Larry Graham and Graham Central Station
Every Easter, Bluesfest brings an influx of great international artists to the country to play for those willing to make the pilgrimage to Byron Bay. If you’re lucky and you’re in Sydney, most of those artists will come down for a sideshow somewhere.
This luck was granted to us Sydney folk by Larry Graham.
For the uninformed, Larry Graham’s career began in the ’60s as the bass player in Sly and the Family Stone, a band that shot to fame after an iconic late night performance at Woodstock. They were always a crowd favourite and a group whose energy was contagious, but until that night they were generally unheard of outside of San Francisco. Sly and the Family Stone really were the first group to fuse funk and soul with rock’ n ‘roll.
Australia never got the chance to see Sly Stone perform with his band as this was only the second time Larry Graham had visited Australia to perform (he had toured with Prince a few years ago).
Graham Central Station play their own brand of funk-rock that most certainly influenced bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And there really is only one word that could aptly describe their style: outrageous. The man is the bass player equivalent of Jimi Hendrix. He commands attention on stage in a similar fashion to Pete Townshend of The Who, bending his knees and pointing his instrument to the crowd like an assault rifle and grinding the strings up and down against the microphone stand. Arguably, there’s symbolism in him having a lectern microphone attached to his bass. Like a preacher, he has come to spread the word of funk.
As a bass player myself, there is something about Graham’s outrageousness that I’m just instantly drawn to. Take his unorthodox playing style, his all round uniqueness and mix it up with a ridiculous amount of distortion and phaser effects on his bass and I’m in heaven! And so to round out my long weekend, I picked out an outfit worthy of being seen on Soul Train and I headed down to the Basement here in Sydney.
Graham’s set could be divided into three parts: newer songs, Graham Central Station hits and Sly and the Family Stone favourites as a reward for being a good audience. In the middle of the set the 67-year-old professed his love for Australia and expressed his regret that Sly and the Family Stone never made the trip down under. In an attempt to make up for this, he explained that he wanted to offer us “a piece” of what was that iconic San Francisco band by playing such classics as “I Wanna Take You Higher”, “Hot Fun in the Summertime”, “Family Affair”, “Dance to the Music” and “Thank You”.
All the expected Graham Central Station tunes made an appearance including “Hair”, “I Can’t Stand The Rain” and “The Jam”.
The highpoint of the night though was “If You Want Me To Stay”, a classic Sly Stone tune with a classic chord progression. It was the perfect song to invite all the musicians in the room to one by one have a little jam on stage with the man himself. With the likes of bass players Victor Rounds and Tim Curnick in the audience that night, I have no doubt the guys would have left Sydney impressed by the talent in our humble but vibing music scene.
A Graham Central Station gig really must be experienced live and it really can’t be described as anything other than outrageous (I mean, Graham’s amplifier setup looked like something more suited to a gig at Allphones Arena).
Whether you’re a serious bass player, a massive fan of Sly and the Family Stone, a fan of funk in general or even if you just own Shrek on DVD and have enjoyed the “Karaoke Dance Party” (which includes “Dance To The Music”) way too many times, treat yourself and go see Larry Graham live if you ever the the opportunity. Just hope that it’s in a venue with more of a dance floor than the Basement.
