Open Mic Night - Opening the Mic

An Open Mic Night host who doesn’t share the mic is not really hosting an open mic night, but is instead subjecting you to his or her own creations ad nauseum. I have been guilty of this practice in previous open mic night posts and will now step aside for a week and treat you to a true master of the mic, Sylvester Stewart.

If you’ve ever tapped your foot to a Red Hot Chili Peppers* song; if you’ve ever said to yourself, “Wow, Prince has got real presence,”; or if you’ve ever appreciated how Aerosmith is so much funkier than other traditional rock acts, then you owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Stewart.

I first heard this song as a narrow-minded little rocker kid, when a much more musically adventurous friend found it in the back of a bin at a seedy used record store on a dirty side street in Frankfurt, Germany, almost a decade after the song had been popular. In it I heard everything I liked in rock; prominent bass, an unapologetic attitude of self-assurance mixed with laid-back cool, and the ability to bend a single sung syllable into a contorted and drawn-out display of passion.

This is one of those songs that will never leave my iPod: Sly and the Family Stone’s "If You Want me To Stay." I would recommend you crank it up very loud. You can even unplug the headphones or earbuds and let your office mates jam with you. I would never suggest such a thing for my own music.

Find it at top in the sidebar until next week’s song replaces it.

Archived Open Mic Night music is found here

*They covered the song, but not nearly as well as the original.