Sly and the Family Stone: Hot Fun in the Summertime

From the SF Bay area
Sly and the Family Stone circa 1969

       You know you've created something special when others rush to imitate it.  This is definitely the case with my Wednesday Summer Song: Hot Fun in the Summertime by Sly and the Family Stone. Recorded in the wake of the bands eye opening Woodstock performance it was added to their Greatest Hits album released in August of 1969.  Quickly sailing up the charts to the #2 position it instantly became a summer defining anthem and one of the most recognized songs of all time.

Sly and the Family Stone
becoming famous at Woodstock

       Sounding at once both old and new Sly Stone's hypnotic crooning and the Family's tight harmonies create a fog of exciting nostalgia. They capitalize on this excitement with a gorgeous funk driven vocal breakdown in the middle of the song that, if you have a pulse, raises goosebumps and lifts your spirits.  Following this is the tag line Hot Fun in the Summertime.  Throughout the song is driven by a tapping high hat drum line, awesome brass work, strings, bass, and piano.  

Sly Stone

       A few years earlier the Beach Boys asked us to look back the same exact way Hot Fun does with their hit song All Summer Long.  The difference is that the Beach Boys asked us to remember how we spent our time whereas Sly and the Family Stone are asking us to remember that feeling you had the very first moment you laid eyes on your first love.  It is an extraordinarily powerful feeling that you only get to feel once in a lifetime if that.  While Hot Fun fully captures the innocence and power of that feeling it avoids cloying sentimentality by reminding the listener that this couple is also interested in hot fun after the county fair.  The Beach Boys never did that...

The crowd estimates at Woodstock were up to half a million

                         If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery then Sly and the Family Stone have been flattered over and over again.  Hot Fun In the Summertime has been recorded by the Beach Boys, Manhattan Transfer, Hall and Oates, Dayton featuring Chaka Khan, David T. Walker, The EELS, and a brilliant instrumental by Dave Koz and the Summer Horns.  There are others but these are the best covers available.  While each of these versions is in it's own way very good they never quite live up to the original.  Although the The EELS version as well as the Hall and Oates version, both recorded live, does bring the house down.  Please listen again for the first time to Sly and the Family Stone Hot Fun in the Summertime.