Fresh

Certain Songs #2264: Sly & The Family Stone – “If You Want Me To Stay”

January 12, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Fresh
Year: 1973

. . .

And this is where I came, kinda sorta.

I started listening hardcore to the radio in the spring of 1973, meaning that I ended up hearing “If You Want Me To Stay” a zillion times on 1300 KYNO-AM, and probably taped it off the radio, as well. And so, like a lot of the songs from that era, I know every single bit of it, and yet — because I was listening to it through shitty transistor radio speakers — can still discover nuances in it.

Certain Songs #1831: Raspberries – “I Wanna Be With You”

June 3, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Fresh
Year: 1972

While Eric Carmen played bass on the Raspberries debut, I guess after the success of “Go All The Way,” it was decided that frontmen had to play guitar, so Carmen switched to rhythm guitar and Dave Smalley switched to bass for the rest of their run.

Not that it mattered on their next great single, which was sonically dominated by the guitar of Wally Bryson, who — after a tight-ass drumroll from Jim Bonfanti — instantly launched “I Wanna Be With You” into the stratosphere with just his guitar, after which Eric Carmen starts right up with the sex talk.