Larry Graham at the Minnesota Zoo
Three years ago, when interviewed about the Sly & The Family Stone reissues, Larry Graham played some of his new music for this reporter on the hushed condition that it not be written about. Well, it's been long enough to at least say that the music is fantastic—and, Larry, release it already! (Maybe leak it via the mixtapes that helped make your nephew Drake famous.)
The question mark hanging over this Chanhassen grandfather who changed modern music has never been whether he still "had it," but whether he would still share it. Graham, the easy baritone whose "thumpin' and pluckin'" bass style with The Family Stone and his own Graham Central Station helped define funk, has yet to release an album since 1998's GCS 2000, which seemed a bit too much the handiwork of its co-producer (and NPG Records boss), Prince. Graham has since played with Prince and toured, but until last Friday at the Minnesota Zoo, had refrained from performing a headlining concert in his adopted home state.
If anyone doubted he could rise to the occasion, including Graham, the show didn't do him any favors by lining up Mint Condition as openers: The great St. Paul R&B band, with its national cult following maintained by good albums right up through 2008's E-Life, had most of the crowd on its feet for "Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)."
So Graham made his entrance by catching everyone off-guard. After an introduction by KMOJ's Q Bear, there was a noise from offstage. Led by whistle-blowing backup-singer Biscuit, Graham and his latest incarnation of Graham Central Station entered the amphitheater from the ground as a marching band dressed in all white, against the green backdrop of the lake and trees. Onstage, Graham and the band launched seamlessly into an especially poignant "We've Been Waiting" ("for so long / Waiting to play for you some of our songs"), whose a capella five-part harmonies emerged as a GCS signature of the evening, along with Graham's incomparably lyrical slap bass. ("We've Been Waiting" is, in retrospect, the obvious inspiration/rip-off fodder for Todd Rundgren's 1983 hit "Bang The Drum All Day.")
"Oh, it's gonna be one of those nights," Graham said after a fervent response. "Minnesota is my new home, and y'all making me feel right at home." With a giant fedora and gleaming smile, Graham never stopped moving except to freeze at the end of a song, standing momentarily in triumph, usually with a finger pointed at the sky or at the audience—a gesture that would seem cheesy if he weren't so visibly moved and pumped up. Otherwise, he was all choreographed dance moves, taking center stage as the singer or ceding it to Biscuit and others, then at one point climbing into the stands for some fuzz-bass solo-ing backed only by his (amazing) drummer.
For Graham's 1980 hit "One In A Million You," he suavely polled the crowd for couples who had been together longer than a year, then 10 years, then 20 years, finally coaxing onstage a man and a woman who had been together for 55 years—20 longer than Graham and his wife, Tina. This was showbiz but effective showbiz. And Graham had the advantage of genuineness. When Tina herself joined him onstage for some dancing, she got a deserved laugh by sweetly pointing to Graham and stage-mouthing, "That's mine."
The show ended past curfew and with the house lights up, the crowd dancing, singing, and clapping along after inevitable covers (a first-rate "Higher Ground") and an even more inevitable Sly & The Family Stone medley, so much better than even Sly's own recent performances for having the original band's bassist in the driver's seat. The farewell song of the encore was Sly's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," whose title chorus the audience kept singing as the band exited to the left, with Graham answering each repetition with an offstage shake of the tambourine. We can assume the thank-you was mutual.
