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Larry Graham, Jr. (born August 14, 1946 in Beaumont, Texas) is an American baritone singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as both the bass player in the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk band Sly & the Family Stone, and as the founder and frontman of Graham Central Station. He is credited with the invention of the slapping technique, which radically expanded the tonal palette of the bass, although he himself refers to the technique as "Thumpin' and Pluckin'."
Graham played bass in the highly successful and influential funk band Sly & the Family Stone from 1967 to 1972. He pioneered the art of slap-pop playing on the electric bass, in part to provide percussive and rhythmic elements in addition to the notes of the bassline when the band lacked a drummer. This style has become archetypical of modern funk. Slap-pop playing couples a percussive thumb-slapping technique of the lower strings with an aggressive finger-snap of the higher strings, often in rhythmic alternation. The slap and pop technique incorporates a large ratio of muted (or 'ghost' tones) to normal notes, which adds to the rhythmic effect.
This "machine-gun" bass style was later used by such artists as Les Claypool, Bootsy Collins, Louis Johnson, Mark King, Flea, Victor Wooten, Marcus Miller, Stanley Clarke, John Norwood Fisher, P-Nut, Danny McCormack, and Dirk Lance.
Upon the Family Stone's disintegration due to lead singer Sly Stone's drug addiction, Graham formed his own band, Graham Central Station. The name is a pun on Grand Central Station, the train station located in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Graham Central Station had several hits in the 1970s, including "Hair."
In the mid 1970s, Larry Graham worked with Betty Davis, the wife of jazz legend Miles Davis. Betty Davis' band included members of the Tower of Power horns and the Pointer Sisters, and she recorded three albums to critical acclaim but limited commercial success.
In 1975, Graham became a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses. In the early 1980s, Graham recorded five solo albums and had several solo hits. His biggest hit was "One in a Million, You", which reached number 9 on the Billboard chart in 1980.
He recorded another album in the late 1990s, with a new band using the Graham Central Station name. Two of the new members were former Family Stone bandmates Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini. He also toured with Prince and his band as his bassist in 2000.
In 2007 he was invited to play in Minneapolis with the reformed Sly & the Family Stone, but declined because he was out of town.
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