Larry Graham & Graham Central Station

The Jam, Warner Archives

Larry Graham is the man who invented funk bass, his ground-breaking slap'n'pluck style regarded as innovatory even by contemporaries such as Bootsy Collins. Even if you don't recognise the name, you've heard Larry hundreds of times before – that's him in Sly & The Family Stone's seminal "Dance To The Music", promising to "add some bottom, so that the dancers just won't hide", before cranking out that irresistible fuzz-bass riff. When life with Sly got too hairy for comfort – one rumour had it that Sly felt threatened when Larry's afro outgrew his own – the bassist fled his boss's dubious henchmen and formed his own outfit, Graham Central Station, whose first few albums remain milestones of early Seventies funk, fully the equal of his former employer's contemporary work, albeit less well-known. Signed to a rock-oriented label (Warner Brothers) with little experience of promoting black artists, GCS were caught between two markets, struggling to establish themselves with the crossover rock crowd and the traditional black soul audience, despite a dynamic stage show and a sense of style which took the Superfly pimpsuit look to flamboyant new extremes. As this two-disc compilation confirms, however, the music was of the highest quality, harnessing restrained rock guitar and soul organ to bubbling clavinet, puttering drum-machine (quaintly dubbed "funkbox") and Graham's punchy bass. Highly recommended.