That tune, his remake of “When We Get Married,” and “Just Be My Lady,” the title track from his 1981 album, are three reasons why love ballads are the first thing that comes to mind of many who recall the music of Larry Graham.
The second single from Graham’s album by the same name cracked the Top 10 in the Billboard Pop charts, went to the top of the R&B chart, was a mainstay on R&B and pop radio in the fall and winter of 1980 and will live eternally as a wedding song.
The ballad “One In a Million You” is the definition of transcendent. That transcendent hit came in 1980 when Graham decided to follow Barry White and Isaac Hayes in deploying the low vocal register to sing ballads. However, I realized something as I went back and listened to the Graham Central Station catalog in preparation to review the tragically delayed release of his album Chillin.’ While funk cuts such as “The Jam” were always on the radio back in the 1970s, the band the bore Graham’s surname never had a transcendent type of crossover hit of the kind he regularly experienced when he was playing psychedelic funk with Sly and the Family Stone. We also know that Graham is the funk music legend who pioneered the slap and pop technique of bass playing that became commonplace by the end of the heyday of the funk band era in the mid 1980s. We can name all the hits from his tenure with both. Larry Graham will always have a prominent spot in the heart of all funk fans from his time with Sly and the Family Stone through his work as the leader of Graham Central Station.