STILL TAKING US HIGHER – BASS GUITAR SUPER … · STILL TAKING US HIGHER – BASS GUITAR SUPER HERO LARRY GRAHAM TALKS! Written by Charles Waring Wednesday, 05 September 2012 19:45

STILL TAKING US HIGHER – BASS GUITAR SUPER HERO LARRY GRAHAM TALKS!

Written by Charles WaringWednesday, 05 September 2012 19:45 - Last Updated Thursday, 06 September 2012 07:33

"Woodstock - it doesn't get any higher than that." So says a jovial Larry Graham, who lets out arich, deep, melodious chuckle, as he recalls what he describes as the highlight of his eventfulsix-year tenure as a member of Sly & The Family Stone. They were, of course, the trailblazing late-'60s/early-'70s San Francisco-based band who wereas famous for their racially-integrated line-up as they were for their alchemical and transcendentsynthesis of pop, soul, rock and funk. Led by their enigmatic talisman, DJ-turned-band leader,Sly Stone, they stacked up a welter of memorable hits, including 'Dance To The Music,' 'I WantTo Take You Higher,' 'Everyday People,' 'Family Affair' and 'Runnin' Away.' Larry Graham sangwith the group but also, more importantly, provided the group's rhythmic bedrock with hisuniquely percussive bass playing that involved thumping and plucking the strings and whichsubsequently exerted a profound influence on the role and sound of the bass guitar in funkmusic.

But while Sly Stone's career trajectory has taken a markedly downward turn in recent years –last year it was widely reported that he was homeless and living in the back of a camper van onthe streets of Los Angeles – Larry Graham is gearing up for a comeback. Not that he's fallen offthe funk radar completely but it's been well over a decade since his last album, 1998's 'Back ByPopular Demand.' Now, though, having recently celebrated his sixty-sixth birthday, theTexas-born Grammy-nominated bassist and singer/songwriter is set to release 'Raise Up,' acollection of thirteen new songs recorded with a revived line up of Graham Central Station, thefunk-oriented aggregation that he led to US chart glory between the years 1974 and 1980. As

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well as a brand new album – which is released via Moosicus in Europe and Razor & Tie in theStates and features cameos from R&B luminaries Prince and Raphael Saadiq - Graham and hiscohorts are due to play in the UK next week at a one-off gig at the London's Clapham Grand onMonday September 10th. SJF's Charles Waring recently caught up with the affable funkmaestro for an in-depth interview that sheds light on all the key musical junctures in his life andcareer...

What's the story behind your new album, 'Raise Up'?

Though I wasn't recording over the years I never stopped writing. A lot of artists paint picturesall the time that other people may never see so for me as a songwriter, I'm continually writing allthe time and doing some recording. So basically these are a bunch of songs that I felt gotogether to tell a complete story. It's like reading a book or going to a concert or a play: it has agreat beginning, a great body, and a great ending. So that's why I chose these particular songsand so far I'm really happy with the outcome.

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What does the title 'Raise Up' refer to?

Everybody's going through something - it could be a personal thing, a family thing, or somethingthat is going on in the world that sometimes can get us down – so we really want to raise upabove that and we don't want to let anything just get us down and take us out. So the intent isthat when you put on music that it will help you to raise up above whatever it is you're dealingwith; whether for the moment, for the day, or for the week. I'm not saying it would necessarilyget rid of your problems but if you raise up to be able to deal with it, whatever it is, hopefullyyou'll feel a lot better. That's the feeling I'd like a person to go away with after they've heard theCD. I was trying to create a positive CD, something that makes you feel good. I call it heartmusic: straight from our hearts to the hearts of the listeners.

Prince – who you've worked with many times before – appears on three tracks. What washe like to work with?

It's really interesting. When we first met I didn't know that he was raised up on my music. We

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were doing a show with Graham Central Station, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Teena Marie inNashville, Tennessee, and we were playing the amphitheatre. On the same night Prince was atthe arena there. He heard I was playing in town and contacted me to come over and jam withhim at one of his famous after shows. I'd never played with him and didn't know very muchabout him. So I went over and jammed with him and surprisingly everywhere I went (musically)he was right there like he'd been playing with me for years. It caught me by surprise becauseagain, at that point I didn't even know that he had been listening to my music while growing up.At the end of the jam session that night he said "after you've finished the tour would you like tojoin my tour?" I did that and over a period of time we became very close and then I found outthat he was raised up on Graham Central Station and also got into Sly & The Family Stone. Sothat's why he knew my music so well and so to answer your question, when we play together,it's like playing with another extension of myself. We just think a lot alike, especially when we'replaying live. So he's very, very easy to work with and is a very generous person - in the studiohe doesn't let his greatness get in the way or try to overshadow what other people are doing,not only with me but also the way he works with other people too. His sound is definitely distinctand his way of doing things - but he always allows other people to be themselves as well and sothat's the key with me too.

There's a great cover version of Stevie Wonder's 'Higher Ground' on 'Raise Up.' Whatwas the inspiration behind it?

Well, me and Stevie, we go way back. In the early Graham Central Station days we did Steviecovers and I've done Stevie songs and he was there when we played a big concert calledHuman Kindness at Washington DC right in front of the monument. There were tons of peopleout there and I did a Stevie cover and then later on we went up to Boston. We played a club upthere that was broadcast live on the radio and I did 'Maybe Your Baby.' Stevie was in theaudience and he came up to finish it and sing with us. That was like "oh wow!" And then anothertime Stevie and Prince and I were in Chicago. We were in this restaurant and there was a clubnext door where some musicians were playing. And Prince said let's go over there and getsome instruments and jam. So me and Stevie and Prince went over there next door and we hada good old time.

The album features a new line up of Graham Central Station. How does it compare withthe original band that you led in the '70s?

It's interesting that these band members are closely connected with my previous bandmembers. (Keyboard player) Jimmy McKinney is very, very close to (keyboardist) HerschelHappiness. Jimmy was coming up when Herschel was in Graham Central Station and that's one

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of the people that Jimmy studied. He knows Herschel very well. Wilton Rab's also in the band.He's actually been with me on and off for the last 37 years, so he's not a newcomer on theguitar. Some of my new band members went to see the original Graham Central Station play attheir high schools because when we were in the Bay Area we did a high school tour. We wentto as many high schools as we could get to in the whole Bay Area over a period of time and justdid some free concerts to try and encourage young people to enter music.

There's a picture of your mother, Dell Graham, on the inside of the new album cover.How influential was she on your own musical development?

Oh, very. My grandmother raised me in my younger years as my mother was travelling a lotover the world with her trio. Then she settled in Hawaii for a while. My grandmother and I movedover there for about a year when I was eleven. I had been taking piano lessons in the meantimeand my mother allowed me to play one night at her club songs that featured me, which was agreat experience. She also got me involved in a local TV show that I was able to do there inHawaii and that added to the experience. Then, when I was almost fifteen, her and my stepdadmoved to Oakland on the mainland and so we started working together. My mother asked meand my then drummer - because I had a band that recorded our first record when I was thirteen– to join her. I had been playing guitar at that point – I taught myself - because my father gaveme his guitar when I was eleven. That was my main instrument at that point because I hadtaken piano, saxophone, clarinet, drums and other stuff. So I started playing guitar with mymum's trio.

At what point did you take up the bass?

What would happen was when my mum was soloing on the piano I would play bass lines on theguitar and then when I would solo she would be playing the bass lines on the piano. Of course,a lot of my bass lines that I was playing on the guitar I was learning from her because she was

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an experienced musician. When we started working at this club that had an organ I taughtmyself to play the bass pedals. I was playing the bass lines at the same time I was playingguitar and singing. We started sounding like we were pretty full because we had that bottomend that we didn't have before. That was great except that the organ broke down. Then wesounded empty. So I went down to the music store and rented a St George bass. I thought atthe time it would only be temporarily until the organ could be repaired. It turned out that theorgan couldn't be repaired so I got stuck on the bass. I always hoped at one point that I wouldbe able to go back to the guitar but another turn came when my mother decided that it was justgoing to be her and I: bass and piano with no drums. I don't know if it was a money thing orwhat but two people'll make more money than three. So to make up for not having a bass drum,I would thump the strings (on the bass) and that sounded good to my ears. And to make up fornot having that snare drum and backbeat I would pluck the strings, and make up for not havingthat. So my style was like playing the drums on the bass.

So your distinctive bass style evolved naturally then out of necessity?

Yes - just trying to compensate for not having a drummer. Even though it wasn't the correctso-called overhand style of playing the bass that everyone was doing I didn't really care aboutplaying the correct technique because in my mind eventually I thought I was going back to theguitar anyway.

So how did you get to join Sly & The Family Stone?

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When you go to different clubs you get regulars that come in all the time. We found out thatthere was this lady that used to come in all the time at this club called Relax With Yvonne in SanFrancisco, right close to the corner of Haight and Ashbury. We found out much later that shewas a fan of ours and also a fan of Sly Stone, who was a radio DJ at the time at KSOL radio inSan Francisco. After she found out that he was starting a band she took it upon herself to startcalling the radio station to tell him that there was this bass player that he had to hear, becausehe was a bass player too. She kept being persistent and finally he came down and heard meand loved what he heard. He told me he was going to be starting a new band and wanted me tobe in it. I talked to my mother about it and she said that she had been all over the worldtravelling and doing her thing and this might be a shot for me because Sly Stone was verypopular on the radio. I went to a rehearsal and because I hadn't played with a drummer for quitesome time I didn't know if it was going to be a train wreck or a welcome-back drummer feeling.But Greg Errico, being the type of drummer that he is, didn't collide with me: he actually playedaround what I played and we complemented each other. Then my thumping and pluckingbecame popular with songs like 'Thank You (Falettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin)', 'Dance To TheMusic,' and all that good stuff.

What was the experience of working in the band with Sly Stone like?

Sly Stone, I would have to say, was a genius. He was a genius of a songwriter and that's beenproved because his songs have withstood the hands of time. He was also a great bandleaderand the name (of the group) was appropriate because we all treated each other like family. So itwas a joy being in that band and working with him. We also appreciated the fact that he didn'ttry to change what we were brought into the band to contribute. Even though he was a bassplayer too he didn't try to change up my style of playing the bass. He didn't try to change upGreg Errico's unique ability to come up with drumbeats on 'Dance To The Music,' 'You CanMake It If You Try' and other songs. So he let everybody be themselves, which was very smarton his part. Everyone was allowed to contribute whatever they had learned over the years asopposed to only what was inside his head. So he was an excellent leader.

You played at Woodstock – what do you remember about it?

The first applause and the roar of approval that we got from the crowd.

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Was that before you played a note?

No, when we went on, the way our shows were structured, we would play a number of songstogether so that one song ran into the other song without a break, like a medley. And therewould be no space for people to actually respond and so you don't really have any idea of howyou were doing until that first response. We flew in at night and no one there had everexperienced being in front of half a million people. You definitely can't see that at night when it'sdark but when we stopped playing at the first break and we heard that roar of approval from theaudience - the roar of half a million people right there in your face - that was something that wehad never ever come close to experiencing and that just put us into another zone that we hadnever been. So that was a turning point for us.

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You left the band in '72 – how did Sly Stone react to your going? I never heard his reaction nor was it ever talked about. You know sometimes people grow up ina family and then they move on for whatever reason and it doesn't have to be negative. In fact,when I hooked up with Prince fourteen years ago, the first tour that we did I had Jerry Martini,Cynthia (Robinson) and Rose (Stone) from the Family Stone with me. There were some showsthat we played where Greg Errico came in and sat in with us. We've had as many as five of usup there at a time playing. So that pretty much says that there were no hard feelings there. Noone was upset with Greg when he left and we're still as close as ever. No one was upset withme otherwise they wouldn't play with me or him. It was just time, you know. And time for Greg tomove on too but it all turned out good. How did your own band, Graham Central Station, come about? I had begun writing songs while in Sly & The Family Stone although Sly was the primary writerfor the group, of course, and no one wanted to mess with that. After I left, I put together a groupof musicians (called Hot Chocolate) with the intent of recording songs that I had written. I hadactually gone in and recorded some stuff. The band was actually built around (singer) PatriceBanks (a.k.a. 'Chocolate'), and she was going to be the featured vocalist: I would just be thesongwriter and producer of that band. That's where that was supposed to be heading but thenthey played a gig at a club called Dembo's in San Francisco one night and it was packed.Everybody knew I was there too and then on the very last long the audience urged me to get upthere and pretty much made me go and jam with them. Of course, I knew the music like theback of my hand because I wrote it. So instantly it just went into a very high gear and the crowdwent crazy and pretty much everyone there knew that something had just happened - the bandknew it, the crowd knew it and I knew it too. It was just a matter of changing the name from HotChocolate to Graham Central Station, which is what I did, and then we recorded our first albumusing some of those songs that I had started writing for them. That was another thing thathappened that wasn't planned but the outcome was good. In 1980 when you released your first solo album ('One In A Million You') did you disbandGraham Central Station? There was never a disbanding or the thought that we were going to end it and were going tobreak up. It's a similar situation (as Sly & The Family Stone) where folks went on to pursueother things. No one was ever fired but other people started doing other things. I just did a soloproject and because of the style of the music - which included funk, because that's what I do,but also some other things - I chose to call it a Larry Graham project as opposed to a GrahamCentral Station project. But the intent never was: "I'm not doing any more Graham CentralStation records." It was just a different direction and as it turned out, the first single ('One In AMillion You') was quite different from stuff that Graham Central Station had been doing. In fact, Iremember after that came out a lot of people that came to the shows, a whole bunch of themwould have on their suits and all the ladies would have on their best dresses and came to hear'One In A Million You' while the rest of the crowd would be in jeans and T-shirts and came tohear the funk, not knowing that it was the same guy.

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'One In A Million You' showed a more romantic side to you. Was that something that youconsciously set out to do just to show a different side of your musical character? No, it's just part of the complete me. Going back to when my mother and I worked together inclubs, in addition to salary, you tried to make a lot of tips and the way you did that was thatwhen people requested songs you had what we called the kitty; you have a glass or jar on topof the piano and when people request a song - if you know it - then people are going to putsome money in the kitty. So we made it a point to try and know as many songs in any genre aspossible. My mum had this great big old thick book, called a fake book, where you have themelody of a song and the chord structure so you can jam as many songs in that book aspossible. She was such a good musician that was all she needed and so we tried to learneverything. Of course when it came to handling songs by Billy Eckstine or Frank Sinatra or Nat'King' Cole or Tony Bennett, it was my responsibility to cover those songs. But when it came tocovering song by the women, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington or whoever, then my mumwould handle those. So I had been singing ballads before Sly & The Family Stone. That's whySly had me sing a ballad on the very first Sly & The Family Stone album, 'Let Me Hear It FromYou.' That was the very first album so he was aware of my ability to be able sing ballads fromworking with my mother. Looking back at your career, what achievements are you most proud of? They're all different. The things that I achieved with Sly & The Family Stone I'm very proud of. Ifthat hadn't happened then there would have been no Graham Central Station or a lot of othergroups. So the things I accomplished then I'm very proud of and that was really the launchingpad for putting my style of playing the bass out there as well as my voice. And then the things Iaccomplished for Graham Central Station, of course, I'm very, very proud of them - not only as amusician and part of the band but also as a songwriter and producer. Then of course, as a soloartist, my accomplishments with 'One In A Million You' and 'Just Be My Lady' and havingsuccess with that, I'm very proud of that too. So it's all different. In all three areas there wassuccess and so when I look at the whole picture I call it one great big old blessing. LARRY GRAHAM will be playing at London's Clapham Grand on Monday September10th. His new album 'Raise Up' is released by Moosicus (Razor & Tie in the USA) on October22nd. Look out for a review of the album next month at SJF

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STILL TAKING US HIGHER – BASS GUITAR SUPER … · STILL TAKING US HIGHER – BASS GUITAR SUPER HERO LARRY GRAHAM TALKS! Written by Charles Waring Wednesday, 05 September 2012 19:45