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keyboard at center stage and made eye contact with no one. Still lean, but beneath the hood he seemed smaller than he was in the '60s.... His voice was robust and clear.... His left hand and wrist were in a cast" (variously attributed to a motorcycle spill and to a tumble on his hillside property). The executive producer of the upcoming telecast, John Cossette, seemed disappointed in Sly's demeanor, remarking, "He's not doing this, he's not hiding out for fifteen years to do what you just saw."

The show, on the evening of February 8, 2006, seemed something like an effort to usher rock 'n' roll itself past the age of retirement. Youthful luminaries like Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, and Linkin Park heralded onstage performances at the Staples Center by an ageless Stevie Wonder and a more visibly weathered U2 and Paul McCartney. Unlike Sly, these were veterans who'd never strayed far from the spotlight and had maintained their careers across the decades.

The Family Stone tribute was delayed till well into the latter part of the telecast, no doubt keeping Sly fans worldwide wondering what would happen. Sly himself was later reported to have conveyed himself to the Staples on a motorcycle, and then to have been turned away by a security guard suspicious of his appearance. Finally comedian Dave Chappelle declared to the audience, "The only thing harder than leaving show business is coming back." The stage was then populated by a select showcase of newer rockers, including the Grammy-nominated band Maroon 5 and Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas, as well as John Legend, Joss Stone, Devin Lima, and self-declared Sly disciple and slide guitar wizard Robert Randolph. The venerable Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith joined their juniors in launching a curious amalgamation of Sly & the Family Stone hits. If you looked hard, with little help from the show's director and cameramen, you could make out original Family Stone members Freddie, Rose, Cynthia, Jerry, and Greg, though not at the center of the stage. Larry, claiming illness, had been replaced at the last minute by Rustee Allen.

The multi-generational booking may have helped bridge the gap between older and younger fans, but the former were unlikely to have approved of the alterations they were hearing to wellremembered solid songs. Nor did they get much of the man who'd created that music, who was shouted-out by Steve Tyler, partway into "I Want to Take You Higher," Sly's mud-shaking hit at Woodstock: "Hey, Sly, let's do it like we used to do it!" Sly made his entrance from stage right, wearing a spacey outfit and topped by an adhesive blond Mohawk. He made a modicum of music and departed. It was by no stretch of the imagination a fair tribute to his value as creator, performer, and entertainer, and for many watching at the Staples and around the globe, it was something of a letdown. But the appearance somehow encapsulated much about the old Sly story: unpredictable, uncontrollable, and fantastic.

In the days that followed, the Washington Post referred to the "tentative and frail" appearance of "the J. D. Salinger of pop," and Rolling Stone wondered, "Where has Sly been? No one seems to know for sure. Will we ever see him again?" "Just the fact that Sly showed up that night, as busted up as he was, showed me he really wanted it to happen," added Aerosmith's Joe Perry, who knew something firsthand about the long-term consequences of coke. "I hope he got a taste of what it's like having the band behind him. Maybe that's the only thing that will get him going."

"It was fun, it was great, it was good," says Greg about the Grammys. But "there were a lot of things that could have been better. They should have given us the stage.... In some ways, I could say Sly shouldn't have come out, and if he did, he should have been prepared to do something and follow up right after." "Really, that wasn't my gig," Sly himself told Vanity Fair.

In retrospect, it seemed that the selection of the Grammy tribute band and the positioning of eight of the non-Family artists at the front