I Want to Take You Higher_ The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone - Jeff Kaliss [52]
Aside from its single hit, Fresh is probably best remembered for Sly's haunting, sincere arrangement of Doris Day's standard "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)." This rare (for Sly) cover was intoned by Rose, with Sly on chorus, in a slow-swaying, praise-giving manner evocative of their childhood harmonizing in church. The reflective song had been penned by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, and first heard in Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 film The Man Who Knew Too Much, but its inclusion on Fresh resulted in a controversy having nothing to do with music or movies. The cover had been facilitated by Sly's good-time Hollywood hang partner and Doris's son, Terry Melcher. The friends didn't anticipate that they were spawning an urban legend, persisting for decades: that Sly Stone had slept with Doris Day.
It was probably a collective projection of sexual fantasies about the perky singer-turned-actress Doris, common among American males of the '50s and '60s. Today, David Kapralik and Steve Paley are both ready to put the myth to rest. "I was Terry Melcher's mentor at Columbia, and we became good friends and remained so through the years," says David. "I introduced Sly to Terry, and several times Terry joined me at Sly's recording sessions. I often visited with Terry and Doris at their home in Beverly Hills, and one day I brought Sly with me to hang out with Terry." "Sly was mainly interested in buying one of her cars," Steve continues. "Sly did go to Doris's house, but only to see the car in question, and that's when Terry introduced him to his mother."
"They had a brief conversation, and then Doris went into the kitchen," David goes on. "While she was out of the room, Sly went to the piano in the living room and began to play `Que Sera, Sera.' Then Doris came out of the kitchen, on her way elsewhere in the house, and with Sly accompanying her, she sang a few bars of the song." Steve describes their rendition as "a gospel version," not unlike its delivery on Fresh. "To the best of my knowledge, that is the first and last time Sly and Doris met," attests David, "despite the false and scurrilous tabloid reports that appeared subsequently." "After the song came out, that stupid Sly-Doris Day rumor started," concludes Steve. "It amused Sly at the time, but irritated Doris. Part of the reason this rumor took hold was because Doris was supposedly having an affair with Maury Wills, a black L.A. Dodgers baseball player," an item attested to in Wills's 1991 autobiography.
During and after the making of Fresh, Tom Flye's engineering engagement with Sly continued, and expanded beyond the studio. "I did a bunch of television shows, I even went out and did frontof-the-house [at concerts] for him sometimes," says the engineer. "We basically kind of lived together for a while. He had a studio in L.A., he had a studio in New York, and at CBS. We spent a lot of time together, because he recorded every day. Sometimes I'd take my mobile unit over to his mother's house [in San Francisco] and we'd record in the basement."
Sly manifested more admiration and trust with Tom, whom he'd dubbed "Superflye," than with most studio personnel. "There were rumors all over the industry," says Tom, "that he'd shot up control rooms, yelled at engineers, all kinds of stuff. But he treated me like a king. We just got along. I think he realized that I was trying to help, I wasn't just there