**This is just the first of seven pages, check out Vanity Fair website for the rest of the article, including pictures, which will be in the August 2007 issue** http://www.vanityfair.com.../sly200708

Sly Stone on his custom three-wheeled chopper, outside his home, in Napa, California, on June 10, 2007. Photograph by Mark Seliger.
Sly Stone's Higher Power
Sly Stone vanished into rumor in the 1980s, remembered only by the great songs ("I Want to Take You Higher," "Dance to the Music") he left behind. What's become of the funky leader of the Family Stone since he forsook his Woodstock-era utopianism for darkness, drugs, and isolation? After a few sightings—most notoriously at the 2006 Grammys—the author tracked the last of the rock recluses to a Bay Area biker shop, to scope out where Stone's been, where he's headed, and what's behind those shades.
by David Kamp August 2007

Will Sly show up?
I sure hope so. I have an appointment with him. I've flown across the country and quadruple-checked to make sure that we're still on.
To cynics and music-industry veterans, this very premise is laughable: an appointment with Sly Stone. Yeah, right. For 20-odd years, Stone has been one of music's great recluses, likened in the press to J. D. Salinger and Howard Hughes. And in the years before he slipped away, he was notorious for not showing up even when he said he would. Missed concerts, rioting crowds, irritated promoters, drug problems, band tensions, burned bridges.

View a slide show of Sly Stone and friends. Photograph by Herb Greene.
But in his prime, Stone was a fantastic musician, performer, bandleader, producer, and songwriter. Even today, his life-affirming hits from the late 60s and early 70s—among them "Stand!," "Everyday People," and "Family Affair"—continue to thrive on the radio, magically adaptable to any number of programming formats: pop, rock, soul, funk, lite. He was a black man and emphatically so, with the most luxuriant Afro and riveted leather jumpsuits known to Christendom, but he was also a pan-culturalist who moved easily among all races and knew no genre boundaries. There was probably no more Woodstockian moment at Woodstock than when he and the Family Stone, his multi-racial, four-man, two-woman band, took control of the festival in the wee hours of August 17, 1969, getting upwards of 400,000 people pulsing in unison to an extended version of "I Want to Take You Higher." For one early morning, at least, the idea of "getting higher" wasn't an empty pop-culture construct or a stoner joke, but a matter of transcendence. This man had power.
He also had a compelling penchant for folly. In the jivey, combustible early 1970s, when it was almost fashionable for public figures to unleash their ids and abandon all shame—whether it was Norman Mailer's baiting a roomful of feminists at New York's Town Hall or Burt Reynolds's posing nude on a bearskin for Cosmopolitan—Sly was out on the front lines, contributing some first-rate unhinged behavior of his own. Like marrying his 19-year-old girlfriend onstage in 1974 at Madison Square Garden before a ticket-buying audience of 21,000, with Soul Train host Don Cornelius presiding as M.C. Or appearing on Dick Cavett's late-night ABC talk show while conspicuously, if charmingly, high. "You're great," Stone told his flummoxed host in 1971, in the second of two notorious visits to Cavett's soundstage. "You are great. You are great. You know what I mean? [Pounds fist on heart.] Booom! Right on! Sure thing. No, for real. For real, Dick. Hey, Dick. Dick. Dick. You're great."
Cavett, grasping for some sense of conversational traction, smirked and replied, "Well, you're not so bad yourself."
"Well," said Sly, eyes rolling up in contemplation, "I am kinda bad … "
Sly Stone is my favorite of the rock-era recluses, and, really, the only big one left. Syd Barrett, the architect of Pink Floyd's entrancingly loopy early sound, passed away last summer at the age of 60, having resisted all entreaties to explain himself or sing again. Brian Wilson, the fragile visionary behind the Beach Boys, has been gently coaxed out of his shell by his friends and acolytes, and now performs and schmoozes regularly. He doesn't count as a recluse anymore.
But Sly has remained elusive—still with us, yet seemingly content to do without us. I have been pursuing him for a dozen years, on and off, wondering if there would ever come a time when he'd release new material, or at the very least sit down and talk about his old songs. I've loved his music for as long as I've been a sentient human being—he started making records with the Family Stone when I was a toddler. And over time, as the silence has lengthened, his disappearance from public life has become a fascinating subject in and of itself. How could it have happened? How could a man with such an extensive and impressive body of work just shut down and cut out?
"I often tell people that I have more dead rock stars on tape than anyone, and they'll say, 'You mean Janis, Hendrix, and Sly?'" says Cavett today. "A lot of people think he's gone." Even if you're aware that Sly lives, you have to wonder what kind of shape he's in, projecting that beautiful but reckless man of 1971 into 2007, the year he turned 64. What of the dark rumors that he's done so much coke that his brain is zapped, and that he now exists in a pathetic, vegetative state? What of the more hopeful rumors that he's still writing and noodling with his keyboards, biding his time until he feels ready to attempt a comeback?
I had long dreamed of the latter scenario. Syd Barrett excepted, they do all come back. Brian Wilson did. The Stooges did. The New York Dolls did. Even Roky Erickson, the psychedelic pioneer from the 13th Floor Elevators, long presumed to be fried beyond rehabilitation by electroshock treatments he received in the early 1970s, has staged a robust return to the live circuit.
My hopes for a Sly comeback were highest in 2003. That year, in the back room of a music store in Vallejo, California, where Sly grew up, I sat in on a rehearsal of a re-united Family Stone led by Freddie Stone, Sly's guitarist brother. Freddie was intent on recording an album of entirely new material that he had written with his sister Rose, who played organ and shared lead vocals in the old group. "Sylvester's doing very well, by the way," Freddie told me, using his brother's given name. Gregg Errico, the band's drummer, who was also in on the reunion, explained that, while they weren't counting on Sly to join them, they had set a place for him just in case, like Seder participants awaiting Elijah. "We profess that the keyboard is on the stage, the [Hammond] B3's running, and the seat is warm for him," Errico said.
But that reunion quickly fizzled out. After that, my Sly search lay dormant; I pretty much gave up. He hadn't shown his face in public since 1993, when he and the Family Stone were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Characteristically, Sly slipped in and out of the ceremony without saying much, barely acknowledging his siblings and bandmates. So why would he ever want to perform again, much less meet up with a stranger?
Then, out of nowhere, there began a series of brief, intriguing resurfacings. In August of 2005, he was sighted in L.A. on a chopper motorcycle, giving his sister Vaetta, who goes by the nickname Vet, a ride to Hollywood's Knitting Factory club, where she was performing a set with her band, the Phunk Phamily Affair. The following February came Stone's enigmatic appearance at the 2006 Grammy Awards, in which he loped onto the stage in a gold lamé trench coat and plumy blond Mohawk, performed a snippet of "I Want to Take You Higher" with some guest musicians paying him tribute, and loped off again before the song was over. And in January of this year, Stone put in a surprise cameo at Vet's band's show at the House of Blues in Anaheim, California, adding vocals and keyboards to their performances of "Higher" and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)."
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[Edited 7/3/07 10:27am]

Was just going to post it, from CNN.com:

Sly Stone speaks; life fine, if 'not very normal'

* Story Highlights
* Sly Stone gives first interview since 1980s
* Reclusive funk pioneer says he plans to do a new album
* Sly and the Family Stone were late-'60s/early-'70s hitmakers
* Next Article in Entertainment »

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LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- After 25 years, Sly Stone speaks.
Sly Stone

Sly Stone gave an energized -- and eccentric -- performance at the 2006 Grammys.

The famously reclusive funkster broke his silence by granting his first interview since the '80s to Vanity Fair. In the magazine's August issue, the frontman of the late-'60s band Sly and the Family Stone talks about his music, his disappearance from public view and his long-awaited return.

Stone, 64, who made a brief, blond Mohawked appearance at the 2006 Grammys, says he plans to start work on a new album in the fall. But after more than two decades away from the spotlight, why come back now?

" 'Cause it's kind of boring at home sometimes," he tells the magazine. "I got a lot of songs I want to record and put out, so I'm gonna try 'em out on the road. That's the way it's always worked the best: Let's try it out and see how the people feel."

Hits by Sly and the Family Stone include "Everyday People," "Dance to the Music," "I Want to Take You Higher" and "Stand!"
Don't miss

* Rock legends played 'truth music'

Stone says he has "a library, like, a hundred and some songs, or maybe 200" that he's been sitting on at his Napa Valley compound, also home to his two chopper motorcycles and an eclectic collection of cars that includes an old London taxicab.

He is humble when asked about his contributions to music and unapologetic when pressed about his reputation for missing gigs. And though he has been isolated, he says he's been enjoying life.

"I do regular things a lot," he says. "But it's probably more of a Sly Stone life. It's probably ... it's probably not very normal." E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

thanks for posting this! I just printed out the entire interview Gonna read it later

funkyslsistah said:

Thanks for the link.
Nice article/interview.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

SoulAlive said:

I did the same thing. And snagged the photos.

Let's hope he has the determination to follow through.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Thanks for the link, this is awesome.

Y'all are welcome! We couldn't miss this once in our lifetime interview of Sly. "OMG he's speaking" was the first thing I thought. I just printed it myself, and of course I ran out of regular paper and had to use the really good, professional paper and it's in green ink; but it will be read before the end of the week.

Is it me or was this "interview" not very informative? Sly wants to speak in 1-sentence riddles, especially when asked any question that you've been wanting to know the answer about for the last 2 decades or so. Not much to say about any of the albums, the drug use, how the albums were recorded or written, where he's been, what he's been up to, etc... It almost read like he didn't want to sit for an interview.

It's cool that Sly's still Sly, but I was hoping to finish this interview knowing something that I didn't know before from his own words. Seems like he just sat in front of the interviewer and blew him off.

But best believe I'll be listening to the box set tunes again throughout the weekend.

I hope that those European dudes writing the book have had better luck.

CoolMF said:

I'd have to agree but it's Sly Stone, I'm not expecting him to open up and start crying like he's on Barbra Walters. He still understands that the mystery is the hype.

For me, just hearing that Larry Grahm was suppose to be on that stage for the grammys kind made me respect Larry more. At the time, I thought with the rest of the band being there, what is this guy's problem?

I think the thing that I liked most about this article was that it gave me someone human that has been going through life for the last 20 years and didn't need to be in the limelight. This as opposed to the rumours that have circulated and all of us having no idea but still wanting to know because we love the music so much.

Loved the slide show of pics, some I never seen before.
Interview was informative and glad he's ok.

I thought more about it and re-read some parts last night. I take back my previous statement- the interview was informative. The part about him explaining his no-shows and the promoters splitting the bonds was kinda interesting.

What I really found informative after reflecting on the piece is that he was so "dolo" (for lack of a better term) during the '70's and early '80's in terms of not giving a fuck and going as hard with the drugs as humanly possible and then just turning the life off like a light switch. What'd he say? "I just woke up one day and everything was clean".

That's pretty cool. He just sits back on his genius, aloof to the world around him, and, despite it all, is one of the few from his era still living and coherent.

I dunno- I reflected upon driving home from work yesterday and put on "Riot" later on last night and appreciated it all the more.

Judging by that interview, he seems amazingly ok, if you believe all the stories about him.

And he's still got that wit. He seems all there, if in a Sly kind of way.

Fingers crossed he goes through with all his future plans and that things go well.

very interesting read. kinda what I expected; telling us more stuff but raising more questions, leaving us wanting more etc., I suppose that's the sly way.