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

by Jeff Kaliss

  A much anticipated box set of the seven Epic albums under the Sly & the Family Stone name was released in April 2007 as The Collection, in limited numbers, by CBS's Epic/Legacy division, complete with bonus alternate or unreleased tracks and both original and redacted liner notes by various rock writers. The most thorough presentation of Sly's work since Jerry Goldstein's admirable The Essential double album in 2002, the package inspired a new, almost universally laudatory cascade of reviews in the media and further nostalgia and anticipation among listeners. However, Sly, Vet, and Sly's lawyer, Greg Yates, cast doubt in interviews with Vanity Fair on Sly's connections with the box release and on Jerry Goldstein's management of the material and the finances. "As far as I'm concerned, there is no deal with [Jerry]," said Vet, and Greg added, "I've been retained by Sly Stone to represent him regarding issues surrounding contracts with other third parties for his publishing rights.... We are concerned about certain matters that he was kept in the dark about." In the same periodical, Clive Davis, who'd captained CBS and Epic during most of the launches of those albums, commented, "I have great regrets that it's taken Sly all these years to return, but the fact that there might be a happy ending to all this is a great feeling."

  The Vanity Fair article was written by contributing editor and superfan David Kamp, who had "spent a dozen years chasing the former Sly & the Family Stone front man" and managed, with the help of Vet, to get an interview with Sly in the spring of 2007. The piece got global exposure but provided little new insight. "I get the sense," David wrote tellingly, "that Sly relishes this sort of opaqueness, letting people in just enough to intrigue and confound them."

  Rumors had been circulating about a summer tour with Vet's band through Europe. An Independence Day weekend event in San Jose, a couple of hours south of Sly's Napa base, gave him and Vet a chance to ramp up for the European junket. There were serious delays during the festival, dubbed "Back in the Day," but none due to Sly, and the eager anticipation of the featured act seemed not to diminish. Attended backstage again by Mario Errico and Neal Austinson, and ushered onto the outdoor stage by a very tall bodyguard of recent hire, Sly got to perform for only about fifteen minutes, dressed in a rather unbecoming bulky white hoodie, baggy jeans, baseball cap, and shades. Local police, mindful of permit restrictions, brought the proceedings to what both artists and audience considered a premature halt. The Bay Area press, having wondered whether their hometown boy might somehow make good, reacted with disappointment. The San Jose Mercury-News's Shay Quillen credited Sly as "the most soulful person on stage," but berated Vet's Family Stone for not bringing him out until after several of his familiar hits and a couple of his creations for Little Sister had been played without him. Joel Selvin, there for the San Francisco Chronicle, praised the band's "extraordinary showmanship," but he noted that they"seemed more like a tribute band than a new model of the old standard," and that Sly's own voice was "hardly audible."

  The tour abroad, for which the same basic ensemble took to the skies a few days later, also drew mixed notices. A reviewer in England's Observer seemed unaware of the history of Vet's band when he attended a performance in Italy and wrote, "It is somehow typical of Sly that he finally chooses to return without most of the original musicians who were such an integral part of the musical revolution he set in motion. In Perugia, they were sorely missed." A Swiss reporter caught the Family Stone's appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival on July 14, and shared the Observer's impression of Sly as "tired." The band itself was judged "very average." At the Blue Note Records Festival in Belgium, some spectators were said to be annoyed and to have demanded ticket refunds after a delayed and foreshortened performance. A TV5- Monde reviewer in Nice, France, told of "a weird and deceitful evening which didn't lift the veil of mystery surrounding this tortured personality." At the Pori Jazz Festival in Finland, Sly's "old and worn out voice" was bemoaned, as was the Family Stone's "correct and safe" delivery of the classic repertoire.

  The very different scene at the venerable Olympia in Paris elicited memories of Sly's last visit there, twenty-seven years before, and drew praise from the city's Funk-U magazine. "I had arrived at the venue expecting nothing," wrote the reviewer, who took notice of Vet's familiar onstage angst, "looking for a sign of the roadies or sound engineer to know if her beloved brother would finally take her off the hook and finally appear." When Sly did show up to sing "If You Want Me to Stay," the writer determined that "the voice was there, almost unchanged after all these years." Even the trademark basso dip, delivering, The kind of person / That you really are now, had been preserved. The review went on to confirm that Sly, "looking at first pretty weak ... got increasingly confident, thanks perhaps to the unbelievable and immediate response from the audience, which screamed all the lyrics." Sly even leapt off the stage to shake hands with the delighted front row. "You get some, you give some back," he later pronounced from the mike, before tossing his necklace and jacket as relics to the crowd.

  In retrospect, the Olympia show stands out as the high point of the European tour. "When I saw him connect to the music again, that was really a joyful moment for me," commented Greg Errico, after watching video segments from the show on the Internet. "And I told him that, last night, on the phone," Greg continued. "And he immediately knew what I was talking about: he said, `That was the night!' I saw him jumping up, dancing, connecting with the music, connecting with the people, connecting with himself, connecting again.... He goes, `I can't believe how rusty I was,' and I start laughing. I go, `Sly, look at all the ball players. We're lucky, we have extended life expectancies, as musicians. Ball players are done when they're thirty. We're sixty! And you know what, you can still do it. But you gotta get out there.'"

  It was encouraging, but also a little sad to see Sly retracing the steps of his formerly compelling tours without reaching the assured measure of magic that he and his fans still hoped for. But the reaction of the press and the public had to be assessed within the context of its own inherent foibles, as well as Sly's. On the dark side of America's obsession with fame is the envy that accompanies the admiration of celebrities, and which seems to feed directly into the joy of watching them crumble.

  Two days before Thanksgiving 2007, and a couple of weeks later, Sly was happy to make it back onstage in New York City for the first time in thirty-two years, at B. B. King Blues Club and Grill on 42nd Street. The gigs had originally been promoted as a reunion of the Family Stone, but had to be recast after it was revealed that Freddie, Rose, Greg and Larry would, for a variety of reasons, not be playing. Dressed in a white sweat suit trimmed in silver, with sunglasses and Mohawk back in place, Sly was joined this time by two of his most stalwart Family Stoners, Cynthia and Jerry, as well as by Rose's singing daughter, Lisa, and the ensemble from the European tour minus Vet and Skyler. The New York Times reported, "He did sing, sporadically, and quite well, using something close to the eerie, insinuative voice that can be heard on There's a Riot Goin' On." The reviewer (and many others who witnessed him that year) felt particularly touched by Sly's "slithery" invocation of "If You Want Me to Stay," "which sounded more bittersweet than ever: Count the days I'm gone /Forget reaching me by phone / Because I promise I'll be gone for a while." During "Sing a Simple Song," Sly excused himself from the stage, saying he had to urinate, an urgency he'd expressed frequently on recent tours. Rumor had it that this was code for a drug break, but Neal Austinson, serving as road manager in New York, says that in truth Sly was seeking time to go stretch out in his dressing room, to regain his stamina. He did indeed seem shaky on both entrances and exits, in New York and elsewhere. And his apparent physical vulnerability, along with sometime uncertain coordination with his pick-up bands, rendered Sly's comeback less certain than others in the same year by the formerly acrimonious reggae-rockers the Police, the revamped Van Halen, and the once-wild Led Zeppelin. Agent Steve Green, fielding some offers on Sly's behalf, assured uncertain bookers and a Reuters reporter, "He can do it, but he's got to want to
do it."

  Looking back now on 2007, Sly believes his audiences "can tell that I'm not satisfied, by the way I walk off the stage. I do what I have to do, but I'm not satisfied, 'cause I'm not dealing with the people I will be dealing with in the near future.... Because it's money, we need more money to prepare. Then I'll get the people who are supposed to be there."

  In song, Sly promised he'd be gone for a while, and he was. There are a lot of people who want him back, if only he wants it. "Now is the time to let your light shine," David Kapralik advises his former client, and he then applies some other memorable lyrics: "You can make it if you try. Are you ready?"

  Afte rwo rd

  N FEBRUARY 2008, A LITTLE OVER a year after my first interview with Sly and several months after submitting the first draft of this book, I found myself summoned back to the wine country mansion that had become Sly's haven, workplace, and crash pad for such occasional old friends and partners in crime as George Clinton. Once again, the stalwart Neal Austinson rode shotgun with me through the hills of Northern California and provided an opportunity to reflect not only on what was happening with his friend Sly but also on the short- and long-term impact of the Family Stone's legacy.

  We talked about how the Family Stone had been funky enough for Harlem and Watts, and trippy enough for the Haight-Ashbury. The band had also demonstrated that rock outfits could ride a hip groove, and that grooving dance bands could have the autonomous individuality of a rock outfit. The Family Stone could as easily generate good vibes in dance clubs and bedrooms as enthrall thousands at live concerts.

  Part of Sly's power as songwriter had flowed through his lyrics, conveying politically and culturally cogent messages without being polemical, and thus clearing the way for forthright free-speechers, all the way up to Public Enemy and Tupac Shakur. Then there were the melodies and arrangements, in which Sly could position as many as five singing voices over a foundation of drum and bass, elaborated by guitar and horns and decorated with shouts, scats, and occasional electronic effects. This had served up a delicious alternative to power trios and hard-rocking quartets. And in resurrected form today on reissued recordings and by spin-off bands, it continued to put the shame to music manipulated through sound samples, synthesizers, and advanced computer programs.

  When Neal and I arrived at Sly's place, we found he was already being visited by another long-time acquaintance, Charles Richardson. Charles had shot and produced documentaries for the History Channel and elsewhere and was very savvy about computers and their creative potential for music making, as well as about record production. He'd helped Sly and the recently visiting George Clinton lay down some tracks, and was hoping to help materialize Sly's own first album in twenty-six years, along with more live gigs. Observing Charles's artful manipulation of a laptop was Rikki Gordon, the San Francisco-based singer who'd partnered with Sly onstage the previous November in New York.

  After the expected wait, Sly descended from an upper floor, comfortably dressed in loose clothing and a knit cap. He seemed in a mood befitting the warm, bright weather outside. In fact, he insisted on our leaving the mansion and getting the interview started inside his 1958 Packard, with him driving, so that he could take the classic car into town and get it washed. We walked out to the vehicle, which was stationed alongside the terraced vineyard. The Packard was colorful, shiny, and solid, the way rock 'n' roll was a long time ago.

  This time around, Sly was comfortable having me record him. He was quite cogent and cordial, and he drove carefully along the narrow roads winding through the pastoral landscape.

  He began by talking about social and political issues, noting that he'd never voted. "I've wanted to," he maintained, "but I never know who's who till after it's over. And everybody always switches up on me. I don't want to think that I voted for someone who's doin' shit." Regarding the 2008 Democratic primary, Sly offered, "I'm thinking that these Clintons would not be so likely to goof up too much. How could Bill and Hillary both do two fuckups?"

  "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 suppose
d 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."