I Want to Take You Higher_ The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone - Jeff Kaliss [34]
A month later, Sly & the Family Stone were among the cultural heroes invited to entertain a half million paying and (mostly) nonpaying throngs of youth swarming over a bucolic farmstead in upstate New York.
THE WOODSTOCK MUSIC AND ARTS Fair was a point of mass affirmation for a generation heady with rebellion, experimentation, hedonism, and the occasional breaching of fences. In retrospect, it stands out as a showcase for a very healthy period in the development of American popular music. More than three decades later, youthful energy sparkled in the eyes of the nowmiddle-aged members of the Family Stone as they invoked the experience in the documentary The Skin I'm In. Greg recalled reveling with Janis Joplin at a nearby Holiday Inn, before his band's scheduled appearance on the early morning of August 17. Freddie reported that in the wee hours of their performance that Sunday, "It was dark when we went on, you could see nothing but candles. And, man, when the sun came up! We began to see how many people there were."
"When we got there, at three o'clock in the morning, we were tired, we were grouchy, we were all full of mud," added Jerry. "We got out there and looked at the audience, who were all in their sleeping bags, and when we started playing, they all jumped out of their sleeping bags. We felt the vibe between the audience and the band, and honest to God, all the hair on my arms stood straight up." Was this evidence of a reprise and validation of Rich Romanello's prophetic reaction to the band at its birth three years earlier?
Cynthia described the scene for People magazine: "It was pouring rain. Freddie got shocked. The equipment was crackling. But Sly was like a preacher. He had half a million people in the palm of his hand." Larry told Vanity Fair, "It's like when an athlete like Michael Jordan realizes the extent of his gifts and goes, `Oh, I can do that.'"
Michael Wadleigh's Oscar-winning documentary film about Woodstock (edited by a pre-Mean Streets Martin Scorsese) and the associated three-LP soundtrack served both as souvenirs of the generation's peak experience and as an extension of Woodstock's legend to those who couldn't, or wouldn't, be there. Sly & the Family Stone played one of the festival's best sets, including "M'Lady," "Sing a Simple Song," "You Can Make It If You Try," "Stand!," "Love City," "Dance to the Music," "Music Lover," and "I Want to Take You Higher," but only the last three made it onto the film and record. It's not the band's best performance, but it is one of their most celebrated, and the powerful current between stage and captive audience is tangible.
David Kapralik, though still managing the group, didn't witness the Woodstock gig until he saw the documentary. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, he views the indelible image of Sly, his arms raised in salute to the throng, with long white fringes trailing off the jacket, as a harbinger of hard times. "I knew that this was Icarus, his wings made of wax, and [the spotlight] was the sun he flew too close to," David opines. His characteristically visionary metaphor is drawn from Greek mythology, but he refers to a reallife meltdown that would increasingly weaken his bond with Sly, Sly's bond with the band, and David's hold on his own well-being.
On the surface, it looked like Sly & the Family Stone's career was in full flight, with the Woodstock film and recording helping to uplift and sustain the band's popularity. Without a new album in the works, though, Columbia decided to launch a couple of singles. The laid-back and jazzy "Hot Fun in the Summertime," released in August '69, rose to the number-2 spot on the charts in the fall of that year; early in 1970, "I Want to Take You Higher" was released as the A-side of a single ("Stand!" was on the flip), and its success this time around was supercharged by