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grid failed to take place." Of Ken Roberts, who attended and helped plan the wedding, George wrote, "He became Sly's manager in 1972, at a time when Sly was very badly behaved, when, Roberts says, no one else wanted the job. He books Sly's concerts and exercises some tactical control, but he seems to have few long-term ambitions for Sly. While Paley (who is almost Sly's age) and others at Epic Records seem eager to make a new career for Sly, Roberts seems willing to ride the old one out."

The Madison Square Garden wedding, then, was conceived as an entertaining and hopefully regenerative part of Steve's script, not Ken's. Playing the role of master of ceremonies was Don Cornelius, immaculate host of TV's syndicated music program Soul Train. Geraldo Rivera was billed as both celebrity reporter and "eyewitness usher." By Maureen Orth's reckoning, though, the "Family Affair for 23,000" never lived up to the planning and expectations. "Security guards," she noted, "wouldn't let Sly and his bride march down the aisle. The Humane Society called and said they'd arrest [set designer and de facto wedding director Joe] Fula if he released 500 white doves in the Garden.... And Tom Donahue, the 400-pound disc jockeywho was originally supposed to perform the ceremony, had to bow out because he wasn't ordained in New York State," although mail-order ordinations were readily available. The Garden service was in fact performed by B. R. Stewart, ordained as a Bay Area-based bishop in the Church of God in Christ, the sect in which Sly's mother, Alpha, had been raised in Denton, Texas. After listening to a timely musical rendition of "Family Affair," the audience became energized, and mama Alpha took the mike to remind them that her son's nuptials were "a sacred ceremony." The service was followed by a secular Family Stone concert, which for Maureen, at least, "showed Sly's lack of preparation with his band." Then came the reception, to which Sly was conveyed in "his brand-new $38,000 brown Mercedes limo, one of a dozen cars he owns." Select guests at the reception included New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein's daughter Jamie, Judy Garland's daughter Lorna Luft, and pop artist Andy Warhol.

Looking back on all the hoopla, Steve now admits that "it didn't do anything for record sales." George, in the New Yorker, drolly closed his piece by noting, "Sly's new album, Small Talk, has picked up some momentum on the charts. Currently, it is thirtynine on Billboard's list, up from forty-nine." But Steve insists that the wedding did in fact "establish Sly as a mainstream artist again. He was asked to host the Mike Douglas Show for a week, and he could have done soundtracks, had he a manager that had any kind of foresight.... If he'd had [record mogul] David Geffen or someone like that, or even David Kapralik, he would have known how to take advantage of the spotlight that was back on him."

For a while, Sly's career seemed more solid than his marriage. Kathy sued Sly for divorce in November 1974, less than six months after the wedding, complaining he had abducted Sly Jr., among other misdeeds. "He beat me, held me captive, and wanted me to be in a menage a trois," Kathy confessed to People magazine in 1996. "I didn't want that world of drugs and weirdness." But their relationship continued on for several years. "He'd write me a song or promise to change, and I'd try again. We were always fighting, then getting back together." One painful source of conflict was Kathy's discovery that Sly had fathered a daughter, Sylvette Phunne, with his bandmate Cynthia, in 1976. Later that year, Sly's favored fighting dog, Gunn, lacerated Sly Jr. 's scalp at the couple's rented mansion in Novato, in Northern California. Their divorce was finalized after a long estrangement, and Sly was commanded to provide child support, for which noncompliance put him in legal trouble several times. "Sly never grew out of drugs," said Kathy. "He lost his backbone and destroyed his future."

Ever Catch

a Falling Star?

1974-2001

I've just got to get out. Maybe