I Want to Take You Higher_ The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone - Jeff Kaliss [38]
There was a parting of the ways when Sly moved on to tour dates in Holland. He returned to the States, to deal with the volatile mix of celebrity and infamy that he and the press had been stirring up. Ria herself crossed back over the Atlantic two years later, with a husband (who wanted her to give up show biz) and their two children. Another reunion with Sly awaited, further down his hard road.
Riot
1970-1972
No one understands another's grief, no one understands another's joy.... My music is the product of my talent and my misery. And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like the best.
-FRANZ SCHUBERT
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself.
-JEAN COCTEAU
HILE WAITING OUT THE two years for a new album after Stand!, Columbia gave fans a recap of what they'd already learned to love about Sly & the Family Stone. Greatest Hits, the band's first compilation, was released in 1970, and its tracks were almost consistently positive and uplifting.
On ABC-TV's The Dick Cavett Show in July 1970, though, the band presented a different image to its fans, less the Summer of Love fantasy of the past than the tough streetwise attitude that would become associated with their next album, There's a Riot Goin' On. Sly and Cynthia had expanded their hairstyles to sizeable Afros, Jerry and Greg's hair had lengthened, Rose was tough and beautiful, and Freddie was topped by a swami's turban. After a tight performance of their new single, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," Sly ambled over to the guest area for a loose quasi-conversation with the host. Sly made for a curious visual and aural contrast with Dick and his other guest, the chipper )50s star Debbie Reynolds.
"Could I dress like this and play in your group?" the buttoneddown Cavett needled Sly. "Wouldn't it look funny?"
"With people that were judging the way you were dressing," Sly responded dully in a low-register mumble.
"There'd probably be a certain pressure on me ..." speculated Cavett.
"There's a pressure on all of us," said Sly truthfully. How much of Sly's demeanor in a number of TV appearances was due to preshow drugging (to which there were witnesses) and how much to his lifelong fondness for shuck and jive is speculative, as is his impact on TV viewers, who themselves varied in age and hipness and reaction to the image of a charismatic and seemingly uncontrollable black man.
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" had been released as a single in December 1969 and became one of the biggest hits of 1970, scoring a number 1 spot on both the pop and R & B lists. Riding on a seismic, octave-jumping bass line from Larry and punctuated with Freddie's choked treble chords, the music dug an irresistible groove, matched by the lyric's clever name-checks of some of the band's previous tunes: "Dance to the Music," "Sing a Simple Song," "You Can Make It If You Try," and "Everyday Peo ple." Just as the groove was a sign of the funk to come, the quirky parenthetical title anticipated Prince, who would make phonetic spelling one of his signature riffs, as would hip-hop stars of later decades. "Thank You" was a double-A release, with the radiant and very different "Everybody Is a Star"-on which all the Family vocalists, Sly, Larry, Cynthia, Freddie, and Rose-individually shared one of Sly's most positive lyrics and the band's most loving arrangements, evoking the good vibes that were in practice starting to slip away from their lives and music. (These two songs, along with "Hot Fun in the Summertime," were the only nonalbum tracks on Greatest Hits.)
You can hear in "Thank You" and "Everybody Is a Star" the sound that would