When you were playing with your mom, what did you play?

Okay, well, when we first started playing together, I was the guitarist. And we had a little trio, guitar, and uh, piano, and drums. A nice little trio.

What was it called?

The Dell Graham Trio, that's my mother's name, Dell. And uh, so we would play a lot of the clubs and lounges in the Bay Area, San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area. And then at this one club that I played, there was an organ that had the foot pedals that went about halfway across, and I thought I'd get into try to play the foot pedals and at the same time play the guitar and sing, and it worked. And so it sounded like we had some bottom when we was playing. And it was really nice, because my mother sang, the drummer sang, so three singers and all this happening. But then after we got used to having this bottom, the, the organ broke down. It was just a little too old and beat up. And so we put it into the shop to try to get it repaired, but I guess it was just over the hill, and they couldn't find parts for it. But now we got used to having this bottom and it sounded empty going back to just guitar. So I got the idea to go down to this music store, it was called Music Unlimited. I rented a bass, an old St. George bass, well, the bass wasn't old, it was pretty new. And uh, I said, well, I'll just rent this temporarily until the organ can be repaired, and then I'll go back to guitar because that was my first love. And uh, but you know, months passed, months passed, months passed, and the next thing you know I was like stuck on the bass, you know. It was like, I want to get back to my guitar, you know, but I had to keep on with the bass so we would sound full. But the interesting thing about it is that when I played the guitar, I didn't use a pick very often at all. I would play with my fingers, so when I went to bass I would play with my fingers, I wouldn't use a pick. And then most bass players at the time was playing like the overhand style, you know, like this, but because I wasn't going to be a bass player I wasn't really interested in learning the correct and proper way to play, because remember I'm going back to my guitar soon, right?

Could you tell us the difference between the overhand style that everybody else was playing and what you were playing at the time.

Well, naturally going from upright bass, standing up playing with your fingers like this, and then going to electric bass it was natural for bass players to go to the overhand style and now you're bass, and your hand would be hanging over the bass. [plays] I'm getting a delay. When I'm playing it's coming through late. Cut.

What is the difference between the overhand style that other bass players were playing and what you were playing?

Okay, first of all, when I went to bass, the traditional overhand style that upright bass players would play like this, right? And then when you went to electric bass you just naturally had the same kind of technique, which is more like -- [plays] See, how my fingers are overhand like that, it's like that, see. But, now, I was already playing with my fingers because that's the way I played the guitar. But after a while, my mother and I started working alone without a drummer. And so I started thumping the strings and plucking the strings to make up for not having the bass drum, I would thump, and I didn't have the snare drum, so I would pluck. And so I got a sound like -- [plays]. Like that see. Kind of percussive. So it kind of made it like you had a drummer but you didn't really have one see. And again, it was kind of an unusual way of playing, but remember, I wasn't going to be a bass player. This was just to hold down the gig, and soon I'd get back to my guitar. So even though I would get a little criticism maybe from professional musicians for playing this strange kind of way, it didn't bother me, because I wasn't planning on being no bass player. But it worked out in the long run.

What you played very much like a jazz riff. Is that what you were basically playing?

Yeah, because in nightclubs and lounges you would get requests for all kinds of songs, you know, ballads and blues. You know, [sings] "Every day, every day I have the blues." You know, that would be kind of like a little blues thing. But then you could get rock 'n' roll songs or whatever, it didn't matter, I would still use the same technique. It was still working in either case. But then now later on, uh, the, the style got popular because, uh, should I go into that? Do you want to hear how it shifted into the Sly and the Family Stone thing? See, what happened is --

Before you do that, give us a chance to change the ...

Now? Okay. So, to get a little bit into how the style got popular. Now realize I'm just trying to hold down my job and as far as I'm thinking, this is sufficient, we're playing clubs and lounges and I'm really not thinking in terms of records and all the rest of this. But there was this lady that used to come down and she was one of the regulars in this club that we played. It was a place called Relax With Yvonne on the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco. And she used to come out, come down and hear us play. And she used to also listen to Sly Stone on the radio, because he was a disk jockey on KSOL. And she was a big fan of his. Well, she found out that he was going to be starting his own band. And she took it upon herself, I didn't even know this, she took it upon herself to call him and bug him, saying, hey, you gotta come down and hear this bass player. I hear you're starting your band, you gotta come down and hear this bass player, you know? And so, because of her persistence, eventually he, he came down. And he, he liked what he heard, because originally he, he plays bass, you know, but he heard what I was doing and, uh, he liked it, and he asked me to join his band, and uh, it was through that group, that now, you add the thumping and plucking with, uh, drums, you know. [sings and plays] "Dance to the music, dance to the music." You know, that percussive thing. You know, like that. "I'm gonna add some bottom so that the dancers just won't hide." And I have my fuzz. And that's how my thumping got popular. But man later on we got into songs that featured my thumping and plucking. Songs like "Thank You," you know.

And the first time I was really able to, uh, really get my bass featured, and my thumping featured, and I really never thought it was going to be like my thumping and plucking would be on records and people would be imitating it and stuff. But we had a hit record called "Dance to the Music." You remember that, yeah? [sings and plays ] And I was thumping like this. [plays] And I had the fuzz going, I said, "And I'm going to add some bottom, so that the dancers just won't hide." And my fuzz tone came on. See my fuzz tone is a little box you step on, it's a distortion box, you know, and you step on it and it goes -- [sings]. I don't have it here but it's kind of like that, you know what I'm saying? So that featured my thumping. And then later we got into a song that featured my thumping and plucking. And it really was a song that was kinda thanking the people for the hits that we had had by then. And it was a song called "Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf". [plays] I got a chance to thump and pluck here. [sings and plays] You know? And then, that's how the thumpin' and pluckin' got popular because now, you had all kind of groups that were copying Sly and the Family Stone as a group, and our records because they were hit records. So to play that song, it would be kind of difficult to play it overhand, so you had to kind of like check out what Graham is doing. And copying the record, you had to copy my style, so my playing got popular through those records. It all started just kinda by accident.