I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly and the Family Stone (24 page)

Late in the afternoon, after several phoned attempts, Neal and
I determined to trust dumb luck and drive over to Sly's environs.
The trip took us across the Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area,
lovely and tranquil, a contrast to Neal's obvious excitement. The
air was crisp and cool, and the conversation, mostly about Sly, amusing. My guide picked a staging area, just off the freeway and
within striking distance of Sly, to try phoning him again. After several tries, his hope seemed to fade somewhat, but around 3 p.m.
he reached Phunne, Sly's daughter with Cynthia, who was visiting.
She told Neal that her dad had been up late the previous night, not
ushering in 2007 but working on his music, and that he was still
asleep. A while later, she confirmed his rising and gave us the green
light.

Neal navigated me along the rural road leading the way up
among the hills to the pretty place Vet had found for her brother,
well hidden from the hoi polloi and the media. A driveway off the
road wound past oak trees toward a massive six-bedroom mansion, along a curved fence embracing the elongated, well-cultivated furrowed rows of a vineyard. Mario had referred to the
grapes in a tale he'd shared with me about a recent visit by the
landlords. "I made a joke with 'em, `If Sly buys this place from you
guys, the vineyards are going, man.' They go, `Whaddya mean?' I
go, `We're gonna put thoroughbreds in there, man.' They didn't
know what to say." Sly had no intention of becoming a vintner.

I was instructed by Neal to wait in the spacious garage while
he ascended into the living quarters to announce me. I wondered
if arrangements for a papal audience might be like this. It was a
good time to take a look around at some of the "toys" for which
Mario and Neal shared the responsibilities of registration and
maintenance. They included a Hummer, a motorized scooter, and
several massive brightly painted three-wheeled motorcycles, like
the one with which Sly had gifted Vet. I'd seen it parked outside
her home in Vallejo. On the walls of the open garage, above an
enviable assembly of parts and tools, was a poster of Al Pacino in
Scarface and the words Money, Power, Respect. The green, spicy
aromatics of the outdoors overpowered any motor oil fumes.

A tall, attractive woman approached and introduced herself as
Phunne. We chatted about how grateful she feels about seeing her
father settled in such a benign environment, and how brisk it
might get, so much cooler than the Hollywood Hills, should the
wind blow over the vineyards later in the evening. Coming back
down the stairs, Neal reported somewhat regretfully that Sly would
prefer to prepare his own answers to a written list of questions,
and have me return, later in the cool evening, to retrieve the list. I
told Neal to tell Sly I'd already put in enough waiting and would
prefer some action. After another unseen deliberation in the bowels of the mansion, Neal, in a brighter mood, said Sly would speak
with me, but only for twenty minutes and without any recording
device. I was given the impression that the ban on taping had
been imposed by the ominous and unreachable manager Jerry
Goldstein.

Clutching a notebook, I ascended the staircase into what
looked to be the kitchen. I saw a slight, older man seated at the
kitchen table, wearing casual clothes and a knit cap. He regarded
me with a bemused expression, and I smiled back. But I kept looking past him, looking for the person I was expecting to encounter.
Then Neal stepped up to introduce me to the seated man: "Sly, this
is Jeff Kaliss; Jeff, this is Sly." I realized my mental image had been
out of date.

Colleagues of mine and associates of Sly had warned me that
he'd be expected to come across as confrontational, unresponsive,
or unintelligible in interchange. But it had been twenty-one years
since Sly's last in-person interview, and I had never been one to let
my curiosity or my professionalism be compromised by my subjects' quirky reputations. My starting point for interviews has
always been that I can have a friendly and informative conversation with anyone. I shook Sly's large hand, we exchanged New Year's greetings, and I sat down, ready to scribble. Neal joined us
at the table.

I knew Sly had recently given his sister Vet permission to call
her band "The Family Stone," that this group had landed a gig in
Anaheim, California, and that it was rumored that Sly might join
in the performance. I told Sly that I'd be using my interview with
him for a newspaper article in advance of Vet's show, as well as for
a much bigger project, a book on Sly & the Family Stone. I asked
him what he judged to be the most important element in telling
such a story.

"The truth," he replied.

I got him to expand on the truth about what he'd been up to,
up there among the grapevines. "I've been writing new songs," he
said, "some on tape, some on paper, and some on tape and paper."
What would he do with the new material? "I'll release them, with
members of my family ... my daughter [I assumed he meant
Phunne], maybe my son, my nieces, and a grand-niece." For the
news story, I felt it necessary to ask Sly what he thought about his
sister Vet's ensemble, which I hadn't yet heard. "One of the best
things is that they're all willing to do what it takes," Sly replied
diplomatically. But are they willing to do it right? I wondered.
"That's the main thing: they do it perfect."

Vet had said her group might release a debut album on Sly's
PhattaDatta label, but it hadn't happened. Sly told me he'd have
his own record of new material out by the end of the year, and that
the prospect of returning to recording and performing helped him
feel "new again." I asked him to say more about what might be on
his new album. "Before, my songs had a lot to do with dealing with
unnecessary fighting," he said. "And that's still the case." He quoted
a fraction of one new lyric: When you wind up / Making your mind
up / That's when you'll find up / Instead of down." He was reciting instead of singing, but I had to tell him how wonderful it was to
hear that rich basso voice up close. He smiled. Had coming back
north brought him closer to his family, as Vet had hoped? "I see a
lot of them," said Sly, "and they always have music on their mind.
It takes more of the time than conversation." He reminded me,
gently, that our talk would have to come to an end, because he
wanted to spend more time with Phunne.

What about the way in which the public will view him, now
that he's been so long out of the public eye? "I hope it's still that
I'm doing music, and still representative of the truth." Would he
be likely to let his long-waiting fans see him down in Anaheim
later that month? "I feel like I'm gonna," he answered, shining that
perennial beacon of a grin.

Driving back to Santa Rosa, Neal was bountifully pleased, and
relieved. After I'd dropped him off and was headed south toward
a delayed dinner, I got a call on my cell from Neal. He'd followed
up by phone with Sly, who had complimented him on his judgment of character. Sly, it seemed, was happy with his brief return
to being interviewed, and with the interviewer.

The resulting profile of Sly appeared in the Los Angeles Times on
January 9. A couple of days later, Neal and Mario conveyed Sly and
his live-in girlfriend, Shay, down the coast to Anaheim in a costly
rented motor home, in which Sly was able to continue to work out
on a keyboard. Despite the Times story, his imminence was to be
kept secret from his fans till the last minute. I made my own way to
Anaheim, curious about how Sly would do it, almost two decades
since his last foreshortened gig at the Las Palmas in L. A.

At the House of Blues, adjacent to Disneyland in Anaheim, a
sizeable crowd was kept waiting an hour and a half on the evening
of January 13 for the start of what had been billed as the Family
Stone show. Just like old times. "They're very patient," Dawn Elder-D'Agostino, a regular at the venue, remarked to me. "If it
was a punk crowd, they'd be raving." She added, "You don't see
many crowds that are this diverse," in reference to the multiethnic,
multigenerational audience. There were younger neo-hippies and
designer-leather-jacketed Hollywood cognoscenti, but also a large
portion of pre-punk Baby Boomers, happy to groove during their
wait to a succession of funky songs played over the house system.
Also in the throng were the twins Arno and Edwin Konings, who'd
rewarded themselves for their continuing research on Sly by flying
in from Holland, just for the concert. Positioned right up against
the stage was a wise-looking lady in a wheelchair, sporting a flower
in her graying hair. She was Serena-Marie Diflipo, Sly's one-time
drug counselor and long-time informal advisor. They were all listening to the recorded sounds coming over the house system, of
those funkmeisters who'd preceded Sly ("Sex Machine," James
Brown), his contemporaries ("Atomic Dog," George Clinton; "Got
to Give It Up," Marvin Gaye), and a few of the many he'd influenced ("Nasty Girl," Prince with Vanity; "Jungle Boogie," Kool &
the Gang). Sometime around ten o'clock, the revelers were advised
to "Put your hands together for Sly & the Family Stone." This heralded, to the sound of "Dance to the Music," the appearances of
Vet, dressed in a three-quarter-length white jacket and gold boots,
Skyler Jett, the designated male vocalist, wearing a leather jacket
and leather pants, and Lisa Stone, Rose's daughter and Sly's niece,
looking slim and lovely in an airy outfit. Cynthia, the only player
lateraling between Jerry's and Vet's bands, also took the stage with
three other horn players, one of them Pat Rizzo, who'd partnered
with and then replaced Jerry in the original group. Four string and
rhythm players completed Vet's lineup. But there was no sign of
her celebrated sibling, and not even any confirmation of his proximity. Yet.

Through a string of nine tunes from the original Sly & the
Family Stone songbook and a couple from Vet's lither days with
Little Sister, Skyler acted as a sort of barker to the crowd, demanding, "How many people know this song?" and "How many people
got Sly Stone records out there?" Skyler also mimicked the chuckle
from the closing bars of "Sing a Simple Song," an odd affectation,
since Sly's original chuckle had been an act of unrehearsed spontaneity (a reaction to Larry's apparently improvised lyric, "livin,
lovin', overdubbin"'), and was not meant to be reproduced. In
other aspects, the arrangements of this new Family Stone seemed
intent on retrofitting the classic hits with the trappings of neo-soul
and jazz. It was fun, however, and well-received by the assembled.

After the eleventh number, "Everybody Is a Star," Skyler
reminded everybody that "this is a historical night, y'all!" And then
the real star himself finally shuffled out onto the stage, and displayed a credible reaction to the rapt crowd. "I don't know whether
any of you are as old as I am," Sly told them. He'd reattached his
blond Mohawk, last seen at the Grammys, and had donned a military jacket with cape and red scarf. Sunglasses obscured his lustrous large eyes.

Over the next couple of songs, a couple of his daughters
seemed bent on reinforcing him in curious musical forms: Novena
was petite and cutely garbed and noodled some Chopin on one of
the Yamaha Motif keyboards. Phunne, cool and long of limb, took
the mike and rapped about family, while Sly laid down some
keyboard funk behind her. Niece Lisa Stone helped make the event
a literal Family Affair. Shay, who'd started with her sister as helpmates to Sly and became his regular female companion in Napa,
joined the jam on an African drum.

Wandering to the front of the stage, Sly was greeted with
cheers and camera flashes by the adoring throng. Responding with visible delight, he attempted to lead them in an aptly timed
"Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," and no one seemed to
mind that Sly had started the tune off in the wrong key. Grinning
almost shyly, Sly was led by Mario offstage, where Neal and his
lady, Jeanine, were waiting with congratulations. The formerly
patient audience now chanted "We want Sly!" repeatedly. "He'll be
back," promised Phunne. Vet, who'd been looking less than comfortable through much of the waiting for Sly, now seemed inspired
by her brother's act of commitment, and she began some uptempo gospel sounds, suggestive of her time with the Heavenly
Tones. Sly then returned to the stage to lead the house through the
chanting portion of "I Want to Take You Higher," as he'd done for
hundreds of thousands at Woodstock more than thirty-seven years
earlier. Then he was gone again.

In a nice touch, Vet finished off the extended evening by
acknowledging the upcoming Martin Luther King Day holiday
and performing" Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey." She and the band
then covered "Sex Machine," which she dedicated "in honor of the
great godfather of soul, James Brown," who'd passed away on
Christmas morning.

The Konings twins from Holland later gifted Sly at his hotel
with a vintage drum machine, like the one he'd deployed on Riot.
This scored them some video ops for an accompanying Dutch TV
crew. Sly was delighted, as he ought to have been. More than on
the HOB stage, he was being treated like the esteemed elder of a
vibrant tribe.

Through the rest of 2007, Sly's performances with Vet's reconfigured Family Stone band followed much the same suit as the
year's opening gig, There was variation, though, in the degree and
quality of Sly's participation and in the reactions of the everskeptical but always curious press and public. For a gig arranged by comedian/impresario George Wallace at the Flamingo in Las
Vegas and scheduled for March 31, local bookmakers were betting
forty-five to one that Sly wouldn't show. He beat the odds, taking
to the stage after the band's introductory medley in what the Las
Vegas Sun described as "a black sequined suit with black platform
shoes and red heels, a red sequined shirt, a black belt with a giant
rectangular plate reading `Sly," a black stocking cap, a neck brace,
and big white Dolce & Gabbana shades." The outfit was enough to
ignite '70s flashbacks in the "amped-up fans," even if Sly's halfhour performance was far short of what they recalled of those
times (though still far longer than at the Grammys). The Las Vegas
Review-Journal described Sly as "the ghost of R & B's past, a funk
forebear who's finally come out of hiding." He made his way
onstage with a pump of his fist, "looking like a perspiring gemstone, like he'd been covered in an imploded disco ball." The media
differed in their assessments of Sly's voice and the band's coordination with him, but they lauded his interaction with the crowd.
Sly "appeared to enjoy himself and regain his old funk form,"
reported the PR Newswire. "His smile was infectious, he slapped
high fives with an adoring audience, and he even gave autographs
as he walked amongst the fans.... He seemed particularly happy
to introduce his daughters, Baby [Novena], a classical pianist, and
Phume [Phunne], a rapper, as each of them shined in solo
moments from the stage they were sharing with their dad during
this eventful evening." Audience member and Family Stone exmanager Ken Roberts, when questioned about Sly's brace, connected it to what he said was a large growth on Sly's spine. But
Mario and others referred instead to a prolonged recovery from
Sly's accidental tumble from a slope near his former Beverly Hills
abode. Numerous amateur videos of the Flamingo show and later
performances remain available on the Web.