Welcome to Graham Central Station

Graham Central Station: It Ain't No Fun To Me and Hair
From: Graham Central Station (Warners, 1974)

It's covers time again today with Graham Central Station. Formed by Sly & The Family Stone bassist Larry Graham after his split from the band in 1973, this, the first album by Graham Central Station, wears it's Sly Stone influences heavily with meaty hooks and stoned out grooves. However this is by no means a bad thing and it's a shame that the band got sucked into the smoother disco sound on subsequent albums.

Covering Al Green is often a thankless task as you have to do something pretty special to justify messing with the great man's songs. Graham's cover of It Ain't No Fun To Me mixes up the original's style enough to make you take notice, setting his stall out from the very beginning with a raw scream to introduce the track. From there Graham sticks quite closely to the original before finally unleashing the bass we're waiting for halfway through the track and converting the song into a heavy heavy funk monster.

Hair features more bass heavy fun from Graham as the band funks out to some excellently pointless lyrics about the size of Graham's hair (look at it in the picture, it's fucking massive). Once again, Graham appears to grow bored with the melody of the song two thirds of the way through and drops the lyrics in favour of some deep and rolling instrumental funk. If, like me, you have the mother of all head colds, it's the perfect music to blow the mucus away.