due to their own doing, maybe for the sake of making money or whatever.

B.B. King probably became a bit of a cartoon character in the 1980s when he was on The Cosby Show, soap operas and commercials. You know you'd get a wide smile from that wide man and series of bluesy guitar riffs.

That's how King's music became sort of a punchline -- driving rhythm section accented by King's signature guitar from that noted Gibson ES-335, "Lucille."

And, honestly, he might have just gotten lazy, because his live album from 1965, Live at the Regal, is a jaunty and fun rhythm and blues record that goes beyond King's guitar playing. His showmanship and his group's overall repertoire and ability.

'Muddy Waters Live At Newport 1960'

Often, when you go through the 1,001 lists for books, records and films, you discover art that is truly influential, that really made an impact on others and spurred a plethora of other art, some of which could very well be considered better. But it never exists without that first step.

This album might fit that mold. By the time Muddy Waters, the famous bluesman, performed at the Newport Jazz Festival and released it several months later, he was already well known around the world.

By 1960, he'd made a name for himself as rock and roll began to really break. Thing is, unlike Buddy Holly or Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters had already made his mark.

Born in 1915 (or 1913, depending on the story), by 17 he'd already picked up the guitar and was performing around the country and making Chicago the hub for American blues in the north. He'd already recorded and by 1950s he was already recording on his own and making pretty good bank.

All before Elvis, Buddy and the Beatles. Meanwhile, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Rod Stewart and every other bluesy rocker in England were cutting their teeth on Waters' bark and his steely guitar. Live at Newport was evidence of the changing tide in rock music as it showed a proven bluesman going electric. Never had those infamous guitar heroes heard the instrument like the day they put the needle on this record. Now that's an album to hear before you die.

'Justified'

It's tough to hate Justin Timberlake.

Has anyone turned into such a highly-regarded entertainer and such a cool guy that started out doing Mickey Mouse Club and making his name in a boy band?

These days, no matter what he does, it's golden. He wants to be an actor, he can hold his own. He wants to be funny and going on Saturday Night Live as Barry Gibb, the can do it with aplomb. He wants to record and release a Grammy-winning R&B record? Sure, why not?

Timberlake was a co-conspirator in the "Nipplegate" incident with Janet Jackson during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004 (he was 24 at the time, FYI). Jackson took all the heat. Timberlake skated.

It's easy to think that the woman is always blamed, but I think there were bigger things going on. Timberlake continued to put himself out there. I don't know of one thing Janet Jackson's done since.

Timberlake is not only really talented, but he plays it all right in the media. He sleeps around with a bunch of hot women? OK. That's cool because he's cool. When he's cracking jokes on SNL, he's Everyman (despite being better at most thing than all of us). He's not unlike us with our buddies acting retarded and cracking our own jokes.

He screws up as much as any celebrity really (if Kim Kardashian slept with men like Timberlake sleeps with women -- and she does -- she'd be run through the coals -- and she is), but no one plays to the camera like Timberlake.

We are all smitten.

'Talking Book' & 'Innervisions' & 'Fulfillingness' First Finale' & 'Songs In The Key Of Life'

These four albums were all recorded and released during Steve Wonder's so-called "classic period."

It should be noted that an album was released per year for three straight years from 1972-1974 and the final came about in 1976. That's a lot of songs written and developed in such a short amount of time. Talking Book and Innervisions are long-time favorites of mine. Both are succinct and beautiful albums. They reach from comments on social issues or just simple love songs.

Songs In the Key of Life has a fantastic first part of the record. The first 10 songs are great, a triumphant that caps off his "class period." Then the second disc comes on and ruins everything. Five of the songs on the second disc are over six minutes long, some going into the eight-minute mark. It's a ridiculous collection of music. Disc one continues the greatness of Wonder in this period. The second disc is the most self-serving piece of crap.

'Back To Black'

Malcolm Gladwell contends in his book Outliers that there are a number of variables that go into an individual succeeding and another not.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, a lot of success can be chalked up to luck. Kind of being at the right place at the right time and, thus, taking advantage from that point.

Amy Winehouse's Back to Black has sold 10 million copies as she released probably one of the most well-regarded albums of the past decade and definitely of that year. And I think it was a set of insane circumstances that put her on that level.

For one, the album is tremendously unique (for the current day) mixing the blend of 1960s R&B and soul with modern pop and R&B. It's fresh and raw. It was something the public was not ready for being ready for. It was extremely accessible for being kind of an oddball album (British girl goes Motown). People listened to it and couldn't wait to say to someone else, "Have you heard this Amy Winehouse chick?" Also, it appealed to the hipsters and music snobs in addition to all the marginal music fans. It was a true crossover hit.

As soon as the album started to stick and the Brits were going bananas, all the personal baggage surrounding Winehouse's life comes out. The drugs, alcohol and partying. The dependent boyfriend who was just as bad a drug whore as she was. To a certain point, it made the album dangerous and completely legit. Like 50 Cent getting shot or T.I. going to prison. Also, it put her in the headlines. Over and over and over. You couldn't buy the press Winehouse was getting for smoking crack.

It also should be noted that Winehouse had style. The hair, the tattoos, the eyeliner, the emaciated crackwhore look. Yet, there's a major hint of sex and degradation that exists that we all want, as evidenced by our pornography.

Back to Black doesn't sell without Winehouse. If Duffy or some other tart records that album, it fails. The album needed her far more than she needed the album.

'There's No Place Like America Today'

Three years before, Curtis Mayfield released the soundtrack to Superfly, which I found really disappointing. It was really evident that he wrote the songs and music as a soundtrack. As a series of song that are stilted and are made for a film.

My disappointment turned to delight after listening to There's No Place Like America Today, his 1975 album.

It's a really good R&B record. Melodic and sweet. It exemplifies the brilliant musician and songwriter that Mayfield truly was. If you want to get to the real Mayfield and one of the best soul records from the 1970s, skip Superfly and get this album.

'Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music'

Ray Charles and Paul Newman are a pair of guys that when they passed away, I had an influx of people tell me how big a genius each guy was in their own medium.

Before their deaths? Crickets. Nobody was touting Ray Charles before he died. The guy's heart stops beating and suddenly he's everyone's favorite all-time musician.

Charles is just OK. He had his moments. "Modern Sounds," however, isn't one of them. First, he bastardizes the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love," ends it by butchering Hank Williams' "Hey Good Lookin'" and then records a watered-down, commercial pop album in between.

Charles biggest accomplishment toward selling records was dying. It came right when the film with Jamie Foxx was about to be released and his "Genius Loves Company" album was yet to be released, but would be soon. Few have benefited as much with death as Charles and that list famously included Tupac Shukar, who's tripled his discography after getting shot to death.

What many people didn't know, chose to forget or ignore is that Charles was kind of an asshole. A womanizer who had 12 children with 10 different women. Sounds like a swell guy. If he was an athlete, he'd be demonized.

'That's The Way Of The World'

I think the musical genre that is detetriorated the most over the past 30 years is R&B. Just think back to the 1950s through Motown and the 1960s. Consider funk and R&B groups like Earth, Wind and Fire, Marvin Gaye and Al Green of the 1970s.

I think the decline has several components.

For one, Gaye being shot by his old man, Prince and Michael Jackson getting creepy, and Whitney Houston getting hooked to crack. Two huge factors. Gaye probably keeps writing and performing really good music through the 1980s replacing the utterly uninspiring Luther Vandross as panty-dropper No. 1.

Houston's decline doomed the genre largely as she was the queen bee and primed for another decade of dominance as shown in nailing the "Star-Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl in the 1990s. Bobby Brown and drugs happened and now she's a ghost.

There was a brief eclipse of quality R&B with Boys II Men and TLC in the mid-1990s, but even after releasing two of the biggest albums of the decade, even they had a shelf life.

There will never be R&B groups quite like EW&F again because R&B artists are very, very disposable. There are good singers everywhere and many of them are good looking. Stick them in a studio, drop some silly beat and synth behind them, autocorrect the vocals and you'll sell a million albums to people who don't know any better, or, worse, don't care.

EW&F wrote and played their songs. Their beauty was in their instrumentation and Phillip Bailey came in with those silky smooth vocals, it was over real instrumentation that actually meant something. In the end, you can replicate John Legend, but never EW&F.