I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly and the Family Stone (26 page)

"The ability of people to fuck up repeatedly, in the same way,
is incredible," I responded from the passenger seat. "It goes on a
lot. And you never know when somebody is reformed...."

Pause. Sly seemed unswerved, and I switched gears.

"If you were to get out there with the whole band or most of
it, would you be wanting to play all the same music you played
back then, or would you be wanting them to do some of your new
music?" I knew he'd been hard at work upstairs in the mansion,
particularly in the wee hours.

"It would have to be the new music as well."

"In the touring you've been doing since you and I talked at the
beginning of last year, it seems like audiences are yelling for you
to do the old stuff. Do you ever get a little tired of it?"

"Well, yeah, they like the old stuff, but they don't know any
better, so it's up to me to get the new stuff recorded, to give them
reason to want to say, `Hey, what about the new stuff?' Until then,
I'm glad they like the old stuff."

"You didn't get an album out last year. Will you have one out
this year?"

"It really depends on some business that's gotta be dealt with
first. It'll be on my label, or on Clive's [Davis], wherever Clive is.
He hasn't committed himself; I just hope so. Clive is my favorite
guy in the business.... It'll all come together, and there will be a
lot of help, as soon as I get the records starting to be heard. That
always attracts the concern of people that know how to do things
for ya."

"What are you gonna have to ask for that you don't have
already?"

He hesitated. "I don't know. Nowadays I don't know how they
do it, as much as I used to. I'm gonna release some things on the
Internet anyway, see what happens. David Bowie and everybody
else, they do that. Gotta see what's up."

After a fuel stop, Sly turned the wheel over to Neal and repositioned himself on the backseat. I gave him a sealed envelope
bearing his name, which had been presented to me in Hawaii by
his former manager, David Kapralik. Sly chuckled, opened the
envelope, and read the note.

"Ilili," he murmured. He'd noticed David's Hawaiian nickname, which translates literally as `a blooming nut, and is David's
metaphor for a man who went to seed and has started to grow, and
blossom, all over again. "That's the way it is," Sly added softly.

"I think he still sees you as soul mates."

"I like David."

"Any words you'd like me to pass back to him?"

"Tell him I said, `Book a gig!" Sly replied, smiling broadly.

"But could we get him off Maui?" I inquired rhetorically.

"Do the gig in Maui!"

I brought up my recent conversations with Sly's two female
collaborators in his high school group, the Viscaynes. Charlene
Imhoff Davidson, now a successful banker in nearby Napa, had told me, "I'd love to just sit down and talk with him ... because l
knew him when, that young man who was very caring and lovely
and talented." Maria Boldway Douglas, living with her husband
and granddaughter in Arizona, envisioned a get-together where
"we'd probably just hug each other, and he'd give me that crazy,
wicked smile, and we'd just start laughing."

"I'm finding person after person who has lots of love for you,"
I tell Sly, "like Charlene and Maria-"

"Ria Boldway!" Sly exclaimed, recalling her maiden name.
"Where's she now?"

"She's in Arizona, married for the second time, still singing."

"Yeah!" Sly sighed warmly. "They're good people. I gotta get
their numbers from you."

"What would you want to give to those folks?"

"Just new stuff. That's all I have."

The old but proud Packard pulled into the car wash of Sly's
choice.

"Did it feel like a big change, moving up here from L.A.?"

"Yeah, but I welcomed the change. I get to make my own
schedule, pretty much."

"Why couldn't you do that in L.A.?" Of course, I'd heard and
read plenty of reports about the various levels of distraction in
those years down there.

"'Cause everybody had something to do with what time I was
supposed to be wherever," Sly responded, with an elusive chuckle.
"Up here it's pretty fair, pretty even."

"And you don't get too lonely?"

"I can stimulate excitement," Sly assured, "or I can just kick
back and watch other things go."

"And when you're kicking back," I persisted, "what are you paying attention to, what turns you on?"

He gazed out the window at some of the car wash customers
hanging around the facility. "Like those girls waiting over there,"
Sly chortled. "Wait, I'm gonna go inside, I'll be back."

He ambled off in the general direction of the local ladies. I'd
been alerted to Sly's tendency to disappear and reappear on whim,
so I wasn't surprised when he didn't return. Using his cell phone,
he'd secured a separate ride home from Rikki Gordon, leaving
Neal and me to pilot the Packard back to the mansion. After
another wait there, I got to continue the chat across the kitchen
table, with Rikki witnessing. Sly's departed parents, K. C. and
Alpha Stewart, also looked on, smiling from a color photograph
placed under a luxuriant vase of flowers nearby.

"If you go back to stuff like `Life,' it sounds like you were writing about yourself. Is that true nowadays? Is it about what you're
learning and feeling?"

"Or what I'm imagining. It's all the time about myself. Basically, I don't care what nobody says or nothin'. If I didn't get the
most out of something, I wouldn't do it."

What I've seen of Sly performing live and on YouTube over the
past year hasn't convinced me that he's been getting the most out
of his music. "It seems to me that I haven't been hearing enough
of you playing your keyboard," I tell him.

"They couldn't afford to take roadies and get the right equipment, and do a lot of the things required for me to be ready to play.
I don't mind workin' but I ain't gonna work like that again."

"So you'll be doing more singing and playing during your
sets?"

"Yeah, I will, I will, it's just a matter of money, and at the same
time letting everybody know that I don't mind showing up on time
every night, if necessary. You know what I mean?"

"Your health is good?"

"I feel good, I feel much better."

"If you had to choose, what do you think is your best album?"

Sly chuckled. "The next one. And that's what I really think."

"What kind of songs are we gonna hear on it?"

"The latest one goes, let's see ... I'm the real model /And I ain't
the role model / I got a dog named Duck with a stroll-waddle / If I
see you in the desert, I got the cold bottle / 'cause I'm the real model
/I ain't the role model." He smiled, hoping his self-appreciation was
being shared. "I like to not have people try to make me a role
model. I don't like that, 'cause I don't think anybody should have
that burden. Everybody's gotta be a role model, either everybody
or nobody. You know what I mean?"

"So that's been a burden on you?"

"Yeah. If something happens that they don't choose to appreciate, then comes the role model thing. `You're a role model, what
happens when you get in trouble?' 0. J. Simpson did." He snickered. "And I didn't do near that kind of stuff. Aargh! Can't even
describe that."

After some jocular exchanges with Rikki, Charles, Neal and
me, Sly announced, "I'm gonna go now, okay?" and headed back
up the stairs, shouting, "Thank you!"

RESENTED HERE IS AN OVERview of the major Sly & the Family
Stone LP reissues on CD, as well as
reissues and compilations currently available featuring Sly with
and without the original and later formations of the Family Stone.
The first seven Sly & the Family Stone albums all include bonus
tracks in their remastered, reissued formats. Some of those tracks
are monophonic singles versions of album tracks, and others are
previously unreleased. Each track is included in the commentary
for each album, all of which are gathered in The Collection box
(2007). Aside from the albums included here, there are recordings
of festival performances at Woodstock, Isle of Wight, and Atlanta,
and several excellent bootlegs recorded at the Fillmore East in 1968
and at the Kasteel Groeneveld in Baarn, the Netherlands, in 1970.
The Fillmore recordings may finally be remastered and released by
Sony in 2009. Worth viewing are two DVD's, My Own Beliefs:
Video Anthology 1969-1986 (two discs) and It's a Family Affair
(single disc). Both are collections of performances, televised
appearances, and promotional videos, mostly from the band's heyday and showcasing the hits, but also with some scenes of Sly
interacting with TV hosts and guests. The recording quality is less
than ideal, but the depiction of the evolution and presentation of
the group and its leader is fascinating. There are numerous
bootlegs of Sly's pre-Family Stone material and early band demos,
and of later assemblages, generally of inferior quality and put out
on a variety of pirate labels available from various sources, many
of which can be found on the Internet. With all such bootlegs,
caveat emptor.

Not covered here are Starbucks's Hear Music Higher compilation, a decent point-of-sale primer for the uninitiated, and Different Strokes, a 2005 collection of Sly classics reworked, not always
to good effect, by "different folks."

(1) Underdog; (2) If This Room Could Talk; (3) Run, Run, Run;
(4) Turn Me Loose; (5) Let Me Hear It from You; (6) Advice; (7)
I Cannot Make It; (8) Trip to Your Heart; (9) I Hate to Love Her;
(10) Bad Risk; (11) That Kind of Person; (12) Dog; Bonus Tracks:
(13) Underdog (single version); (14) Let Me Hear It from You
(single version); (15) Only One Way Out of This Mess; (16) What
Would I Do; (17) You Better Help Yourself (instrumental)

Sly Stone-vocals, keyboards, guitar, bass; Rose Stonekeyboards, vocals; Freddie Stone-guitar, vocals; Cynthia
Robinson-trumpet; Larry Graham-bass, vocals; Jerry
Martini-saxophone, vocals; Greg Errico-drums

There was a lot on this disc, perhaps too much for any radio programmer, record store owner, or listener to be able to divine what
the "thing" was, other than that it was being performed by a talented collection of players and singers, led by an already experienced songwriter and arranger. Like many Family Stone sides, it started strong, with a message song ("Underdog") that could be
counted as one of Sly's few references to racial discrimination.
Musically there were references back to the R & B approach of
Autumn Records (and to the spirit of Otis Redding), and ahead to
funk, psychedelia, and the dynamics and colors of the hit singles.
Larry got a solo soul-vocal outing on "Let Me Hear It from You,"
one of several aspects of this debut disc that wouldn't be repeated
in the band's later work. The bonus tracks showcased wild horn
harmonies on "Only One Way Out of This Mess" and the aheadof-its-time instrumental fusion of "You Better Help Yourself."

(1) Dance to the Music; (2) Higher; (3) I Ain't Got Nobody (For
Real); (4) Dance to the Medley: (a) Music Is Alive, (b) Dance In,
(c) Music Lover; (5) Ride the Rhythm; (6) Color Me True; (7) Are
You Ready; (8) Don't Burn Baby; (9) I'll Never Fall in Love Again;
Bonus Tracks: (10) Dance to the Music (single version); (11)
Higher (unissued single version); (12) Soul Clappin'; (13) We
Love All; (14) I Can't Turn You Loose; (15) Never Do Your
Woman Wrong

Sly Stone-vocals, keyboards, guitar; Rose Stone-keyboards,
vocals; Freddie Stone-guitar, vocals; Cynthia Robinsontrumpet; Larry Graham-bass, vocals; Jerry Martinisaxophone, vocals; Greg Errico-drums

The imperative of the title track proved both attractive and easy
for fans to follow up on, an invitation to come celebrate and party
with this bi-racial, bi-gender band that was new on the scene. The
extended "Medley," like "Dance," served to introduce the individual members of the Family Stone and also to affirm their collective fun and ensemble strength, with flashes of psychedelia and
phase shifting. Not all the tracks are equally memorable, but the
single and the album earned the band a place on rock radio and
in stores. The previously unreleased "We Love All" contains the kind of social messaging apparent on several later hits. "I Can't
Turn You Loose" exhibits a tight horn-rhythm connection evocative of Otis Redding. "Soul Clappin"' suggests what the B-52's
would mine for retro fun three decades later.

(1) Dynamite!; (2) Chicken; (3) Plastic Jim; (4) Fun; (5) Into My
Own Thing; (6) Harmony; (7) Life; (8) Love City; (9) I'm an
Animal; (10) M'Lady; (11) Jane Is a Groupee; Bonus Tracks: (12)
Dynamite! (single version); (13) Seven More Days; (14) Pressure;
(15) Sorrow

Sly Stone-vocals, keyboards, guitar; Rose Stone-keyboards,
vocals; Freddie Stone-guitar, vocals; Cynthia Robinsontrumpet; Larry Graham-bass, vocals; Jerry Martinisaxophone; Greg Errico-drums