Unlike
Neil Diamond, I loved Sly Stone but remember all too well going to see him at
the Hollywood Palladium in 1973, a show that started late and featured just the
‘Family’ for the most part. Sly made a token appearance on stage for just half
an hour, jamming on ‘Dance To The Music’ and ‘I Want To Take You Higher’ before
skulking off, after which the crowd began to jeer, prompting Sly to return for
two more chorus of ‘Higher’ and that was it. I was surprised they didn’t
ask for their money back.
When I went to interview Sly in June
1974, he was even ruder than Neil Diamond, and what's more I believe he did leave the room and have a shag halfway through my interview with him. At least Diamond waited
until after the interview was over.
A girl from his PR company took me to
meet Sly at a rented apartment on New York’s Central Park West. I was told he
“didn’t like hotels” but I strongly suspect that the reality of the situation
was that “hotels didn’t like him”. We were met at the door of his apartment by
a member of Sly’s entourage, who informed us that his employer was “getting
ready”. We waited quite a long time, at least 20 minutes, and drank coffee. The
living room of the apartment was airless, quite dark and very untidy, as was
the adjoining kitchenette. No one had done the washing up.
When Sly finally did appear he was
dressed from head to toe in full stage regalia, a striking figure in a white
leather outfit adorned with fringes and tassles, skintight pants and huge white
boots with rhinestone studs everywhere, the whole ensemble topped off with a
massive afro wig. He looked sullen, as if doing an interview with a white boy,
and a limey to boot, was not at the top of his priority list for that day. He was
also high as a kite, by turns giggling, morose or tetchy, and he was constantly
fooling around with a very beautiful, slightly Indian looking girl with
incredibly long jet black hair, almost down to her knees, who was also dressed
in a white leather outfit, and in her case a very short mini skirt. She sat next to
him on the couch with her arm around his waist, and he was constantly touching
her thigh. I was told she was his fiancée. They certainly made a handsome
couple.
Conversation was difficult. Sly either
babbled unintelligently or answered in monosyllables. He was also very
intimidating, deliberately so, antagonistic, trying to score points. Attempts
by me to discover who played what on his records were treated as an insult: he
played everything, drums, guitar, keyboards, the lot. How dare I suggest
otherwise? The ‘Family’ Stone were used solely for live work. He didn’t want to
discuss the reasons why so many of his shows had been cancelled in recent
months, though he did mutter something about “bad promoters”. Like Neil
Diamond, he seemed to want to impress his girl, and she giggled a lot too.
After about 15 minutes he stood up and
said, "I need to go to the toilet" and disappeared with the girl into
another room for a full 20 minutes. I could hear a lot more giggling and what
sounded suspiciously like what the red tops refer to these days as a romp. It
sounds funny now but it was actually very embarrassing at the time. The girl
from Sly's PR company just didn't know what to say or do. She kept apologising
to me and all we could hear was this giggling from the next room, and we both
knew (or guessed) what was going on, but of course neither of us could bring
ourselves to mention it. It didn’t help that Sly’s minder was sat with us,
which made small talk even more difficult, so we sat in silence while I
pretended to read a magazine. I should have written about all this in my story
but I hadn't the nerve in those days, and in any case I didn’t think Melody Maker would have printed it.
Sly eventually re-appeared alone,
looking rather pleased with himself but he was still unwilling, or unable, to
communicate properly. When I asked him where he wrote his music, in the studio
or at home, he said “On the toilet where you can’t go”, and, indeed, he managed
to use the word “toilet” several times and each time he had a fit of giggles.
The minder, sycophantic to a tee, joined in. They were like a couple of
five-year-old boys. I distinctly recall asking Sly what contribution bassist
Larry Graham, then making a name for himself with Graham Central Station, had
made to his records and he replied “none”. As it happened I’d interviewed
Graham fairly recently and he’d insisted he played bass on Sly’s records. I
thought it unwise to bring this up.
The interview sort of petered out.
Monosyllabic, unintelligible answers, a contrary stance and fits of giggles
aren’t the stuff to inspire interviewers. He’d made some great music in his
time but I thought he was a prat. We left together, the PR girl and I, and if
she apologised once she apologised 100 times as we waited for a cab.
Subsequent reports regarding Sly’s
demise didn’t really come as any great surprise.
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