In light of the topic on here about his recent arrest, I started doing a bit of research on Sly. I wasn't familiar with his music, but who the hell wouldn't want to find out more about a nearly 70 year old, blond wig wearing former rocker who was recently busted for cocaine?

A lot of fans considered his quirkiness and eccentric behavior a sign of "musical genius". But I couldn't help but wonder if his behavior should've been attributed to being a strung out junkie.

Let's face it, he was propped up by a funky band. The guy barely played a note. His music was good for his times but were the lyrics to songs like Hot Fun in the Summertime (Hi Hi Hi Hiiiii there) and Family Affair deep enough to brand him a musical genius?

His behavior towards the women in his life made him seem like an asshole. And being jailed for failure to pay child support and keeping a pit bull after it attacked his son made him seem like a horrible dad. (One daughter discussed her attempts at having a relationship with her father and how on her last attempt he left her stranded at the airport after she flew out to see him).

I don't think it's fair to musical geniuses to attribute Sly's personal failings to him being one.

Your thoughts?

PS: He had a child with one of the members of his band, Cynthia Robinson.

How did that work with his marriage at Madison Square Gardens? Did she stand there singing "Family Affair" as her babydaddy married his 19 year old girlfriend? Or did she have his child after his nightmarish 5-month "marriage" ended?

Karen not only Sly was is a genius he was also an inovator in the field of funk music.

And not only that he was a good instrumentalist.

it's not true that he depended on his band.

He played large portion of guitar solos

and organ solos on the concerts of Sly and the Family Stone.

On a few albums almost complete instrumentation was played by Sly.

Was he unreliable for live concerts during his hey day? yes

He was a junkie but that don't

affects what he created.

thebanishedone said:

Karen not only Sly was is a genius he was also an inovator in the field of funk music.

And not only that he was a good instrumentalist.

it's not true that he depended on his band.

He played large portion of guitar solos

and organ solos on the concerts of Sly and the Family Stone.

On a few albums almost complete instrumentation was played by Sly.

Was he unreliable for live concerts during his hey day? yes

He was a junkie but that don't

affects what he created.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply b/c I really am trying to UNDERSTAND the phenomenon of Sly--not just disparage him. I simply did NOT see "genius". Good music? Yes. But I didn't see a phenomenal instrumentalist either. He didn't impress me as a Slash or Stevie Wonder.

And to read most commenters excuse his quirkiness in interviews on his "genius" confused me as well. I wrote it off as being HIGH.

I wonder if he was that "genius" during his childhood or days as a struggling musician or if it happen once the drugs appeared on the scene.

Would you be even asking this question if he was Dylan?

alphastreet said:

Would you be even asking this question if he was Dylan?

ABSOLUTELY!

If I finally discover an artist's music, check out some vids, see people rave about what a "genius" he is when I don't see it, I'd ask those in the know WHAT AM I MISSING? WHAT MADE HIM A GENIUS?

If you're a lifelong fan, you should be able to tell me.

Truth is, this is the first time I've seen the behavior of an artist obviously high as a kite being considered "genius". Usually, we just say that person is HIGH on drugs and call it a day.

[Edited 6/12/11 15:09pm]

Aren't most of the best drugies?

He's both a musical genius and a screw-up. If you don't think so that's your prerogative...

Slash is a genius but Sly isn't? Wow.

Slash is a talented guitarist, and I'm a huge GnR fan, but the magic of that band was in the combination of Axl, Slash, Izzy and Duff. He hasn't done much noteworthy outside of that.

Sly's a multi-instrumentalist and a producer like Prince. Writes, plays, assembled the right crew of musicians for his band (which at that time was a risk in itself, having a multi-racial band like The Family Stone, back in the 60's!)

Someone like Prince could not have created a multi-racial band that fused soul and r&b with rock if it weren't for Sly blazing that trail. The socio-political commentary on "There's A Riot Goin' On" preceded what people like Public Enemy and NWA would go on to do by well over a decade. Sly was one of the first to use rhythm boxes (the precursors to drum machines) rather than live drums, and on commercial recordings, singles!

I think Sly was eccentric and a little off the wall before he started using. The music and the very approach would indicate that much. Sure, there may be some drug-fueled aspects that have been mistaken for the eccentricties of a genius but you can say the opposite too.

The Family Stone deserve a lot of props... particularly Larry Graham.... but it was Sly that commandeered the group and created the sound.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Aren't most of the best drugies?

I kinda think they ALL fell under the spell of drugs--the best and the worst.

Good musician, even GREAT musician is one thing. When you say GENIUS, I'm expecting something out of the ordinary, something timeless even.

And don't we usually attribute poor behavior to drugs? In Sly's case, it was said that his behavior in interviews were due to his "genius". I do agree that some geniuses are eccentric and may lack common social skills, but to me the guy was just HIGH.

Drugs don't make you a genius anyways. Sly was a genius from day one. Even fucked up, he created some masterpieces but drugs didn't contribute to it. It might've contributed to his eventual downfall but it didn't play a role in the music until he had nothing else to say and that was around 1979-ish.

The OP's points are well taken.

Although I respect his output during his genius years, post-1970 has been a reclusive haze.

Thins have gotten so very bad that I think it's clear that the guy has literally "blown his brains out" with drugs. It's very sad, IMO.

To someone NEW to his music, this could be a perplexing paradox. It is in fact simple tragedy.

JamFanHot said:

The OP's points are well taken.

Although I respect his output during his genius years, post-1970 has been a reclusive haze.

Thins have gotten so very bad that I think it's clear that the guy has literally "blown his brains out" with drugs. It's very sad, IMO.

To someone NEW to his music, this could be a perplexing paradox. It is in fact simple tragedy.

What's even more tragic is that he didn't have someone in his corner to steer him in the right direction. Because of that, now we get the Sly we get NOW. But like I said maybe something is mental with him...

Timmy84 said:

JamFanHot said:

The OP's points are well taken.

Although I respect his output during his genius years, post-1970 has been a reclusive haze.

Thins have gotten so very bad that I think it's clear that the guy has literally "blown his brains out" with drugs. It's very sad, IMO.

To someone NEW to his music, this could be a perplexing paradox. It is in fact simple tragedy.

What's even more tragic is that he didn't have someone in his corner to steer him in the right direction. Because of that, now we get the Sly we get NOW. But like I said maybe something is mental with him...

Have long suspected underlying trouble there. Many of the "incidents" and "rants" don't appear to be ONLY drug related. Could be a Syd Barrett kinda thing (where the acid just amped up the schizo).

Militant said:

Slash is a genius but Sly isn't? Wow.

Slash is a talented guitarist, and I'm a huge GnR fan, but the magic of that band was in the combination of Axl, Slash, Izzy and Duff. He hasn't done much noteworthy outside of that.

Sly's a multi-instrumentalist and a producer like Prince. Writes, plays, assembled the right crew of musicians for his band (which at that time was a risk in itself, having a multi-racial band like The Family Stone, back in the 60's!)

Someone like Prince could not have created a multi-racial band that fused soul and r&b with rock if it weren't for Sly blazing that trail. The socio-political commentary on "There's A Riot Goin' On" preceded what people like Public Enemy and NWA would go on to do by well over a decade. Sly was one of the first to use rhythm boxes (the precursors to drum machines) rather than live drums, and on commercial recordings, singles!

I think Sly was eccentric and a little off the wall before he started using. The music and the very approach would indicate that much. Sure, there may be some drug-fueled aspects that have been mistaken for the eccentricties of a genius but you can say the opposite too.

The Family Stone deserve a lot of props... particularly Larry Graham.... but it was Sly that commandeered the group and created the sound.

Let me be clear: I think Slash was/is a talented--perhaps genius--GUITAR PLAYER. I wouldn't consider him a musical genius.

I became intro'd to Jimi Hendrix for the first time recently and could clearly understand why he would be revered--despite being a drug-using asshole (according to accounts of his personal life). By the way, wasn't he doing the interracial group thing before Sly? And didn't other groups do the interracial group thing between Sly & Prince? KC & the Sunshine Band, perhaps? Heatwave was interracial.

I can clearly see the influence Jimi had on Sly...who influenced Prince...who influenced others.

And did Sly's political commentary precede James Brown's (Say it Loud...Black and Proud)???

Thanks for your insight...I'm learning more about Sly than the videos could show.

Timmy84 said:

JamFanHot said:

The OP's points are well taken.

Although I respect his output during his genius years, post-1970 has been a reclusive haze.

Thins have gotten so very bad that I think it's clear that the guy has literally "blown his brains out" with drugs. It's very sad, IMO.

To someone NEW to his music, this could be a perplexing paradox. It is in fact simple tragedy.

What's even more tragic is that he didn't have someone in his corner to steer him in the right direction. Because of that, now we get the Sly we get NOW. But like I said maybe something is mental with him...

That's the part I didn't get. His brother and sister (and babymama) were in the band...Dick Cavett mentioned seeing his father backstage and I'm wondering why his father/parents didn't punch him in his chest, get him in a headlock and get him some help. I do realize he was likely headstrong and rehab wasn't the celebrity-thing to do back then as it is now.

Tragic cause he was kinda hot. (Of course, I realize age would've taken a toll on his age anyway, but the humpback, mohawk, blond wig????)

JamFanHot said:

Timmy84 said:

What's even more tragic is that he didn't have someone in his corner to steer him in the right direction. Because of that, now we get the Sly we get NOW. But like I said maybe something is mental with him...

Have long suspected underlying trouble there. Many of the "incidents" and "rants" don't appear to be ONLY drug related. Could be a Syd Barrett kinda thing (where the acid just amped up the schizo).

Good comparison.

Timmy84 said:

Drugs don't make you a genius anyways. Sly was a genius from day one. Even fucked up, he created some masterpieces but drugs didn't contribute to it. It might've contributed to his eventual downfall but it didn't play a role in the music until he had nothing else to say and that was around 1979-ish.

Good point!

Sly to me was/is a "tortured genius". He came from a good strong religious family and Sly was a good student in school and quite popular. He studied intense music theory under David Freolich and did really well.

For him to write, produce, be a dee-jay and put a killer band together is pretty hip. Sly fused the right ingredients (at the right time) to create something new that was never heard before. Sure it's been imitated but he CREATED it.

Sly blended what was hip and made it accesibile to everyone. Even though Les Paul pioneered a lot of things like multitracking, slowing down-speeding up tracks..Sly had a blast with it. Ike Turner may have been the 1st to use a drum machine, but Sly turned it into another band member. His music and influence is still strong today..everyone here knows the artists.

..but once Sly got caught up in his own hype and started hanging around the wrong crowd, that's when the crap hit the fan. He couldn't leave those drugs alone. Everyone knows that coke can make you delusional, paranoid, eccentric, etc. I think once Sly's demons, fears and phobias caught up with him it kicked him in his ass.

When I read in the 90's that he was doing better and was ready to put out new music I was hyped. That would have been the best time for him to have made a comeback. The 1970's was cool again and the timing was perfect..but as we all know Sly was never perfect for being on time.

When I saw the live clips of him recently I just felt bad for him, his band and his fans. I really wanted to believe that he could do it and come back strong. And whatever happened to all these

documentaries that were supposed to come out in 2010??

Sly getting arrested at 68 years old for coke possesion??? C'mon man.

Sorry for the rambling but I love the dude and hoped the best for him. But I really think his reign and hope ended in 1974.

Both!

SPYZFAN1 said:

Sly to me was/is a "tortured genius". He came from a good strong religious family and Sly was a good student in school and quite popular. He studied intense music theory under David Freolich and did really well.

For him to write, produce, be a dee-jay and put a killer band together is pretty hip. Sly fused the right ingredients (at the right time) to create something new that was never heard before. Sure it's been imitated but he CREATED it.

Sly blended what was hip and made it accesibile to everyone. Even though Les Paul pioneered a lot of things like multitracking, slowing down-speeding up tracks..Sly had a blast with it. Ike Turner may have been the 1st to use a drum machine, but Sly turned it into another band member. His music and influence is still strong today..everyone here knows the artists.

..but once Sly got caught up in his own hype and started hanging around the wrong crowd, that's when the crap hit the fan. He couldn't leave those drugs alone. Everyone knows that coke can make you delusional, paranoid, eccentric, etc. I think once Sly's demons, fears and phobias caught up with him it kicked him in his ass.

When I read in the 90's that he was doing better and was ready to put out new music I was hyped. That would have been the best time for him to have made a comeback. The 1970's was cool again and the timing was perfect..but as we all know Sly was never perfect for being on time.

When I saw the live clips of him recently I just felt bad for him, his band and his fans. I really wanted to believe that he could do it and come back strong. And whatever happened to all these

documentaries that were supposed to come out in 2010??

Sly getting arrested at 68 years old for coke possesion??? C'mon man.

Sorry for the rambling but I love the dude and hoped the best for him. But I really think his reign and hope ended in 1974.

WOW! Didn't know all that about Sly the Man. But I did know that I could get the real deal on him from this site.

I have to agree with all you said (even in my limited knowledge of him) particularly the part about his reign ending in 1974.

Everyone keeps talking about having him "come back" and do it again. In reality, no one remains at their peak. Even Michael Jackson struggled to find his footing in his 40s--and he had a following like no other. I don't think the 68 year old Sly of today could come back and recreate his magic of the 60s--even if he kicked the habit. Music and the times have changed too much. The good news is that we still have his good stuff to listen to.

davetherave6767 said:

Both!

Which I think is highly possible. I don't think it's an either or.

As I said, drugs took the life of Jimi Hendrix but his genius can not be denied. That man was WAY ahead of his times. At times, I thought I was listening to 80s rock--but it was HENDRIX!

[Edited 6/12/11 16:32pm]

Karen71 said:

davetherave6767 said:

Both!

Which I think is highly possible. I don't think it's an either or.

As I said, drugs took the life of Jimi Hendrix but his genius can not be denied. That man was WAY ahead of his times. At times, I thought I was listening to 80s rock--but it was HENDRIX!

[Edited 6/12/11 16:32pm]

He was murdered and drowned in alcohol

Karen71 said:

davetherave6767 said:

Both!

Which I think is highly possible. I don't think it's an either or.

As I said, drugs took the life of Jimi Hendrix but his genius can not be denied. That man was WAY ahead of his times. At times, I thought I was listening to 80s rock--but it was HENDRIX!

[Edited 6/12/11 16:32pm]

He died of an accidental overdose allegedly. He wasn't even drunk the night he died I heard.

Karen71 said:

Militant said:

Slash is a genius but Sly isn't? Wow.

Slash is a talented guitarist, and I'm a huge GnR fan, but the magic of that band was in the combination of Axl, Slash, Izzy and Duff. He hasn't done much noteworthy outside of that.

Sly's a multi-instrumentalist and a producer like Prince. Writes, plays, assembled the right crew of musicians for his band (which at that time was a risk in itself, having a multi-racial band like The Family Stone, back in the 60's!)

Someone like Prince could not have created a multi-racial band that fused soul and r&b with rock if it weren't for Sly blazing that trail. The socio-political commentary on "There's A Riot Goin' On" preceded what people like Public Enemy and NWA would go on to do by well over a decade. Sly was one of the first to use rhythm boxes (the precursors to drum machines) rather than live drums, and on commercial recordings, singles!

I think Sly was eccentric and a little off the wall before he started using. The music and the very approach would indicate that much. Sure, there may be some drug-fueled aspects that have been mistaken for the eccentricties of a genius but you can say the opposite too.

The Family Stone deserve a lot of props... particularly Larry Graham.... but it was Sly that commandeered the group and created the sound.

Let me be clear: I think Slash was/is a talented--perhaps genius--GUITAR PLAYER. I wouldn't consider him a musical genius.

I became intro'd to Jimi Hendrix for the first time recently and could clearly understand why he would be revered--despite being a drug-using asshole (according to accounts of his personal life). By the way, wasn't he doing the interracial group thing before Sly? And didn't other groups do the interracial group thing between Sly & Prince? KC & the Sunshine Band, perhaps? Heatwave was interracial.

I can clearly see the influence Jimi had on Sly...who influenced Prince...who influenced others.

And did Sly's political commentary precede James Brown's (Say it Loud...Black and Proud)???

Thanks for your insight...I'm learning more about Sly than the videos could show.

Jimi and Sly basically got successful at the same time. They both did work prior to their big breakthroughs but I don't think either one of them was aware of the other as they had limited success until around the same time. Sly and the Family Stone's debut album was released in June, 1967. Are You Experienced? was released in May, 1967 (in the U.K.) and August, 1967 (in the U.S.) so it's probably fair to say that they both came up with the idea of mixing black and white musicians independent of each other. One big difference is that Sly reached both black and white audiences in a way that Jimi did not, for the most part Jimi's audience was white.

One thing to consider, what if Sly had died young and preserved his legacy and Jimi had been the one to live and go a little crazy?

With Sly you also have to try to think of things without knowing about the music that was made in the forty years after he came along. Prior to Sly nobody was mixing black and white music in the way that he did. He took hardcore "black" music and made it appealing to white audiences without alienating his black audience. Sly, along with Isaac Hayes, was one of the first people to take the hard funk that James Brown created and take it in a direction that James never did.

People like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye often get a lot of credit for opening up the lyrical possibilities of "black" music but in 1969 when they were still singing "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" and "My Cherie Amour" Sly had a song called "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey," very daring stuff for 1969.

It's true that his flame burned for a relatively brief time but he was incredibly influential.

Sly definitely paved the way.

Karen71 said:

PS: He had a child with one of the members of his band, Cynthia Robinson.

Yep. His brother was seeing her too.

And let's just say that the amount of inter-fucking that Sly and the band did wasn't just limited male-on-female action...

Mong said:

Karen71 said:

PS: He had a child with one of the members of his band, Cynthia Robinson.

Yep. His brother was seeing her too.

And let's just say that the amount of inter-fucking that Sly and the band did wasn't just limited male-on-female action...

So what u saying Larry Graham and Sly were dawg duking each other.