‘Sing a Simple Song’ was a 1968 single by Sly & The Family Stone, which then arrived on the classic album Stand a year later. Sly, his brother Freddie, sister Rose, and Larry Graham all sing lead. The mic-passing vocals were a regular theme of The Family Stone, who popularised the technique in funk along with Parliament-Funkadelic. (In his memoir, Brothas Be Yo, Like George, Ain’t that Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?, George Clinton wrote that the second Funkadelic single, ‘I’ll Bet You’, featured “a multipart lead that was similar to what Sly was doing at the time.)
Cynthia Robinson sing-shouts her lines in trademark about-to-burst fashion: “Sing a little song! Try a little do re mi fa so la ti do!” Upon her passing in 2015, Questlove called Robinson “Music’s original ‘hypeman’”.
The drums are almost as much a lead instrument as the vocals. Drums being at the forefront may be commonplace in music now, but before funk foremen James Brown and Sly they were far more often a mere accompaniment. The Family Stone drummer Greg Errico told Red Bull Music Academy in 2019:
“Drums used to be a background, incidental instrument and they were mixed as such in the back of a record. Sly loved rhythm, he was inspired by it, so he mixed the drums in front of the record. That was the predominant sound and everything else went on top of that. I always approached it like the band was an orchestra. Even though it wasn’t a big band, I played the sessions and I played the drums like I did live and like my passion drove me to.”
Though Sly was credited as sole writer, this was before There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971), when he became more reclusive. For the band’s first four studio albums, the writing process was collaborative. Errico said:
“[Sly] let everybody be part of the creative force of what made those records, and that’s why I think they were so unique.”
Errico told Uncut magazine in 2023:
“In the studio sometimes he’d come in with an idea, but by the time he cut it, what everybody brought to the table was very important. You can hear that in the sound on the first several albums, compared to when he did stuff by himself in his home studio later (...) Sly played keyboards, so when we started jamming, he’d be there.”
For the first four albums, the band worked together, with everybody “bringing their vibe to the table.”
But Errico gives huge credit to Sly, describing Stand as the “pinnacle” of his “songwriting, uplifting commentary and music”. He also praises Sly’s skills as a producer and understanding “of the studio and the process of engineering sound.”
That “commentary” was more prevalent elsewhere on the album. Sly’s lyrics ranged from pointed sociopolitical commentary like ‘Everyday People’ and ‘Stand!’ to James Brown-esque invitiations to dance. ‘Sing a Simple Song’, like ‘Loose Booty’ five years later, is very much the latter, with feel-good communal lines like “Everybody sing together” and “Sing it with your mama, sing it”, as well as Rose’s “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” (that’s eight “yeah”s) and Sly and Rose’s “Yaaa! Ya, ya, ya, ya”, sampled by Public Enemy for ‘Brothers Gonna Work It Out’.
Each instrument leaves space for the next. In the verses, Sly’s organ avoids treading on Freddie’s lead guitar riff, and his subtle sustained chord leading to the “Yaaa!” is fairly quiet in the mix. Freddie’s guitar switches from staccato picking to scratchy, Jimmy Nolen-esque chords. After his part has been established in the first few bars, it’s joined by deep trumpet stabs.
Larry Graham leaves his audacious slapping and popping for other songs, and here plays a restrained but brilliantly funky bassline. In the pre-chorus (“Sing a simple song!”), Larry and Freddie essentially switch roles. Larry plays more melodically with sliding notes; Freddie plays support. In the instrumental bridge, Larry steps back completely.
The bridge (from 2:10) is a neat bit of arranging and production. It starts with just drums in the right speaker and Jerry Martini’s saxophone in the left; Jerry plays a simple, catchy phrase worth repeating. His sax is then mimicked by Freddie’s guitar, before a drum roll sets up the satisfying return to the Rose’s “Yeah”s and the bass on the One.
Errico described Sly as a “great arranger”:
“He’d make the two horns sound like a whole section sometimes, just because of how he voiced the notes. He used Cynthia’s trumpet down low and Jerry’s tenor played the high parts becaused it worked better, and that ended up being our sound. He knew his music theory, he dug in a little deeper than just a horn arranger would and created clever, unique sounds.”
Clinton wrote in his memoir, referencing the Funkadelic song ‘Nappy Dugout’:
“Bernie [Worrell], like Sly, liked Bach quite a bit, and both of them used his theory of counterpoint, which is about setting melodies up on top of one another to create something larger. Bernie’s understanding was a bit more classical than Sly’s, but both had a way of making different parts that wove in and out of each other.”
Many fans view Stand as the band’s highpoint. Errico agrees: “In ’69 we were at the peak of our game in all that we created”.
‘Sing a Simple Song’ was featured on the 2025 documentary, SLY LIVES! (Aka The Burden Of Black Genius), directed by Questlove. The accompanying soundtrack album includes a slower tempo, near 6-minute alternate mix. The bass is up front; the drums sound punchier and are mixed centrally rather than to the right.
In the outro there's dissonant keyboard and the bass and guitar deviate from their main patterns. It sounds improvised until the latter two instruments end in perfect unison. You can tell why it wasn’t included on the single mix, but it’s cool to hear.
Top image from Discogs.