Record Plant, California, April 1973
STUDIO SHAPSHOT
Sly Stone is the centre of attention at the Record Plant studio in Sausalito, California, where he and The Family recorded sixth album Fresh, released two months after this session. Tom Flye was one of several engineers to work on the record, and he later recalled having to contend with Stone’s unusual, often intensive methods of working: “We’d work for days at a time almost without stopping, plus we’d travel, too. There were times when we’d do a gig, and I’d mix the house for him, and then we’d hop on a Learjet and fly to New York or LA or San Francisco, whichever was closest, and record all night, then hop on the plane, do another gig.” A step forward from the dense, murky world of 1971’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On, Fresh was less of a commercial success than its predecessor but still went on to sell more than one million copies. It was the band’s final US Top 10 album.