Does anyone here like Sly & The Family Stone?

Yeah! I love Sly and the Family Stone! They were a great band, it's a shame they're no longer together because of Sly's rumoured drug problems.

Sly Stone is the main man in my book!!
I´m a Sly & the Family Stone fanatic.
/peace Manki

A you serious with this question? On a Prince web site?


Just in case you are, the answer is HELL YEAH

The album "Fresh" is one of my all time, under-rated favorites.

Funky is as Funky does

I personally like "Small Talk." EXTREMELY underrated! I don't think not too many people even know about it. He kinda fell off with "High On You" though...maybe that's becuase he was really high. Anyway, if you guys didn't know there's a cool website under construction about the band and Little Sister. Check it out! www.slystone.com

ohh yes!! ..

I really wish Little Sister or Freddie Stone would've released their albums.

okaypimpn said:

yeah,I´ve been waiting 4 this website a couple of years
now.I just hope 1 day it will B completed.
/peace Manki

psychodelicide said:

It's Sly and the Family Stone!

I love them! I wanted to get their latest compilation but
"Que Sera" isn't on it. So I'm thinking about buying the "Anthology" again (on CD this time).

You know, I actually remember when Sly got married at Madison Square Garden! (Man, I'm old!)

UptownDeb said:

You're not old! I'm only 23, but enjoy hearing about 70's music and people's experiences back then. A lot of music today is kinda boring (although I am a Neptunes junkie now!)

okaypimpn said:

Oh, I hear ya! I'm old school to the bone. (Even my slang is old school! ) But, I meant that I'm old because I remember when Sly Stone got married. Also, whenever I watch the show "Girlfriends" I think, "Wow! I remember when Traci Ross [Diana's daughter] was born!"

UptownDeb said:

LOL!

Sly is one of the foundations that funk was built on.It's a shame the brother got so messed up on drugs.He was atrue pioneer and his music is still fresh today as it was back then.

UnsymmetricalySymmetrical said:

So true. The man is a recluse now probably playing his own old records...wishing. I think he may have been the first person to incorporate gospel music (with the organ and all) and R&B into funk and capitalize on it.

tell me u jokin' anyone who doesnt like like sly is either dead from tha neck up?... or just plain fuckin retarded

okaypimpn said:

small talk is the bomb!
"can't strain my brain" is one of my favorite trax of all time.

i dont think he really fell off with "high on you". it has some great cuts as well.

i actually know the guy who is the webmaster for the slystone.com website. he is working on it as fast as he can. i cant wait til it is all completed.

UptownDeb said:

Was´nt that broadcasted live on TV? I think I read about that.Did U see that?
/peace Manki

okaypimpn said:

Hell Yeah!

Of course! YES!

First really listened to Sly back in '82 when i was 12.My dad had their back catalogue.liked them ever since.

Even Larry was tolerable back then!

They were definately the prototype for Prince's bands.

The Greatest Rock&Roll Band Ever IMHO is Sly&The Family Stone.you know growing up in the 80's with Michael Jackson,Prince,Rick James,Tina Turner,etc.. bridging Racial Gaps well Sly&The Family Stone did that 20 years Prior.when George Clinton calls you the Best that speaks VOlumes IMHO.you name it&chances are Sly&The Family Stone did it.Sly like Jimi Hendrix did so much so soon&Inspired so many People that you are often Blinded by that Level of Genius on some levels.One of the Cornerstone Artists we Know.

manki said:

You know, it might've been. I don't really remember.

What I do remember is that tough-looking chica in Sly's band, think her name was Cynthia. She played the trumpet, I think.

UptownDeb said:

Yes,Cynthia Robinson is awsome.She played with Prince occationally when Larry played with him.So did Jerry Martini.the sax player.

okaypimpn said:

Not to take anything away from Sly, because his legacy is secure, but JB and his band were doing that prior to S&TFS.

Supernova said:

Supernova...always leaping forward with truth.

Did any of you guys ever read the interview that was online a year or two ago? There was a Sly fan site, and the author tracked down Sly, (in L.A.) and contacted him, and was GRANTED an INTERVIEW.

The site was up for a year or two (interview was in 1999? it was before they went into the Hall of Fame) and Sly played some NEW MATERIAL for the guy!

OH! MAN! Wish I was there.

It was a great interview - I think. it's been awhile. Cant find it online now... sorry

otan said:

Yes,I read it.Sure makes U wonder what his current stuff sound like.I found this article about Sly´s life 2day at
lime-light.org:


Sounds of Silence

Who knows what lurks in the heart of Sly Stone?

BY JASON GILMORE

Exclusive to lime-light.org

"He's just a human being," says trumpet player Cynthia Robinson of her former bandleader. "I should've been praying for him a long time ago. People like to call him a genius, but to me, he's just an ordinary person with an extraordinary talent... I wish we coud have more of him, more of his words to live by." Robinson lives in Sacramento, with her two daughters and several grandchildren. Though her youngest daughter, Sylvette Phunne Robinson, is the bandleader's and the bandleader assumed no responsibility for her upbringing, Cynthia harbors no bitterness. "I may have raised her by myself but that may have been the best thing. Many of the years that I was raising her, he was struggling with the things he was struggling with."

The bandleader in question is Sly Stone, the head of Sly and the Family Stone , one of the most influenetial and important music groups of the 20th century. Sly was a flamboyant, visionary multi-instrumentalist whose songs preached racial solidarity through uptempo grooves, multiple harmonies and deceptively simple lyrics. Amidst all the Woodstock-era talk of societal unity, the Family Stone was the first group to actually combine elements of color and gender into one funky, startling mix, creating a group of men, women, whites and blacks.

Unlike many who dominated the airwaves from the late 1960s into the early '70s, Sly Stone somehow managed to stay alive. He has also managed to stay silent, causing many to speculate wildly on his whereabouts, physiological state, and the odds of when and if he will ever release another album.

"I think he's very comfortable with his life," says Rose Stewart, his younger sister who sang and played electric piano for the group. "Everything's accessible to him and he's comfortable...He talks about returning to the spotlight. He says, 'Next year, next year.' He has loads and loads of songs. One time, there was this song that I really liked that we had done a while back and I said, 'Why don't you put that one out?' And he couldn't even remember which one I was talking about. So that's how many songs he has."

Good news for music fans, because when the artist formerly known as Sylvester Stewart was at his peak, there seemed to be no limit to how far he could go. There was nothing to prepare folks for the psychedelic-pop-soul-gospel melange that burst onto the hit scene with 1968's Dance to the Music. Onwards the band marched, dropping gems like "Everyday People," "I Want To Take You Higher," "Thank You (Falettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin)", "Hot Fun in the Summertime," "Family Affair," and "If You Want Me To Stay."

The Jackson Five (whose former lead singer now owns the publishing rights to Sly's music) were modeled after Sly and the Family Stone, as was Prince's Revolution, as were countless other important groups, who will tell you if you ask them. Sly produced Grace Slick when Jefferson Airplanewas just a jet and affected Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock so deeply that they went off and started a whole 'nother kind of music called fusion. His influence found its way to peers such as Jimi Hendrix , Marvin Gaye , The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and so many others that it's downright scary.

Many of you may know about Sly's equally scary descent into drug abuse, egomania and problems with the law that led to his current self-imposed silence. But some who were there, paint things in a different light. "There were discrepancies about money," says Rose, now living in LA's San Fernando Valley, with a full plate of singing engagements, "and a lot of [factors], some of the stuff I'm just finding out about now. He would miss gigs a lot of times for personal things with management. There were some bad management situations. Sly couldn't get on stage and talk about everything. He just said, 'I'll take it.' He took the rap for everything. It wasn't just drugs. It wasn't like he was so drugged out that he couldn't make it. There are a lot of people who've been drugged out for years that still have gigs. Nobody trusted anybody. The bigger the group gets, the more people try to pull you apart." Fred Stewart, Sly's brother and former guitarist agrees, "All those times we were late, people like to attribute to him. Other times, it was the group. We just decided we didn't want to play. He's one of the nicest guys I know. He's a big kid, loves to have fun. We just got very big and ran into elements we weren't prepared for."

His last hit song was 1986's "Crazay" with Jesse Johnsonand his last public appearance was a tottering speech in 1993 when Sly and the Family Stone were inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame. All that we've been given in between was sporadic troubles with the law and more recently hours upon hours of silence. So what do we make of a man who simply disappears?

"In my view, it would be possible [to interview Sly] if someone was to come to him real on the straight up," says Fred, now a pastor in Vallejo, California, where the Stewarts grew up. "Over a period of years, people have come forth to do positive stories on Sly and the Family Stone and by the time they reached print, they were negative. We don't need the negative. The negative did happen, but that's life. Sly's reluctant, but nobody comes to him for real."

Through Rose, the closest person to him on Earth, I delivered a letter to Sly Stone. It said that I was a fan of his and that, consequently, I would have no need to perpetuate rumors about his fall from grace and current living situation. I offered him every form of creative control over the interview and concluded by saying that, if the time wasn't right, I would understand. Apparently, I will have to. When old friends of Sly's like Bobby Womackand Billy Prestonclaim to have not heard from or seen Sly in years, one begins to question their own chances.

There's obviously a lot that could or should be said, but the only one who can say it chooses not to. By all accounts who can account, Sly lives in the Los Angeles area ("He moves around a lot," says Fred. "I know he was in Beverly Hills at one point.") where he continues to record music daily in his home studio. Some fans say that they have heard tracks like the one that Rose described, they say those tracks sound like vintage Sly, that if he should choose to release them, they would set off a comeback of Carlos Santana-like proportions. He has been drug free since the early/mid 90s and continues to enjoy life and perfect his sound. Rest assured that when he is ready for us to know more, we will. In the meanwhile, we continue to miss him and celebrate his music and pray for him and hope to hear his brilliance again.

Copyright C Jason Gilmore 2003

Buy Sly and the Family Stone music at Lime-light!!!

djdredd said:

Favorite track off of Small Talk-"Say You Will" and "Livin' While I'm Livin.'" "Can't Strain My Brain" is one of my favorites also. "Le-Lo-Li" is just so cracked out. I love it!!! Even though you can tell he was smokin' that shit when he made it!

Supernova said:

True, but James didn't use as many keyboards in his band. James band was all about the beat and his horns. Sly used that organ and Larry's heavy bassline to incorporate that gospel and soul vibe.