Hey, Sound Opinions listeners, if you support us on Patreon, you get to listen to our podcast ad-free on Patreon. You're listening to Sound Opinions, and this week we pay tribute to Sly Stone. I'm Jim DeRogatis. And I'm Greg Kott. We'll revisit our conversation with Family Stone members Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini and talk about Sly's documentary and memoir. But first, let's give Sly a proper obituary.
Sound Opinions is supported by Goose Island since 1988. Goose Island's been brewing beers in the spirit of Chicago. You can find 312 Weed Ale, Big Juicy Beer Hug, and so many other limited releases at either of... Goose's locations in Chicago, Goose Island Beer Company, Chicago's Beer. We had another show planned to run this week.
when news of Sly's death at the age of 82 on June 9th broke. And right as this was going out, the news that Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys died at the age of 82 on June 11th. broke. We'll pay tribute to Brian Wilson next week, but Sly Stone was every bit as key a figure in our opinions. Born in Denton, Texas, the second of five kids. But the family soon moved to Vallejo, California, north of San Francisco. Dad worked as a cleaner and in maintenance at a department store.
The kids were raised in the church, the Pentecostal church. That's where they first fell in love with music. Sly started out his recording career in 1952 as part of the Stewart Family Four. gospel single. 1967, he starts to get involved in radio in the Bay Area, and he became a very popular DJ on KSOL and KDIA, AM stations that mainly were aimed at black listeners.
but Sly never colored inside the lines. You know, his sets of soul and R&B would be mixed with, this is a quote, I played Dylan, I played Lord Buckley, I played the Beatles every night. I tried something else. I think that's key. because you hear that in the music from his most famous group. Started out as two bands. He was leading a band called Sly and the Stoners. His brother, Freddie, was playing with a great white... You know, people have been on Sly Death Watch a long time.
A lot of obits were clearly pre-written and ran soon after his passing on June 9th. Emphasized many times, and it's almost a cliche, but it is absolutely true how innovative it was to have a mix. race, mixed gender band of great instrumentalists all coming together. A string of five hugely influential albums between 1968 and 1971. The group plays Woodstock. The group changes, it has been said.
Black music. There's black music before Sly and the Family Stone, and there's black music after. Then starts a long, sad decline, which is often exaggerated and romanticized. Drugs consumed a big... part of sly's life but he continued to make music sporadically on and off Just never with the hit-making impact of those classic five albums, 68 to 71. And he's been in the midst of a bit of a renaissance lately with some of the many artists he influenced.
King tribute George Clinton, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Michael Jackson, Outkast, D'Angelo. The influence looms large. I never had the privilege of speaking to him, but you did. Yeah, I did. The last time I spoke to him was in 2010, and he was pretty coherent. The first time I'd spoken to him earlier...
years before that were not great. But it was a fascinating interview. There were many things that came out of that interview. You know, his comments on the infamous Chicago festival show that he was supposedly going to headline in 1970. And he did talk... actually for the first time.
about what went down that day. He got blamed for that fiasco. It was a riot that broke out because the band didn't play. But he was basically saying, hey, they told us to be here at a certain time. We were ready to be there at that certain time. And the crowd rioted before that. A lot of it had to do with the police being involved as well, waiting in. This was 1970. Richard J. Daly essentially banned all concerts at Grant Park for decades afterward.
Because of that incident so so I was very forthcoming about that also talking about and this is Corollary to what we're going to be talking about in a minute, Jim, is that he had a lot of music that he had been recording but never released. There is a massive Sly Stone archive out there that is untouched, apparently. That's according to him.
You take everything, Sly says, sometimes with a grain of salt. But he had a wicked sense of humor, too, on top of everything. You know, the thing about missing shows, yes, it happened a lot. He said something. Sometimes you're just not feeling it at 7.30 p.m. Okay, unprofessional. But the romanticizing of him being homeless at times and such in his own memoir and in later days.
interviews. He said, no, I lived in an RV. I like to stay mobile. I got so used to all those years in hotel rooms. This is just how I like to live. And also later in his life, there were very touching scenes.
And the Questlove documentary we'll talk about later. He reconnected. He had one son and two daughters. Married once, famously, on stage at Madison Square Garden. Divorced shortly thereafter. Never married again. But seeing his grand... kids uh you know not impressed by him as anyone but grandpa yeah is very touching in the end of that movie well he came you know they had a very strong family he came from a very strong family i mean his family was his band essentially
So that's very striking to me. One thing I'd like to talk about before we get into the heart of this show is, you mentioned the five album run. I want to take it to seven. Because I think the 1973 Fresh album and 1974 Small Talk don't get nearly enough attention. And I think those are great albums. Seven good to great albums in seven years. Two certified masterpieces. I'd say I'd go with Stan.
And there's a riot going on. I think the greatest double-sided single ever made in 1969. Thank you for letting me be myself again. And everybody is a star. I mean, both. massive hits, both incredibly influential records. He was both ahead of his time, he was both of his time and ahead of his time, which is a pretty tough act. to to pull off well influential why uh the group harmonies fantastic the unison singing um i first
really started paying attention to his rhythms thanks to something I read by Brian Eno. Sorry to bring up his name. But he talked about how for the first time in popular music, the primacy in the mix was put on the snare drum and the bass. And we really didn't have that. before, and we've had it ever since. All of hip-hop, for example, all of funk, all of soul, all of R&B. And just his versatility, being able to play any instrument he picked up, great on guitar.
great on keyboards and obviously a great melodic writer we decided to add two songs to our desert island jukebox of sly stone some deeper cuts because we're going to touch on all of the hits in the rest of this show. It's kind of ironic that he ripped off the melody for this song, Greg. Now...
For obvious reasons, I am a connoisseur of pop songs that mention Jim. Okay? You know, Whip It On Me Jim by Lou Reed's Sister Ray, right? He's shouting that. Riding that, that's Bearcat Jim and Sweet Jane. But right on. top of that is Plastic Gym. By Sly and the Family Stone. It's a deeper track. It's from 68's Life album. Third studio album of that. Okay, I said five album string. You're saying seven. I ain't going to quibble with you. They're all...
full of brilliant cuts. But life had the disadvantage of coming between Dance to the Music and Stand, which shielded all these amphemic hits. So it was a sleepier album. And this is... the sleepiest track on the album, ripping off wholeheartedly the melody for Eleanor Rigby. as instead of all the lonely people, Sly is attacking all the plastic people. Where do they all come from, right? And is this your classic 1968 kind of song or what?
You know, who is Plastic Jim? 13 years of school, might have a swimming pool. He just can't be cool. Can't control his mind. Twice a week, he's kind. The rest of the time, he's lying. It's the man. Sly, I think you've got to call the man Steve is what he's usually called in comedies and such. All right. Jim gets a bad rap. But Plastic Jim's a great... Listen to the horns on this wicked stuff. Plastic Jim from Life. You know that track?
You know all the sly. I know that life album pretty well. That's one of the ones that didn't resonate with me, but I'm going to have to go back now and check it out, especially because, you know, it is your namesake song. Yeah. I would advocate the same for the Fresh album in 1973. It follows There's a Riot going on, widely acknowledged as the masterpiece, also widely acknowledged as the album where things start to fall off afterward. He's out in LA by himself. The band is being retooled.
you know, he's recording some of those tracks by himself. With the first use of a drum machine. Exactly. Which was repurposed by other musicians later in the decade. Oh, the number of times he's been sampled, even from the sleepier tracks. Life is his most sampled album. Absolutely and Fresh is one of those albums that I think ranks with his very best work.
Famously, the first track on the album, Miles Davis was enamored with Sly Stone. He mentioned Sly numerous times in his memoir. And Miles did not hand out compliments very readily. But he thought that Sly Stone was a genius. And ditto for other jazz musicians. I mean, they were all... Herbie Hancock was a huge fan as well. You can hear that in Rocket. A great keyboardist. So Miles was in his electric...
phase right now and a lot of people dissed Miles for doing it because he was trying to be trendy. No, in fact he really liked the music that was coming out of that funk. soul R&B amalgam that artists like Sly Stone were mixing up at the time. This is maybe an urban myth, but apparently the first track on the album, Fresh, so blew away Miles that he had his band listen to it 30 straight times. Wow. And say, listen to this. This is where we need to go.
The thing that stands out about the track, and you mentioned this in regards to the Life album, foregrounding the rhythm section here very prominently, he really took the guitars away at this point, and it was pretty much keyboards driving the melodies. But the rhythm section was way out front. And this track in particular, In Time, is him saying to himself, how do you stay in time? How do you stay in sync with your life as it's running away from you? He felt himself.
losing touch with who he is. And you have two options. You run faster to keep up, or you drop out. And I think those two albums, Fresh and Small Talk, were really about that. up for the next phase of his career, which is essentially, you know, slide dropping out, saying, okay, I've had enough of this, and this is not for me anymore. And as I said earlier, seven albums where you change the world. Yeah.
You know, you deserve a little bit of rest after that. You know, it's like going away is A-OK with me. But here's a little bit of In Time from Sly and the Family Stone. Again. Now, Jim, let's switch gears from obituary mode and revisit our review from earlier this year of the documentary by Amir Questlove Thompson, Sly Lives, a.k.a. The Burden of Black Genius. Questlove, who after he won his...
Oscar for Summer of Soul, his previous documentary, which is incredible, a late 60s festival celebrating black art. He wrote the prologue for Sly Stone's 2023 memoir. Thank you for letting me be my... again. Sly and the Family Stone, certainly deserving of this kind of attention, one of the most groundbreaking groups in the history of modern music, and I don't say that lightly at all. without par in terms of the influence he had on artists ranging from Prince to D'Angelo to...
Funkadelic, you name it. He influenced the future of black music. From 1968 to about 1973, 74, you couldn't get enough of Sly. He was everywhere. He was on the charts. He was on... Dick Cavett's talk show. He was headlining Woodstock, a transformative performance there. One of the few good performances at Woodstock. Well, and constantly in his face.
uh people like cavett questioning his blackness right and questioning uh his his talent right this is what quest love means by posing the question of the burden of black genius what is black genius quest love's documentary gets right to the heart of that. Do you believe in the concept of black genius? Black genius? Sly and the Family Stone. It can't be overstated how massively popular they were. Sly created this unique space.
At that time, the mixed group was a new thing. Guys and girls and black and white. So you get all that input. They sounded like nothing else sounds. He has a few talking heads in the... in this documentary, which are pretty impressive, I have to say. Well, D'Angelo, who never talks to anybody. You know, we've talked to Jimmy Jam, but Terry Lewis you never hear from. The way those two brilliant producers, partners with Prince, you know, take apart the music.
and what was so special about Sly's rhythms. That was absolutely the key. I love the way he gets into the weeds with how, you know, he arranged dance to the music and stand and the drum machine he used in Family Affair and the bridge in Thank You becoming an inspiration. for Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation, full of fascinating details. You know, Andre 3000, brilliant as well in terms of the way he analyzed the music. He gets at the why of Sly's slide into drugs and seclusion.
which is the big mystery of Sly's life. How could somebody so disciplined fall so far under the influence of drugs? And Questlove says, I have a theory that for black artists in America, success can be more frightening.
than failure. And I think he does a great job of examining that in this documentary, Sly Lives. I think it's a must watch. Well, it absolutely is. The early footage is so celebratory. And yes, there is a bit of... of the old VH1 behind the music sad story arc of, you know, because Sly... black. You know, his descent into drug addiction and arguably mental problems, you know, it isn't even considered in the same way as Rocky Erickson or Sid Barrett or Brian Wilson.
He's black. He messed up. Right. And that's just so tragic. And the emotion of people who were close to him, like Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini, who we talked to, drummer Greg Eriko. You know, the fact that you had this white drummer, you know, driving these rhythms that rewrote the rules for R&B, soul and funk for the next 30 years. Right. And he just walked away. You know, he couldn't.
stand the pain anymore of this guy's self-destruction. So it's a cautionary tale, but in the end, Sly is back as a grandfather. One of his grandkids, I think, says he's just an old black man. And I am glad he is alive and well. But it is a shame to see how that career fell apart and that he is not thought of along the lines of a Brian Wilson. Yeah, well, hopefully Questlove is on a quest here. Yes.
Correct the balance, and I think he's done a wonderful job of it between the memoir and now the documentary. We're reassessing Sly in the new life. That was our review of the Sly documentary for March. Of course, at that time, the title Sly Lives was true. Now we're paying tribute to one of the best to ever do it. And of course...
We want to hear your take. Was there anything essential about Sly that didn't make it into the film or the tributes since his death? Leave us a message on our website, soundopinions.org, so we can play it on the show. Coming up, we'll... continue our tribute to sly and revisit both our review of his memoir and our interview with members of the family stone that's in a minute on sound opinions
Sound Opinions is supported by Goose Island Beer Company. Since 1988, Goose Island's been brewing beers in and inspired by Chicago. They got 312 Weed Ale, Hazy Beer Hug, and... many more one-off beers at the Fulton Street Taproom or their new Salt Shed Pub.
The perfect place to go before a show at the Salt Shed. Me and Andrew were there on opening night, Greg. It was really exciting. You had Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tick fever. I'm sorry about that. Anyway, every time we go to one of these goose joints. There's another new one to try, and we love them all. I'm a fan.
In addition to making great products and event spaces, Goose Island has always been a supporter of music culture in Chicago and nationwide. If you see that Goose Island logo at a venue or a restaurant, you know you're in good hands. Yeah, we are proud to be associated with Goose Island. Island. Goose Island Beer Company, Chicago's beer, and Sound Opinions is.
Sound Opinions is supported by The Salt Shed, Chicago's indoor, outdoor music and community venue. With upcoming performances by Alabama Shakes, Waxahachie, and Father John Misty with Hamilton Lighthouser and Lucinda Williams. Details and tickets. at saltshedchicago.com. And we are back. This week we're paying tribute to the recently passed Sly Stone. We just revisited our thoughts on the recent documentary on Sly, but that's not actually how he re-entered the public conversation.
he published a memoir, so of course we reviewed it on the show. Here's that review from 2023. Every review I've seen begins with that. Here's a book we never thought we'd get. Thank you for letting me be myself again. Yeah, co-written. Ben Greenman was not so much a ghostwriter because he's given credit on the cover of the book.
But, Sly, you know, you and I both read this book in prep for this show, Jim. And I have to say, Questlove published the book. Yeah, a new printing house, Questlove. Drummer of the Roots. And he intros the book. And even he hints in his little introduction that, well, I was hoping for a little bit more, you know, more detail. I'm not sure Sly remembers it all because the last chunk of the book is kind of a sad. story of a genius's decline in the grip of drugs, which he could never fully shake.
Over the subsequent decades took four attempts at rehab and has only recently become clean and here he is at age 80 had a relationship with a woman who was his manager, who encouraged this late, late, late, late, late career resurgence. You know, Greenman has previously... done bios, collaborated with Brian Wilson and George Clinton. He specializes in difficult characters, but I think even by the difficult... standards of those two, he didn't do much.
It's a disappointingly slight book, and as many music memoirs are. I think in large part because a lot of these artists are checked out in long stretches of their career because of various extracurricular activities. In case of Sly, it's amazing that he's still alive, right? Still, you know, some glib comments, some things where I laughed out loud because his wit is still there, you can tell.
There's a lot of stuff that he doesn't remember. You can tell he's watching himself on TV and commenting on, oh, this is why Cabot made me feel uncomfortable when he asked this. He's picking apart these old TV interviews and reading. He's writing reviews of his records, you know, to remember. And then he's taking issue with them. Well, meanwhile, you know, the glibness of the awful things he did, he treats it as just kind of, I did this, I did that. You know, I was thinking what...
Sly Needed More Than Anything is a great, great journalistic biography along the lines of what R.J. Smith did with Chuck Berry and with James Brown. Right. behind the scenes, the other perspectives. You know, we got Joel Selvin, a longtime San Francisco music journalist, did like an oral history. You know, that shed no light.
We needed real serious journalism, and to the extent that Sly's voice could be in the book, it would be useful. But this on its own is just a major disappointment that leaves you wanting. The most we get is a little bit of insight into the book.
recording of there's a riot going on but the other albums come and go and we have no sense of him writing those songs or making those albums and they were gigantic albums gigantic musical achievements I mean everybody goes on and on about the multiracial you know makeup of the band. But to me, the sense of what that band produced, the diversity of music, the music was astonishing. The thing that kills me about this book, Jim, that's never really fully in.
is how disciplined he was in his early life. And he's very clear about those early beginnings, the family roots, his work as a DJ, his very attentiveness in school. He went to community college. and was working with music professors there, studying music, getting better at it. He knew what he wanted to do. Becoming a multi-instrumentalist. Right. He had a vision. He had the means of executing the vision. He could do everything himself. But he parceled out these jobs to family and friends.
created this amazing band from his community north of San Francisco in Vallejo, California, and ended up ruling the world for the next close to a decade, and then it fell apart because of the drugs. What happened to that disciplined guy is completely lost in that stuff. But, Greg, this charming star that...
twinkle in the eye always, who captivated audiences at Woodstock and on the Dick Cavett show, eventually disappeared from public view. As we mentioned, drugs took a significant toll on him for many years. years, so too did what Questlove called the burden of black genius, the crushing fame. Since then, there were occasional moments when Sly returned, the most notable being the memoir we just talked about.
But for the most part, his legacy endures through the music, which is how he said he would want to be remembered. In 2014, we had the chance to speak with two core members of his band, Jerry Martino. and Cynthia Robinson. Tragically, Cynthia also died in 2015, but we started our chat by asking Jerry about his role in forming the group.
That's a rare 1967 recording of I Ain't Got Nobody For Real by Sly and the Family Stone. It's the Lodestone Records single that helped the band win its epic records deal in 1968, leading to the landmark release Dance to the Music. It's an influence that can still be seen and heard today. You know, Sly Stone and his multiracial co-ed Septet from Northern California, I mean, that was really groundbreaking back then, of how a band should look and how it could sound.
rock, funk, Motown R&B, soul with Miles Davis jazz. It was all in that stew. And this band had it all. I mean, virtuoso musicians. Guitarist Freddie Stone, bass player Larry Graham, drummer Greg Arico,
keys player Rose Stone, and trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, along with sax player Jerry Martini, plus one of the most charismatic frontmen in music history. But Greg, in 1975, this charming star who stole the show at Woods... stock and with dick cavett dropped out of public as we've said drugs took their toll and would for decades since then only occasional glimpses of sly coming back none bigger than that memoir we just talked about but for the most part
The legend lives on in the recordings. So in 2014, we spoke to two of the core members of his band, Jerry Martini, Cynthia Robinson. Cynthia has since died, 2015. But we began by asking Jerry... about his role in forming the group. I was the official nudge
I used to just go down the radio station and bother him. And him and I played together in a couple different bands before. And we were the backup band for his singing group, too. And he was just my friend. I used to go... be amazed i'll go over his house and in san francisco and he would pull out his book of songs and i would just As soon as I could close my mouth, I was so in awe. I just went home and vowed never to try to write again after I saw what he was doing.
I was part of the team, and I was the guy who had the station wagon, and I'd go pick up Larry and Cynthia for our first gig. And we played down in Losers North. We'd all come in together. It was really a unit. What a unit, though, right, Jerry? I mean, in terms of, you know, you look at Cynthia, Sly's brother Fred, Larry Graham, Gregorico, yourself. Did it occur to you multiracial co-ed band?
Not something you saw every day in that period, or even now, for that matter. In your dreams. Yeah. That is it. Well, you know, it didn't. Not for me, because I played in school, and it was multiracial. You know, musicians in the bands in junior high and high school. But this was an ideal that Sly believed in, right, Jerry? Because I heard he had to get between you and some Black Panthers who thought you shouldn't be in this band.
Well, they knew I shouldn't be in the band, you know, and they was about two inches away from whipping my booty, you know, and Sly used to save my ass all the time. They really wanted him bad, and Sly didn't want to be no part of no renegade, or not renegade, but... a unit that preached so much hate. There was a lot of hate in the Panthers and they had a lot of points. There was a lot of good people that belonged at that organization.
He had compassion for everybody's plight in those days. He didn't want to be a part of the Panthers. He didn't want somebody to tell him who he can have in his band. That's why when people start booing me the first time I played at the Apollo Theater, He stopped the whole thing, you know, and he made me play by myself But they didn't look close enough And Sly taught them that they should maybe look inside a little bit. Yeah. And so when I was playing, I grew up listening to the blues. I grew up.
befriending Sly at a young age, and I marveled at his genius. Complex band, mix of all these cultures. The music, too, reflected that. That 67 debut album, well-titled, A Whole New Thing. I want to give the horn players some. because the horn lines on advice, for example, you know, not exactly novice horn lines. The fact that you were kind of touching on country and western and I cannot make it.
Latin feel in Trip to Your Heart, the more sophisticated level of pop in a song like I Hate to Love Her. I hate to love Nobody knew what to make of this record, right, when it came out in 67. Who is the nobody? You see what I'm saying? The nobody isn't really the people.
The nobody is usually somebody up in the office. The record company executives did not understand it. They would bring us... people they wanted to sound like so they said why can't you sound like our other actor the fifth dimension and slide said No way, man. I mean, we respected them. We loved their Aquarius, and they were cute, good-looking, and their harmony was perfect, but it was...
All the harmonies back then were all parallel harmony. And Sly hated parallel harmony. He hated triadal stuff. You know, he was the first... pop guy did really bring sevenths and ninths and thirteenths and all that stuff into it. The people that understood him were the other musicians. We were a musicians band. You were harmonically innovative, but also the mix on those records, where Sly was putting the bass guitar and the snare drum
front and center, almost even above the vocals. I've heard a lot of hip-hop producers talk about how radical that was. That's why they copied it. Go ahead. Well, you know, what I loved about... His writing is that he didn't write bass lines for a conventional bass player. A lot of stuff is very melodic. I know a lot of people talk about him writing a song where the bass player paid one note.
You could take that rhythm section and just make a whole new song out of it, which has been done. Well, Ike and Tina Turner did Bold Soul Sister. With that. I'm a bold soul sister. E-S-S. How? You talk about the complicated nature of the first record, the musician's record, as you describe it so well, Jerry. In 68, with Dance to the Music, with that album, did you feel...
Like Sly was making a turn, like, okay, I've got to make this a little bit more accessible to people. Yes, he told me. He says, I'm still going to make, it's still going to be innovative, like, because we were the first ones to have it be like, okay, we're going to do Larry's part. introduced everybody in the band on there he said i'm going to give them something that i know they can all understand
So not everybody was willing to listen close enough to understand our first album, starting with the record company executives. Every gig that we went to, they enjoyed it. They appeared to me to enjoy it because we played most of the stuff on stage. And that was one of the things that Sly said when he was recording, he wanted to be able to reproduce it on stage.
So a lot of new material getting tested out on the road before it actually made it on the record, and that's the way you sort of hone these songs. Yeah. In terms of that recording process, though, Cynthia, I've got to ask you about Dance to the Music itself, that track where you and Jerry get the shout-out in the song.
a couple of times. Cynthia and Jerry got a message that says, and then you're credited with ad libs on the record. And your response to that line was what? All the squares go home. Did you come up with that on the spot, or was that something you'd been thinking about ahead of time, or how did that come out? Well, no, it's just Sly running down the song before we attempted to record it.
like in the beginning, get up and dance to the music. He said, you know, he just, all he said was don't sing it. He didn't want me to sing it. He just wanted me to talk. And that took a couple of takes because I kept forgetting. She got that signature voice, though, you know. Sly, he could pick up on things. Then when I played my clarinet on Dancing and Music and the little sub-hook thing, that was the accident. I just happened to have my clarinet.
clarinet there and it was snowing outside and the union guy was going to come. So he said, bring an instrument. So I bought my clarinet and he walked by and he heard it. He put it on the thing. Obviously, funk became huge in the 70s, but a lot of people credit that song with starting...
starting that whole genre of music. I mean, do you look back and say, oh, yeah, that was a different sound. It was a left turn that became a whole new style of music. Absolutely. I mean, you know. The drum beat that he did became. the basis for hip-hop you know That later on, that you listen to rap music and say, damn, that's our stuff. And the rappers will tell you that. Sure. You know? Oh, yeah. You guys have been sampled so much. It's ridiculous. I am. That's a little bit of the roots track.
Star Pointro, which samples Sly Stone's Everybody is a Star. We'll continue our Sly tribute with more memories from Family Stone members Jerry Martini and Cynthia Robinson in just a minute on Sound Opinion. Welcome back to Sound Opinions. I'm Greg Kott with Jim DeRogatis, and that's Sly and the Family Stone's 1969 hit, Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself Again. This is an interview from 2014 with Family Stone members Jerry Martini and the late... Cynthia Robinson.
Greg, songs like Thank You always have been inspiring to me lyrically. You know, in this era of the Woodstock Nation and this utopian community ideal, half a million strong, the hippies will rule the world, right? All that stuff. Sly is saying no. Everybody, every one of you, be yourselves. You are the star. To me, that's what endures. So I wanted to know how important that message was to Sly. Here's Cynthia Robinson.
Well, just the fact that he said it at all meant that it meant something to him, because he didn't waste his time with the idle conversation.
And when he mentioned it, it wasn't like a command. It was just him talking to another human being. And it was something that Freddie and Rose understood because they... been doing this you know many years he was so into the acoustics of the venues that we played that he knew exactly how to set well he knew how to set my mics and what type of mics to use for my horn in the studio and something different on stage.
Well, you know, he had that background as a producer prior to Sly and the Family Stone. He'd been doing all these bands, the Bo Brummels, the Mojo Men, Bobby Freeman, which I believe you played in for a while, right, Jerry? I did most of his records. I just was a part of the band. He knew his way around the studio. He was a multi-instrumentalist. He had a vision for this group. He was absolutely a visionary person. He also had the ability to control. large groups of people.
One way or another, he could stop a riot or he can start a riot. He had that power. Well, you know, there's a riot going on. No, that's what you call it. That's what you call it. Well, I think it's a brilliant collection. I mean, one of the greatest albums ever made. But the complexity and the depth and the shadows that seem to hang over it. Why are we wrong, Cynthia or Jerry, if that's not how it really... Because nobody stays the same through life. You know, once you...
You're doing a lot of positive things, and you're dealing with people that are throwing negativity at you all the time. And so up the line, your idea about how you're going to deal with them is going to be different now. Because you're not going to keep on throwing them things your way while they keep on knocking you while you're down. Here's a cookie.
You know what I'm saying? You do change. You catch on. I caught on to the positive and the negative thing with him. You know what I'm saying? You catch on, so you do things a little bit different if you want to be around. Yeah, well, it's a dark time, right? I mean, Woodstock is followed by Altamont and there's riots in the streets of the States and Dr. Martin Luther King is shot and Robert Kennedy is shot.
But you're, you can't stay cause you've been somewhere else. You can't cry cause you look broke down. But you're crying anyway cause you're all broke down. It's a family foul. There was this level of empowerment in a lot of his songs about, you know, everybody's a star. You know, you go from an album like Stand in 69 where he's singing about everyday people and he's singing about everybody's a star and you can make it if...
you try. And then that beautiful single with strings, you know, adding the sophistication to his arrangements with Hot Fun in the Summertime. You go from that vibe in 69 to 18 months later, and there's a riot going on. You know, in that 18 months, you went from this kind of powerful, uplifting kind of music to something like Thank You For Talking To Me, Africa.
It's clearly a lot darker shades. Did you see, Sly, sort of losing some of that sense of everybody's a star, I want to take you higher to... You know, it's a pretty bleak world out there because we've experienced some of the things you were just describing. I mean, did you see his sort of vision for what the group was change? No, I just saw it as an extension after you learned some things.
And you're just speaking about things that other people notice, too. His music was always about truth. You know, what he felt was actually going on. The brave and the strong. There's still positivity. It's just not lilies and tulips. Also, when he moved to Los Angeles... During that 18-month period, he was around a totally different musical environment, different social environment, and there was more things to write about, positive and negative.
But he wasn't thinking negative when he wrote it. But it's not the same as being up here in the Bay Area in Vallejo. I ended up moving down to his house for about eight months. What did you see there? Because there's all sorts of stories about sliding off the rails at that point with drug use, and that affected his mood and affected the way he was able to make music.
a few around. L.A., are you kidding? Sure. Just understand that Sly is the leader of the group and he told me once when I told him that You know, people ought to know that this wasn't you being late this time. Somebody needs to tell them that, you know, this was some other member of the group. or some other situation. And he said to me, when you're the leader, you take the credit or the blame. A lot of things that he was blamed for was not his.
Now, Jerry, just a year after your triumph at Woodstock in 69, the band took a big hit after that show in Grand Park in Chicago, the one in July 27, 1970. You're going to play this big free show. But before you made it to the stage, a riot broke out. Now, there's a lot of conflicting reports about what happened there.
Crowd was apparently restless. There was over 100 people injured, including several police officers. But the media was saying that the band was late or refused to perform. And it's been speculated that the incident inspired the album title in 1971. There's a riot going on. But clearly, there seemed to be a lot more going on than how it was portrayed, right? They needed a patsy, and we were it on that one.
I don't know the real reason for it, but when we were coming into, you know, heading for the hotel in town... And Sly told us, just when you get to the room, just chill out and relax, and we don't have to be there until 5. While we're riding, it comes on the radio.
The radio says, yeah, Sly and Family Stone will be here at 4 o'clock. I said, Sly, did you hear that? He said, yeah, yeah, but don't pay no attention to that. See, I got the contract right here. And he showed it to us in the backseat. So we got there. earlier than we were supposed to be there so the car can get parked and we can get up, you know, to where we could get to on the stage.
They had already started riding, and some guy came out of there with his head split open, blood pouring all down over his body, and he came over to the limo, and he said, if I were you guys, I wouldn't even go up there. They jumped up on the stage and broke up the equipment and jumped on the band that was playing at the time. So it was already in progress. This was supposed to be a free show. You know, a lot of people say...
Then why was they complaining? Yeah, well... Good question. It is a good question. A lot has been hung on that incident and on the group. And Sly got this national reputation for being a guy who wouldn't show up at shows, you know? It impacted our... band, we had to put up a $50,000 bond to play anywhere after that. And back then, $50,000 was like about $300,000 now. Yeah, that's a lot of money.
And it wasn't our fault. And there was a lawyer that was suing the city of Chicago for what they had printed about us on the front page. So they printed a retraction. I think it was on page 47. It wasn't their fault, but the damage was already done. It actually really impacted our career, and it never really caught back on as much as it could have. If you try If you try
Cynthia and Jerry, I'm going to put you on the spot. I want you to each pick a song from that era that you love, and tell us why. Well, for me, the thing that just, I don't know, just drove... chills all over me was we love all y'all. The way they enunciated and they... That song was sang just so simple that it seems like it would be easy to do vocally. But to put that emotion into it while you're singing the lyrics. It just blows me away. Jerry, what about you? With me, it was not...
Our greatest hits album, which I loved, and all of our big hits. What the song that really grabs me still does is a song called Color Me True. Oh, yeah. Color Me True, to me, just says... This is what it's about. It's about, I mean, do you take credit for somebody else's cooking? Do you litter the park when you think nobody's cooking? Come on now. Color me true. I was never a top ten hit or anything. I think it could have been. I think it still could be.
We've been talking to Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini of Sly and the Family Stone. It's been an honor, guys. Thanks for coming on Sound Opinions. Thanks for having me. Me too. That wraps up our 2014 interview with Jerry Martini and Cynthia Robinson of the Family Stone and our tribute to the late, great Sly Stone. Now we want to hear from you. What memories do you have of Sly Stone?
Did you read Sly's memoir or watch Questlove's documentary? What'd you think? Leave us a voice message on soundopinions.org with your thoughts. God only knows what I'd be without you. Don't forget to check out our bonus podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts and join us on Patreon for our Monday podcast. Everything else. Thanks as always to our Patreon community and this week, especially to Alan.
From Algonquin, Illinois, a listener on WBEZ. Sound Opinions is produced by Andrew Gill, Alex Claiborne, and Max Hatlam, who all hustled to pull together this tribute. is Gary Yonker, our intern is Joe Pennington, and our social media consultant is Katie Cott.