I Want to Take You Higher_ The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone - Jeff Kaliss [75]
Over the next couple of songs, a couple of his daughters seemed bent on reinforcing him in curious musical forms: Novena was petite and cutely garbed and noodled some Chopin on one of the Yamaha Motif keyboards. Phunne, cool and long of limb, took the mike and rapped about family, while Sly laid down some keyboard funk behind her. Niece Lisa Stone helped make the event a literal Family Affair. Shay, who'd started with her sister as helpmates to Sly and became his regular female companion in Napa, joined the jam on an African drum.
Wandering to the front of the stage, Sly was greeted with cheers and camera flashes by the adoring throng. Responding with visible delight, he attempted to lead them in an aptly timed "Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," and no one seemed to mind that Sly had started the tune off in the wrong key. Grinning almost shyly, Sly was led by Mario offstage, where Neal and his lady, Jeanine, were waiting with congratulations. The formerly patient audience now chanted "We want Sly!" repeatedly. "He'll be back," promised Phunne. Vet, who'd been looking less than comfortable through much of the waiting for Sly, now seemed inspired by her brother's act of commitment, and she began some uptempo gospel sounds, suggestive of her time with the Heavenly Tones. Sly then returned to the stage to lead the house through the chanting portion of "I Want to Take You Higher," as he'd done for hundreds of thousands at Woodstock more than thirty-seven years earlier. Then he was gone again.
In a nice touch, Vet finished off the extended evening by acknowledging the upcoming Martin Luther King Day holiday and performing" Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey." She and the band then covered "Sex Machine," which she dedicated "in honor of the great godfather of soul, James Brown," who'd passed away on Christmas morning.
The Konings twins from Holland later gifted Sly at his hotel with a vintage drum machine, like the one he'd deployed on Riot. This scored them some video ops for an accompanying Dutch TV crew. Sly was delighted, as he ought to have been. More than on the HOB stage, he was being treated like the esteemed elder of a vibrant tribe.
Through the rest of 2007, Sly's performances with Vet's reconfigured Family Stone band followed much the same suit as the year's opening gig, There was variation, though, in the degree and quality of Sly's participation and in the reactions of the everskeptical but always curious press and public. For a gig arranged by comedian/impresario George Wallace at the Flamingo in Las Vegas and scheduled for March 31, local bookmakers were betting forty-five to one that Sly wouldn't show. He beat the odds, taking to the stage after the band's introductory medley in what the Las Vegas Sun described as "a black sequined suit with black platform shoes and red heels, a red sequined shirt, a black belt with a giant rectangular plate reading `Sly," a black stocking cap, a neck brace, and big white Dolce & Gabbana shades." The outfit was enough to ignite '70s flashbacks in the "amped-up fans," even if Sly's halfhour performance was far short of what they recalled of those times (though still far longer than at the Grammys). The Las Vegas Review-Journal described Sly as "the ghost of R & B's past, a funk forebear who's finally come out of hiding." He made his way onstage with a pump of his fist, "looking like a perspiring gemstone, like he'd been covered in an imploded disco ball." The media differed in their assessments of Sly's voice and the band's coordination with him, but they lauded his interaction with the crowd. Sly "appeared to enjoy himself and regain his old funk form," reported the PR Newswire. "His smile was infectious, he slapped high fives with an adoring audience, and he even gave autographs as he walked amongst the fans.... He seemed particularly happy to introduce his daughters, Baby [Novena],