Culture, Change, and Sly Stone

Greek mythology holds that Icarus achieved the ability to fly with a pair of wings fashioned by his father from a concoction of feathers and beeswax. Icarus became so caught up in the joy of flight that he ignored his father’s admonishment not to fly near the sun, and plummeted to his death as the wax melted from the solar heat.

This tale has passed down over the centuries as a metaphor for the dangers of brash arrogance, pride, and the seductive side effect of success thee iconic Sly Stone expertenced. Sylvester Stewart, in his stage incarnation as Sly Stone, enjoyed stratospheric success before he was 30 years old, yet his most productive era only lasted a decade, between 1968 and 1975. Even so, he defied the odds by avoiding the infamous “27 club” of musical luminaries like Kurt Cobain, Jim Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Amy Winehouse, who crashed and burned by the age of 27. Like his contemporary, Beach Boy Dennis Wilson who died a day after him, he lived to reach a respectable 82, even if he never regained the pinnacle of his prime.

Community, Non-conformity,
and the Possibility of Change
Genius is often the product of timing and its evolution. The Stewart family transitioned westward to California from its’ east Texas origins with the Great Migration of the 1940s, bringing with them the gospel drenched styling of the Church of God in Christ. Nurtured by church participation and the do-woop vocalists popular in the high school culture of his Vallejo upbringing, Sylvester Stewart honed his multi-instrumentalist skills in the multi-racial, comparatively liberal environs of the Bay Area. Reinventing himself as Sly Stone, he brought these eclectic sensibilities into his next gig as a disc jockey for KSOL-AM, where he punctuated his R & B playlist with selections by Bob Dylan, British rock exports, and avant-garde comedians Lord Buckley and Lenny Bruce.Aside from this “day job,” he continued as a side musician on the club circuit where he befriended saxophonist Jerry Martini, who would periodically hang out at the radio station.
Martini remembers Sly as a “…visionary man who could see beyond the limitations that were present in those days.”

Recognizing a quality that transcended mere instrumental or vocal ability, Martini opened up the possibility of a musical union cutting across gender and racial boundaries. “Sly and I formed a lifelong bond when I nudged him into leading the band in 1965,” says Martini.
The time was ripe for change. The politicization of the country reached it’s zenith with apathy, then opposition about the Vietnam War, rejection of post-war consumerism, and the counterculture that resulted from the transition between the beat and hippie generations. Central to this was the exploration of new methods of expression, often with the use of alternative means of consciousnesses, outside of alcohol. By 1967 and the Summer of Love, the Bay Area was the epicenter of change, and Sly and the Family Stone were ready to embrace the eardrums and psyche of America.

The then novel approach of a multi-colored, bi-gender, septet sharing instrumental and vocal duties yielded hit singles and live shows, attracting both Black and white audiences. By the time of the landmark Woodstock Music & Art Fair at summer’s end, 1969, the Family Stone evolved into a coherent collective. They surmounted their unfortunate scheduling at 3:30 AM on Sunday, Aug. 17 in the midst of the three day festival. Opening with “M’Lady,” originally conceived as a B-side single, they were able to rouse a half million drug-addled hippies to their feet for a rousing one and a half hour set for the ages.

The Ebb and Flow of Funk
“…the shows were sometimes as short as the candle I was burning at both ends.”
—Sly Stone on the uneven
performances of his decline.

The lifestyle of late 20th century rock stardom set the template for debauchery and hedonism that continues to this day. Societal change collided with advances in pharmacology — and recreational substance use — resulted in the often divergent consequences that accompany historical progress of significant magnitude. Sly and the Family Stone were a poster child for this period of excess.

This manifested itself with their move south, to Los Angeles, the entertainment capitol and arguably the center of global corruptibility. The notion of group collaboration, of being part of a whole, eroded with the approach of digital innovation and the possibility DIY enabled the expansion of self-indulgence and vice. Martini had a ringside seat for this metamorphosis.

“When Sly moved to Los Angeles from the Bay Area, the dynamics of the band changed.”
The recording process might occur in stages. The rhythmic “core” of a song might be established, then other parts would be added later. For the horn section of Martini and trumpeter Cynthia Robinson (who would later bear Sly a Daughter), the established foundation would provide a cushion upon which they could improvise.

“The band members would come to LA at differing times to record,” Martini continues.
The advent of technology meant increased use of the drum machine, an electric apparatus able to mimic percussion effects, which figured prominently in the production of 1971’s “There’s A Riot Goin’ On.” Sly specifically used the Maestro Rhythm King MRK-2 , resulting in what many listeners feel is a cold, darker quality compared to his earlier work, and may have been a factor in the outright departure of original drummer Greg Errico from the band earlier that year.

Martini is diplomatic about the dysfunction of those difficult times.
“Over time, the band members had other projects, however, I never left the band.”

Disappearance and Rebirth
“…I just do not want to return to a fixed home. I cannot stand being in one place. I must keep moving.”
—Sly Stone from a 2020 interview
with Essence Magazine

Sly became a recluse, operating out of a home studio in a Los Angeles mansion. A few days before this article printed, Charles Wright of Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band fame, shared with Our Weekly a memory of this traumatic period. Lured by the possibility of a collaboration with a musician whose catalog he admired, Wright was driven up to Sly’s Beverly Hills abode one evening by his valet Larry, popularly known a “Skin ‘N Bones.”

What followed was a late night session in which he watched the rock star alternate between guitar, bass, and his every present drum machine under the influence of LSD.
Over the years, Sly and Wright communicated sporadically via phone, raising the prospect of working together on projects that never came to fruition. These were the years of rumor and innuendo, as Sly wound resurface at events to give uneven performances, before disappearing into a fog of self-imposed isolation.

Before the mounting health problems that claimed his life, he reportedly lived in a mobile home on a side street in Los Angeles’ Crenshaw District.

Longevity is a metric for artistic quality. In this way, Sly and the Family Stone will never die. Their compositions may not have become standards (yet), but they are substantial enough in their own right to warrant interest from the multitude that have followed in his wake. And so, 1969’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” became a launch pad for Janet Jackson’s 1989 best-selling “Rhythm Nation,” considered by many the apex of Jackson’s career. In the hands of production team Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, a post-hippie call for individual freedom was reinvented into social commentary in the era of Reaganomics.

Other artists riding the trend of over-dubbing that Sly initiated, or sampling his original output include Arrested Development (“Everyday People”), Dr Dre & Snoop Dogg, along with KRS-One and 2Pac (“Sing a Simple Song”).

Percussionist Questlove, who released the documentary “Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius)” earlier this year, gives a fitting epitaph.

“Yes, he disappeared from the spotlight. But he lived long enough to outlast many of his disciples, to feel the ripples of his genius return through hip-hop samples, documentaries and his memoir. Still, none of that replaces the raw beauty of his original work.”
In this sense, Icarus survived his maiden voyage to fly again.