Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back (Remastered) Sly & The Family Stone

• 1 Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back 03:55
• 2 What Was I Thinkin' In My head 03:58
• 3 Nothing Less Than Happiness 02:57
• 4 Sexy Situation 02:55
• 5 Blessing In Disguise 03:48
• 6 Everything In You 03:14
• 7 Mother Is a Hippie 03:01
• 8 Let's Be Together 03:36
• 9 The Thing 03:20
• 10 Family Again 02:46
• Total Runtime 33:30

Info for Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back (Remastered)

Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back is the eighth album by American funk/soul/rock band Sly and the Family Stone, released by Epic/CBS Records in 1976. This album is an effort to return the idea of the "Family Stone" band to singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone's work, after his previous album, High on You, was released without the Family Stone name. However, the original Family Stone had broken up in 1975, and a new Family Stone was assembled for this album: the only holdover is stalwart Family Stone trumpetist Cynthia Robinson. Vet Stone and Elva Mouton, both formerly members of Family Stone backing band Little Sister, are credited as providing "additional background vocals".

Only one single was released from this album, "Family Again" b/w "Nothing Less than Happiness", which failed to chart. Epic released Sly from his recording contract in 1977, and released a remix album Ten Years Too Soon, in 1979. Ten Years Too Soon took several Sly & the Family Stone hits (among them "Dance to the Music", "Stand!", and "Everyday People") and had them reimagined as disco songs.

„Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, Sly Stone's ninth album for Epic, features a reunited Sly & the Family Stone. Sly's previous album, the funk-filled High on You (1975), had been a solo effort. The sentiment here sure seems inviting -- Sly optimistically reuniting with his group in an aim to recapture the magic of his late-'60s prime -- yet the result is sadly disappointing. Rather than revisit the funk of High on You or the psychedelic pop/rock of late-'60s Sly & the Family Stone, Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back seems modeled after the Philly soul sound of the time. This in itself is fine -- this was 1976, after all, and the Family Stone seemed well-suited for the horn- and chorus-filled style of Philly soul, which was then in vogue -- and it certainly makes for a curious entry in the group's catalog. However, neither the songs nor the music here is especially engaging beyond the level of curiosity. The marketplace didn't respond well to Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, and it's fairly easy to hear why -- nothing here sticks, even if the music is pleasant enough and even if Sly is in an optimistic mood. Sly & the Family Stone may be back here, as the title proclaims, but this isn't the same band spiritually or musically. One suspects Epic may have pushed Sly in the Philly soul direction, given the label's treatment of the Jackson 5 on Goin' Places (1977). After all, the label didn't care enough about Sly to keep him around for long; following the commercial failure of Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, he was dropped from his contract after only two albums.“ (Jason Birchmeier, AMG)

Sly Stone, vocals, keyboards, guitar, bass, various instruments
Cynthia Robinson, trumpet, vocals
Joe Baker, guitar, vocals
Dwight Hogan, bass, vocals
John Colla, alto and soprano saxophone, vocals
Steve Schuster, tenor saxophone, flute
John Farey, keyboards, percussion
Virginia Ayers, vocals, percussion
Anthony Warren, drums
Lady Bianca, lead and background vocals, clavinet
Vicki Blackwell, violin

Produced by Sly Stone

Digitally remastered

Sly & The Family Stone
More than four decades after they first stormed the Pop and R&B charts in the winter of 1968 with “Dance To the Music” – a groundbreaking jam that has the distinction of being chosen for the Grammy Hall Of Fame, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s “500 Songs That Shaped Rock,” and Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Songs Of All Time” – the music of Sly and the Family Stone is more vital than ever.

The band’s catalog (every single composition penned by Sylvester Stewart aka Sly Stone) includes their three career-defining RIAA gold Billboard #1 Pop/ #1 R&B smashes, “Everyday People,” “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Again)” and “Family Affair,” and their signature Top 40 hits that began with “Dance To the Music” and went on to include “Stand!,” “Hot Fun In the Summertime,” “Runnin’ Away,” “If You Want Me To Stay,” “Time For Livin’,” and more.

Those songs not only inspired an era of youthful rebellion and independence, but also had a potent effect on the course of modern music in general. A dazzling fusion of psychedelic rock, soul, gospel, jazz, and Latin flavors, Sly’s music brought the next step – funk – to a disparate populace of hip artists. From Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, to the halls of Motown and George Clinton’s P-Funk, from Michael Jackson and Curtis Mayfield, down the line to Bob Marley, the Isley Brothers, Prince, Public Enemy, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Arrested Development, the Black Eyed Peas, the Roots, OutKast and on and on, Sly’s DNA is traceable to every cell of the musical stratosphere.

It is never enough to reiterate that they were the first hitmaking interracial, mixed-gender band. “Sly and the Family Stone’s music was immensely liberating,” wrote Harry Weinger on the occasion of the group’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction in 1993. “A tight, riotous funk, it was precisely A Whole New Thing. And they were a beautiful sight: rock’s first integrated band, black, white, women, men. Hair, skin. Fringe and sweat. Extraordinary vibes for extraordinary times.” If 1968 was indeed the year that changed the world, then Sly and the Family Stone provided the soundtrack for that change. They would continue to lay out a sound that is truly eternal.

Sylvester Stewart was born the second of five children (Loretta, Sylvester, Freddie, Rose, and Vaetta, known as Vet) in Denton, Texas, on March 15, 1944. His devout African-American family was affiliated with the Church Of God In Christ (COGC) and took their beliefs with them when they moved to Vallejo, California, a northwest suburb of San Francisco. Reared on church music, Sylvester was eight years old when he and three of his siblings (sans Loretta) recorded a 78 rpm gospel single for local release as the Stewart Four.

A musical prodigy, he became known as Sly in early grade school, the result of a friend misspelling ‘Sylvester.’ He was adept at keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums by age eleven, and went on to perform in several high school bands. One of these groups, the Viscaynes, boasted an integrated lineup, a fact that did not go unnoticed in the late 1950s. The group cut a few singles, and Sly also released a few singles as well during that period, working with his younger brother Freddie.

Into the early ’60s, Sly’s musical education continued at Vallejo Junior College, where he added trumpet to his mixed bag, and mastered composition and theory as well. Around 1964, he started as a fast-talking disc jockey at R&B radio station KSOL. His eclectic musical tastes made Sly hugely popular, as he became an early proponent of including R&B-flavored white artists (especially British Invasion bands like the Beatles, the Animals, and the Rolling Stones) into the station’s soul music format. Sly later brought his show to KDIA, where he deejayed right up through the start of Sly and the Family Stone in 1967. … www.slystonemusic.com

This album contains no booklet.