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Sly Stone and the Scariest Show Ever

I don't think I've ever felt more tension in the room during a live performance than when I was standing five feet in front of Sly Stone, in a room that felt like a powder keg ready to blow. And I don't think I've ever seen a room feel greater relief than watching him tear into "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" and feeling the frustration, anger, and resentment of everyone around him melt away from the sheer force of the joy and pure undeniable propulsive funk of that song. There's no wonder why it's one of my favorite songs of all time. And there's no better example of the power of Sly's gift.

There aren't many of us who are still young enough to have our hearing who can tell a story about seeing Sly Stone perform live; I'm lucky to be one of those few, despite the fact that I saw Sly play well into the era when he was notorious for showing up late and flaking out early. Just that evening, he'd shuffled off stage mid-set at an earlier performance, leaving a disgruntled crowd warning us not to expect too much from the show we were about to see.

By the time I'd parked in front of the stage, I got to watch the band come out and start vamping on their first song, drawing out the instrumentals and very obviously looking around to see if Sly was going to come out to join them. They began singing parts of the set without him, visibly frustrated and unsure whether he’d show up at all. The tension built over an almost-unbearable 15 minutes — and that was after the show had started almost 90 minutes late. By the second song of the set, those of us up front could see Sly just offstage waiting in the wings, bowed over in a way that suggested he was probably a little too frail, a little too... something to put on a show that night.

They stretched out the first two songs as long as they could, and it was easily the angriest, most anxious on-stage presence I've ever seen at a live show. It felt like the band was ready to go over and kill Sly if he didn't come out immediately. They began "If You Want Me To Stay", one of my favorites in the entire Family Stone catalog. And Sly stepped out.

After a few hesitant notes, he was instantly in full voice. It was like a switch had been flipped on. They moved into "Thank You", and Sly nailed every note. I locked eyes with him during the song — I was close enough to be able to see his eyes through his shades thanks to the bright stage lights — and he looked as alive, as thankful as a man half his age. the reports from that night capture the energy.

Thankful and Thoughtful

"Thank You" is a song that's somewhat central to my entire understanding of popular music. Being born well after the song was released, my entry point to the track was its sampling in Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation". That song's evolution from anthem into a bittersweet reference point for Janet's own complex reckoning with the legacy of its message felt like a perfect reflection of Sly's own legacy.

As I got to talk about with Jimmy Jam (who's casual overhearing of "Thank You" at a restaurant prompted its inclusion in "Rhythm Nation") recently, Sly was both that person who could tell everyone to "Dance to the Music" and that person who could answer Marvin's plaintive question of "What's Goin' On?" with the simple, and accurate, statement that "There's A Riot Goin' On". And "Riot" is an album that ends by revisiting this very song, this time with a churning groove that swaps the high-energy funk for deep, rumbling blues. Just as Janet answered "Rhythm Nation" with "Shoulda Known Better", and Sly answered Marvin, here Sly answers himself by thanking Africa.

But in every case, this is the thing Sly did — transforming the energy around him into its mirror, showing us how closely the best of us lives adjacent to the worst of us. So much of the narrative in the decades since his greatest triumphs in popular culture have framed Sly as having been "consumed by his demons" or other such clichés. This is why I was so grateful that I got to watch a few brilliant folks fight and sweat for years to bring together Sly Lives! and not just do justice to the power and impact of Sly's legacy, but to have done so while he was hear to see it.

Because what Sly could always do, with his music, and with his mere presence, was what he did that night when I watched him on stage. He took every bit of the anger and resentment and uncertainty in that room, even the frustration from his own family members standing beside him on that stage, and channeled the simmering tension that had been threatening to boil over.

And Sly instantly turned that flash point into something transcendent. Something lasting. Then he said thank you.

In Time

I can't measure the impact that Sly has had the way I see the world. I can't even count just the number of Sly songs that I had the good fortune to hear Prince play live. The very first thing I ever wrote for this blog, towards the end of the last century, was about seeing a Prince aftershow — with half of the Family Stone in the band, and how I got to meet the horn players backstage after the show. Most of my life has happened since that night, and yet I still remember feeling like a door had opened to something new. Maybe it had.

It's hard to explain what Sly Stone was in a contemporary context. We have witnessed the ascendence and current dominance of a decades-long effort to dismantle the vision of racial and gender harmony that Sly invented and advanced in popular culture. But they only fought back against because he kicked that door open almost single-handedly. It's impossible to explain to today's world that there wasn't music made with drum machines on the radio before Sly. But we all dance to a soundtrack descended from his beats. He said to dance to the music, and we do. For all his flaws and foibles, this was a brave man. He changed things. There is a riot going on. Every single one of the greatest artists of the decades since simply could not have done what they did if Sly had not done what he had done. Que sera, sera.

And that man was funky.