Sly Stone: Is He Still Alive?

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For some reason, I don't know why, but I've been living under the assumption that Sly Stone is deceased. I tried searching out information on "Today's Sly" so to speak, but without luck...so is he still alive?

― Derek Dalek (Derek Dalek), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 17:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, he's alive. Still working on new stuff, so they say. I read a great piece about how Sly flew a guy who ran a fan website in to get the Stone mansion hooked up to the Internet.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 17:23 (twenty-three years ago)

He's still alive; waiting for another great Sly Stone record is the prototype of waiting for another great Prince record.

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 18:53 (twenty-three years ago)

As far as I know the last thing he released was his song on the Axiom Funk compilation "Drinking Wine", or something like that? Really bad, unremarkable ballad. His voice was shot. But he is still alive, and all fan reports tend to be overwhelmingly positive and healthy.

If I were him, I wouldn't be in a big hurry to make a "comeback" record. What's the point? His legacy is cemented, he doesn't need or want the extra scrutiny/publicity, he definitely doesn't need the money...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 24 September 2002 18:59 (twenty-three years ago)

"waiting for another great Sly Stone record is the prototype of waiting for another great Prince record."

Except it's only a year and a half since The Truth ;)

― Ben Williams, Tuesday, 24 September 2002 19:06 (twenty-three years ago)

There was a Dutch filmmaker called Walter Stokman who made a documentary about his search for Sly Stone in 1993. I did not see it, but I think he didn't find him.

LET ME HAVE IT ALL
by Jeroen Berkvens & Walter Stokman
An"on the road" documentary about the search for Sly Stone: The musical genius behind Sly & the Family Stone.
48:00
http://www.noterik.nl/neter/pag7.htm

― sander, Tuesday, 24 September 2002 20:21 (twenty-three years ago)

this thread is sad for two reasons.
sly shouldnt have fucked himself up. fresh is like his best work. i would've liked to hear where he was goin after that.
prince still makes really amazing music and it mostly goes unnoticed.
:'(

― chaki (chaki), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 20:31 (twenty-three years ago)

but it's totally obvious where Sly went after "Fresh"! He made "Small Talk", which is pretty good, and then "High On You" (which is EXCELLENT). "Heard You Missed Me, Now I'm Back" is by far his worst effort, but his "last" comeback album, recorded just a couple years afterwards was "Back On the Right Track", which has loads of good tunes on it.

I'm continually flummoxed by the oddly common observation that Sly "disappeared" or fell off or whatever in the 70s. Sure, the band mutated - pretty much all of the original members left except for Cynthia Robinson - and he no longer had any hits, and he didn't perform live at all, but so what? The actual records he put out stand up just as well as his earlier stuff. I'd like to see someone argue that "High On You" has more filler on it than, say, "Dance to the Music" (the album, not the single). His 70s albums are loaded with inventive arrangements, great hooks, funky rhythyms, clever lyrics - everything that ever made Sly great to begin with.

required reading: "In Their Own Words: Sly and Family Stone". Amazing. Would've been a nine million times better rock-n-roll archetype movie than "The Doors".

I agree with Chaki about Prince btw - he may not make solid albums anymore, but at least he's always got a couple tunes on every album that shine through. So I won't diss his recent output to hard.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 24 September 2002 20:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Shakey, i can never find "Small Talk" "High On You" or "Heard You Missed Me, Now I'm Back" anywhere. i dont think they were ever issued on cd.

― chaki (chaki), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 21:20 (twenty-three years ago)

ahhh hmmm, that may be true, sad to say. Those are all available on vinyl. I don't think his first album ("A Whole New Thing") has ever been reissued on CD either. What can I say - getcherself a record player...?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 24 September 2002 21:35 (twenty-three years ago)

the last Prince album I loved was Emancipation, and he's only made two new ones since, so I'd hardly count him out. though I dislike The Rainbow Children so much that it's tempting.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 21:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I kind of take a middle ground. I really dont buy the greil marcus school of thought that says that everything that sly did after 1972 sucked. And on the subject of High on You, I was listening to it again a week ago , and most of it,especially the production, is really frickin good. green eyed monster girl is as mean an instrumental as sexmachine IMO. And when he doesnt sound stoned out of his mind, he is still a hell of a lyricst( Sly lyrics have reminded me that black folks were the first avant guarde lyricists in this country because so many sprituals and work songs , the orgin of blues, jazz, soul and damm near everything else musicwise, were a way of black people communicating with each other lyrically entendred without white folks knowing) And I'd rather listen to His mid 70's stuff, than to maxwell shamlessly aping off marvin gaye , or BLUNTMAN!!eeehh...errr..ehhh i mean D'angelo.( the sisters, who are carrying soul right now, are a different story, erykah,jill and amiel kick ass)

My point is that sly's post fresh records werent as bad as they were really saddening, I was gonna say depressing but that's too harsh a word. Because to me even in their most lively moments, That pain he showed in riot cripples him . To me the motif that made Riot such a powerful record IMO, is that sly learned the lesson that truly great humanists pay a brutal price. Most people didnt forget that Sly made some of the most enduring dance music ever, they never remembered . Next to "ray charles not making any good music since his post heroin period." and " roberta flack not being authentically black or soulful( OH JESUS I HATE THAT ONE)", the notion that sly's was some funky dance clown is one of rock-critcisms biggest myths. To make music as bright and as beautiful as Stand, man you got to have one hell of a sensitive soul. To me what made riot frighteningly real was that it was that soul slowly--- to sound campy but the word cant be avoided--dying. He'll he even said it on the record.

What makes parts of fresh and high on you,Small talk, heard ya missed me, and even the attempt at a return to form in aint but the one way hard to stomach for me, isnt so much as their bad, ( ( but man you gotta admit even in sections of " high on you" the drugs took over)but they are extensions of that death. That sense of pathos really never left him, even in his brightest periods afterwards. But maybe im just feeling too much, but one of black music's primary tenants is emotional revalation,artists either letting you in to so see an aspect from who they are from some aspect of a gospel setting, (be it blues jazz soul etc). Listening to Stand and listening to riot is like being with a loved one and being with a loved one when their about to die. And sly's music, no matter how good it could get afterwards, was just a reflection of that death.

just my opinion.

― robert lashley (brotherman), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 00:31 (twenty-three years ago)

waiting for another great Sly Stone record is the prototype of waiting for another great Prince record.

Sly lost it. No, really, he did. Prince is still amazing. FACT!

― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 01:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Robert, I think that a lot of what you say in the second graf was closer to what Greil Marcus was saying than "everything sucked after '72"--he noted that Fresh was "as skillful as Riot, maybe better" (quoted from memory).

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 03:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I may have indulged in a bit of hyperbole, but I distinctly remember marcus saysing fresh was the main example of the artistic regression of black artists from late 72 on.

― robert lashley (brotherman), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 15:18 (twenty-three years ago)

eight years pass...

Happy 68th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI9RGK9iyNo

― clemenza, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 13:47 (fourteen years ago)

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