I Want to Take You Higher_ The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone - Jeff Kaliss [73]
Clutching a notebook, I ascended the staircase into what looked to be the kitchen. I saw a slight, older man seated at the kitchen table, wearing casual clothes and a knit cap. He regarded me with a bemused expression, and I smiled back. But I kept looking past him, looking for the person I was expecting to encounter. Then Neal stepped up to introduce me to the seated man: "Sly, this is Jeff Kaliss; Jeff, this is Sly." I realized my mental image had been out of date.
Colleagues of mine and associates of Sly had warned me that he'd be expected to come across as confrontational, unresponsive, or unintelligible in interchange. But it had been twenty-one years since Sly's last in-person interview, and I had never been one to let my curiosity or my professionalism be compromised by my subjects' quirky reputations. My starting point for interviews has always been that I can have a friendly and informative conversation with anyone. I shook Sly's large hand, we exchanged New Year's greetings, and I sat down, ready to scribble. Neal joined us at the table.
I knew Sly had recently given his sister Vet permission to call her band "The Family Stone," that this group had landed a gig in Anaheim, California, and that it was rumored that Sly might join in the performance. I told Sly that I'd be using my interview with him for a newspaper article in advance of Vet's show, as well as for a much bigger project, a book on Sly & the Family Stone. I asked him what he judged to be the most important element in telling such a story.
"The truth," he replied.
I got him to expand on the truth about what he'd been up to, up there among the grapevines. "I've been writing new songs," he said, "some on tape, some on paper, and some on tape and paper." What would he do with the new material? "I'll release them, with members of my family ... my daughter [I assumed he meant Phunne], maybe my son, my nieces, and a grand-niece." For the news story, I felt it necessary to ask Sly what he thought about his sister Vet's ensemble, which I hadn't yet heard. "One of the best things is that they're all willing to do what it takes," Sly replied diplomatically. But are they willing to do it right? I wondered. "That's the main thing: they do it perfect."
Vet had said her group might release a debut album on Sly's PhattaDatta label, but it hadn't happened. Sly told me he'd have his own record of new material out by the end of the year, and that the prospect of returning to recording and performing helped him feel "new again." I asked him to say more about what might be on his new album. "Before, my songs had a lot to do with dealing with unnecessary fighting," he said. "And that's still the case." He quoted a fraction of one new lyric: When you wind up / Making your mind up / That's when you'll find up / Instead of down." He was reciting instead of singing, but I had to tell him how wonderful it was to hear that rich basso voice up close. He smiled. Had coming back north brought him closer to his family, as Vet had hoped? "I see a lot of them," said Sly, "and they always have music on their mind. It takes more of the time than conversation." He reminded me, gently, that our talk would have to come to an end, because he wanted to spend more time with Phunne.
What about the way in which the public will view him, now that he's been so long out of the public eye? "I hope it's still that I'm doing music, and still representative of the truth." Would he be likely to let his long-waiting fans see him down in Anaheim later that month? "I feel like I'm gonna," he answered, shining that perennial beacon of a grin.
Driving back to Santa Rosa, Neal was bountifully pleased, and relieved. After I'd