Larry Graham
THE JAM: THE LARRY GRAHAM & GRAHAM CENTRAL STATION ANTHOLOGY
(WARNER ARCHIVES/RHINO)

Best-known as the rock-solid bottom end in Sly & the Family Stone and the inventor of the slap-bass technique, Larry Graham was also a fairly successful bandleader and singer on his own. This double-disc collection focuses attention on his solo work — some of the slipperiest, heaviest funk ever recorded — while spotlighting one of the greatest pop bassists of all time. But it also serves a more depressing purpose, for listening to Graham progress from his heady, psychedelic message soul of the early ’70s to the saccharine slow jams of the ’80s is like hearing Nelson George’s seminal book The Death of Rhythm & Blues laid out in musical form.

Still, Graham’s Lionel Richie tendencies don’t peak until somewhere in the middle of disc two. Before that, there’s plenty of prime Graham Central Station to keep the crate diggers happy. The earliest material sounds a bit too much like low-rent Sly Stone, but eventually Graham and his multi-racial, mixed-gender band began to find their own voice. Charged up with heart-pumping gospel grooves ("Release Yourself"), quirky doo-wop vocals ("We’ve Been Waiting"), and some astonishingly out-there fuzz-bass freakouts ("The Jam"), this prime Graham Central Station material pops, struts, and sashays down the block with a thick, tribal-charged groove that could power a steam train.

Issue Date: December 27, 2001 - January 3, 2002

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