May 22, 2025 • 52 mins
Our longest running challenge was to watch the Hulu documentary Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) and listen to Sly & the Family Stone's Fresh album, and after several months, we finally completed it!
We discuss what struck us about QuestLove's documentary, the highs of the Fresh album and our respective experiences with Sly and the Family Stone's music in our lives.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode of At First Listen.
Connect with us on Instagram @AtFirstListenpodcast.
(Episode 35.)
We discuss what struck us about QuestLove's documentary, the highs of the Fresh album and our respective experiences with Sly and the Family Stone's music in our lives.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode of At First Listen.
Connect with us on Instagram @AtFirstListenpodcast.
(Episode 35.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to at First Listen, the music podcast for people
who don't always get the hype but walk to.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique, and today we're talking about sli
in the Family Stones nineteen seventy three album Fresh. Why
are we doing that because, like I don't know. Two
months ago, a documentary came down about Slying the Family
Stone on Hulu.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We're right on the edge.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, we're on the cutting edge. We're so current. We
finally got around to watching it after an aborted attempt
to do this episode when we realized that neither of
us had seen the film yet.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We were waiting. We were waiting for it to be
extra ripe, and I was extra I was extra excited
about it.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Speaking of ripe, it's like eight degrees today, So the
city is ripening for sure. That's true in good ways
and bad ways.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
The same temperature. I'm like, can we give it away?
Is it too early? What if people haven't seen the movie?
The spoilers?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I think we can spoil it.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, the same degrees approximately as the age of sly
Stone currently who lives.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
At the time of this recording, to the best of
our knowledge. Yes, these things can change. Quickly. Yeah, he's
eighty two. Yeah, as is the temperature and slign The
Family Stone is like the perfect summertime music. I don't
particularly love this album compared to other Sly records. Dominique
(01:53):
chose it. I think it's one.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Of the I don't think I chose choices.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
In the d documentary, they do mention this album as
being the last good one that he made.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It was the last good one and all the last
great have been their words. But it was also like
the They kind of said that, like the one before,
it wasn't as good, and then this one was him
trying to be like, hey, I'm black, I'm I'm cool
with you guys. Right, So it was like more black
than his other than his previous couple of albums, or
(02:24):
maybe blacker than his other album before. Maybe he was
trying to, you know, connect with some listeners who might
not otherwise be tuning in.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, major theme of the movie and a lot of
stuff that was news to me was that Sly was
really on the on the fence in terms of a
lot of a lot of civil rights racial issues in
the late sixties and seventies. Slang The Family Stone the
(02:58):
band was a mixed race, mixed gender band. There were
white people in it, there were women of color in it,
and then there were a bunch of black guys in it.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Which that's like, it's.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
People like, where do we play this music?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah? This is doesn't make edny sense. Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Is this rock? And is this jazz? I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I can't tell by their color. No, it's so funny
because I don't. I like didn't register that anytime before this.
Before watching this movie, I'm like, Okay, it's a band.
I'm not I'm not thinking it's weird at all to
have women and men in a band together, for sure.
(03:37):
And then I'm dev and then like I think I
just didn't notice the white people because the drummer was white.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Drummer's white. Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Notably Greg Erico notably a lot of Jewish action going
on shout out because like he said, he was like,
my grandmother was a Russian Jew And I was like same, yeah,
and he kin groove exactly. Yeah. He was like a
(04:07):
great he was. It was so cool how they what
was the band that he was it? Everyday people that
he was like, we're gonna get everybody, get your the
best guys, from your band, and I'm gonna get the
best guys from my band and we're gonna make.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, that was like the band before sigh in the
family Stone was two or was it one band or
was it two bands?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It was started off as two bands that sly has.
It was Slyes band was one of the bands, and
then there was another band.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
And then he was trying to put together a band
with his brother or was it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I don't know, don't know. This is a The documentary
goes in depth about all of these.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Little too in depth and we forgot someone.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
There's a lot. No, it's very in depth. He is.
It is a fascinating It is a fascinating life. I
think it was one of those things where so many
people in the documentary seemed like they could have their
own documentary.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Angelo was really angling for it, D'Angelo. You might not
have heard that name in I don't know a decade,
maybe more. Heavily featured. He's like the main interview in this.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
He was, and I noticed that he's wearing very unique outfit,
not unique that unique for like an old older man.
He's not too old.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It's like a little Prince cosplay.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, like Prince Cosplay. It's definitely giving Lenny Kravitz vibes.
But I also not wearing my rings right now, so
you can't tell. But I'm also in the house of
silver rings, so I can't hate too much.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
But it is one of the things that struck me
about the documentary, the story of this music and how
they draw all these connections to the music of like
Janet Jackson, and that one is specifically a rhythm nation
that song is specifically highlighted in the movie. But how
the hip hop generation went back to Sly and the
(06:14):
Family Stone Records and Chic Records and like Cool in
the Gang and all that stuff and just like plucked
stuff out of it. One of the sounds of early
hip hop was the drums from Maybe It's Everyday People,
from one of these early Sly records, And so it's
specifically it's Greg Rico, the Russian Jew is the drummer
(06:39):
on a lot of these incredible hip hop records right
because of sign the Family Stone, and he was I
remember this part. He was a member of Sly's previously
existing band, and Sy was insistent that he was going
to be the drummer in whatever they were doing.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, that was a really interesting little tibbit. That's like
the type of thing that you want them to make
the documentary documentary about. It's like he.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Looks actually, I was trying to place why he looks
so familiar. He looks like Stanley Tucci.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
A lot. But it's funny. My dad like the.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Guy who would be the drummer and side of the
family stone.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
My dad gets the same comment. I think it's like, yeah,
Jewish thing, Jewish Italian kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, you look like a stout, handsome, bald guy.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
A little bit cool, cool guy. Yeah, that was a
cool tidbit. I definitely like it. It's cool the way
they also talked about like that he had no idea.
He's like trying to have his comeback, which reminded me
of when we talked about it's like.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Rick, we talked to her, No, do you mean lots?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So it makes a lot. I did the same. They
did the same thing. I think we called him hammer,
which I think is worse, but uh yeah, so it
makes a lad lockjaw, like we were wondering. I wonder
if he knows about it right now and it's not
as far removed. Maybe maybe it is like twenty years
(08:20):
but that he had no idea. I thought that was
really cool because it also tells the story of how
music evolves. And it's because you don't know about the
cultural context that you're able to think it's like cool and.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Discuss Mama said, Knock You Out is built around a sign,
the family stone sample.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
That's what that was. Yeah, And then there was this
whole thing with like disco. Something I've always found interesting
is how disco was the precursor to like house music
and electronic music, which was also happening at the same
time as like hip hop and rap and everything, and
Sly was like not disco, yeah, but like definitely disco
(09:06):
adjacent in terms of vibes. Right.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah. One of the one of the reasons he broke
through so hard that they cover in the movie is
because he was kind of a hippie, was really sort
of his lane, and this was at sort of the
late sixties sixties, seven sixty sixty nine Summer of Love
era when that was kind of where mainstream music was living.
(09:33):
So he was this black hippie who had a lot,
who was appealing to black audiences for the R and
B side of his music. White audiences for like the
rock side of the music, and just because he was
being pushed up by both of those groups, became like
one of the biggest rock stars in America, and some
(09:56):
bad things happened after that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, they they told the whole nice story, and it
was definitely this foreboding thing that they kind of teased
at the beginning of Like it started out all about
the music and it became about other things.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Which is obviously drugs. Do you want to take a
break and get into the Fresh album. Let's do it,
and we're back on a first listen to music podcast
for people who don't always get the hype but want to.
(10:35):
And today we want to get the hype around Fresh
from forty two years ago.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Forty two years ago, an album from forty two years ago,
about a documentary that came out two months ago.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It's fresh, Yeah, hot off the presses. I actually did
want to talk a little bit about where your awareness
of slang the family Stone began or like what role
does this music have in your life if any before this.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Episode, Well, my family I come from black hippie hate mom,
so that Sly was always kind of a figure on
the side and all of these songs like I've heard
my mom sing them. I've heard my mom like singing
the different harmonies just like of like stand or whatever.
(11:30):
And I if You Want Me to Stay is like
on my breakup playlist. It's like an important I just
love It's such a great song.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
And yeah, it was just some of the music that
you grew up.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, totally, totally. I had no idea that I had.
It was like I thought every musician that my mom
listened to was dead, Like I assume Stevie Wonder was dead,
like growing up because it just seemed old, like all
the other old stuff. Sure, but then I found out, Yeah,
(12:08):
he's very much alive this entire time. And just like, yeah,
my mom loves Prince also, so like my parents have
both always been you know, they're my family. My parents
are musicians, and they both were always into the the
(12:31):
sassy rock, soul genre bending kind of guys.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, it's interesting that Sally had this reputation as a
genre bender in his time and now it doesn't really
it doesn't really come off that way nowadays that he
was bending genres. But that's the big part of what
they talk about. His appeal was in the movie like.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
What would you call it though, I would.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Say it's probably R and B soul, but.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
It is funk and it is rock.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
But funk is is less a genre and more of
a component of good music to me, right, Like I
would argue that almost any music that's popular has an
element of funk in it.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Well, that's that's the Andrew definition of good music if
it has the funk. And didn't they say that his
bassis like kind of originated that funk.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
So that that part made me laugh. Larry Graham is
a probably on bass Mount Rushmore him and like Jacko
Pastorius and like maybe Victor Wooten and somebody else I
don't know. Uh So Larry Graham the basis for the
original lineup of SLI in the Family. Stone is credited
(13:52):
with inventing or popularizing slap bass that technique, and it's
funny because there's a lot of videos of him online
of him explaining how he came up with that, how
we started doing it, and why he continued doing it
as like a pillar, a cornerstone of his style. I
(14:17):
wasn't really sure how that had anything to do with
this story in this movie, so I thought it was
an interesting choice that he tells that story again in
the movie. I mean, it's definitely of consequence to music.
I mean, a good slap bassed sound is one of
the best sounds in contemporary music. I'm not sure that
(14:41):
it really fit in the movie. So the fact that
he was like able to shoehorn that into a documentary
about black genius, I thought was very funny.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I mean, I didn't know. Okay, you know, you're a bassist,
your base connoisseur. Sure, so that's like, so that's for you.
You already knew it, and you're kind of like, Okay,
this guy, we get it. You know, you came up
with it, but I guess, but like I had never
heard it before, and they talked about how it was,
(15:14):
didn't he say that it was like because they didn't
have a drummer something right.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So he started his story is that he was in
a duo, like a gospel duo or something with his mother,
who was a keyboard player or organist. So they didn't
have it. It was just bass and whatever instrument she
was playing. So in order to introduce more percussion and rhythm,
he started doing a slapping thing on his base and
(15:42):
then he got invited into Sly in the Family Stone
and was like, I'm not sure if this is going
to work with a drummer, and it ended up working
actually amazing.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, So I think that that was cool and I
think that element it really ties it into the whole
Sly story, Like I didn't know, like it didn't pop
out to me as like not.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I mean, yeah, it's an innovation of Sly in the
family Stone. Yeah, and that's maybe the best part of
the movie is getting to know the band and all
these different players and the impact that they had through
this project.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And it definitely kind of gives Sly credit for everything too,
Like he he was the one that like thought that
this would all go together really well.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, and he and that makes sense with his background
as a musical prodigy turned radio DJ turned music icon.
So he was like this kid who had this crazy
musical ability. Somehow they didn't really get into how he
(16:55):
became a radio DJ, but had like the super popular
show in the Bay Area in the sixties as a teenager.
Then he started producing records. He produced whatever the band
before Jefferson Airplane was that featured Grace Slick, like, he
produced that stuff. He produced a lot of rock bands,
(17:15):
a lot of R and B, and then formed his
own band eventually and left the radio thing behind.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So what was did you have a a relationship with
Sly before? So?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I knew the music as like anybody knows, you know,
he's one of these artists that the music is just around,
whether you're hearing it at like a wedding or at
a party or in like a sports arena, like you
just hear Sly in the family Stone music around. At
some point, many years ago, I was prompted, probably from Base,
(17:52):
something about me learning Base made Sly appeal to me
more so I started diving in. And the special memory,
the special place that it has for me is A
couple years after college, I strongly considered a career change
(18:13):
to get out of journalism entirely. And I got this
sales job that required me to drive a lot, and
I hated this job so much I eventually quit. I
quit the job after I had an anxiety attack one day,
and that was like the signal that you cannot do
this anymore. You're not making any money and you hate it.
(18:34):
But so I was driving around a lot, so I
was listening to a lot of music and for like
a month, I just had like a slim of the
Family Stone Greatest Hits or essential just like onen loop
in my car. It was like the only thing that
made me happy enough to continue working, Like anything heavy
(18:55):
would just make me too angry. So like the positivity
that exudes from sligning the Family Stone music really helped
me during that time in my life.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That's nice.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
But as a result of that, I don't really have
because I was listening to the Greatest Hits, I don't
really have a good sense of what was from what album.
So for you picking Fresh for this episode, now I
know at least what is on Sly's last great album.
And also the original band not featured here. I know
they had all gotten so sick of his shit that
(19:33):
they left by the time this record came out. But
there are some good songs, and we've kind of done
a bit of an interlude here, so maybe we'll take
another break and get back into it.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
And where's that first listen.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We're finally talking about Fresh or we're getting into it.
It's happening, and.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
We were going to talk about in time the.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
First interesting Yeah, so this one they talk about in
the documentary about specifically because Greg Errico, the drummer, had
just left the band, Sly was examining ways to get
around the lack of a drummer, and so he used
one of the first generation drum machines to come up
(20:29):
with a pretty major innovation in actually electronic music. So
this is one of like the stock basanova beats or something.
And what Sly did is, they explained it was he
changed where the one falls and then he built a
(20:49):
song around it.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
It was hilarious the way they talked about it, because
they were they started saying like, oh, these drum machines
are so lame, like nobody uses them, and like you
hear it in elevators and stuff, and then they were
kind of like but he kind of ate though low key,
like they wanted to be mad about it, but it
(21:13):
actually ended up being really cool and like import me.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And grey Erico is really complimentary in the documentary. But
you're also thinking, like, I'm sure at the time he
was like fuck this guy.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, he's like, you replace me with a drum.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Machine with a drum machine and it's good, fucking genius, asshole, Like,
I'm sure that had to be enraged.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I would be pissed. I would be pissed for sure.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
But yeah, it's like the first major hit in time
by selling The Family Stone to feature a drum machine,
and it's the first thing you hear on the track
on the album.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
He walked so the gorillas could run and click one
button on a on a drum machine. But it is.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It is interesting because like now drum quote unquote drum
drums sampling, the sounds are so detailed because they're recorded
by real drums. They're not synthesized sounds, and you can
adjust the velocity of the stick on the head of
the drum to get a different sound. So you can
(22:15):
make an entire album with drums in any style and
it'll be almost imperceptible that it's not a human being
playing it and.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
It doesn't even matter. Like that was the other thing
is at the time, like it would have been seen
as corny, but now it's not. Partially because of this
and because of obviously everything you said, but like being
able to produce music that he would play live with
(22:45):
a drummer, Yeah, using the drum machine is so cool.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, and just taking that limitation and finding your way
around it while you're in the depths of an extremely
severe cocaine addition.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, and just like in general, all of your friends,
like don't you don't have any friends anymore. Your life
is totally upside down.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Right, the slign in the family Stone band, which I
maybe we should just mention everybody who was in the
band so people get an idea. So Sly Stone, his
brother Freddie Stone, his sister Vet Stone, Jerry Martini was
the sax player. Cynthia Robinson was the trumpet player who
also had one of Sly's kids, Larry Graham you mentioned,
(23:29):
the bassist, and Greg Riko the drummer. So it was
that unit of seven people and they were super close
for the first several years of the band, and then,
as they tell it, Sly's drug use and probably some
of their own issues just sort of got in the
way and broke up with the band. I think Greg
was the first one to leave, and then Larry left,
(23:49):
and then eventually by by the mid seventies, by seventy five,
the original band was all gone.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And it was it's actually such a short period of
time in the scheme of things, like ten.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Years crazy how much they did.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Like it's it is crazy, and it's it makes absolute
sense that, like you, especially a guy like him, would
totally lose it. I mean, we've seen this story so
many times now. That there was also all these people
that were just like hangers on hippies, like who were
(24:24):
just hanging out at his house, which like it would
be impossible to be sober because those people are just
hanging out for the drugs.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Probably they have literally nothing else to do.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Literally and there yeah, like runaway like rich kid hippies.
I'm picturing a combination of them and like the guys
that he grew up with and everything. Yeah, that like
he was very set up for this situation that he
was in when this album was coming out.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And then so when you think of it, like all
my friends, my best his friends are leaving me. The
song if You Want Me to Stay hits a little
bit different. So that's track two on this record. And
Larry Graham leaving the band did not mean that the
basslines were gonna slack. This is I think Rusty Allen
(25:19):
playing it so clearly. You know, Sly's been one of
the most famous musicians of his era. It was not
a problem to find good.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Players, right. Yeah, seeing this documentary, it was like listening
to this album for the first time because I had
listened to it in preparation of our episode, realizing, oh,
we were supposed to talk about the documentary, but it
was like I hadn't listened to it before. Now having
(25:50):
all this information and then hearing this song, obviously it
makes way more sense. I love how he truly like
talked through his music about his personal experience, Like in
that moment, he the way they's told the story was
like people were giving him pressure about this and so
(26:11):
he like he said, this is how I feel about it, actually,
and it makes way more sense than Like I always
saw it as like a breakup song, which it is. Yeah,
but it's like a breakup with everybody.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah. I think he was also divorced at least one
time by this point, so yeah, you could that was
definitely where his head was. And also, like Sly is
a lyricist, he's he's not known for that, and understandably so.
His lyrics are very simple, often very repetitive, but he
did have a gift of saying everything in just like
(26:50):
a few words, in a short couple of lines.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
If you want me to stay is already.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I don't know what the next lyric is, but I
get it already. That's not even a complete sentence.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Oh yeah, don't understand it. Also, yeah, I think it's
like if you want me to say, i'll be around
something world who knows. And it's also makes way more sense,
like obviously he was high and everyone was high. I
(27:20):
think the way that people talk about the seventies was.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That I'll be around today.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I'll be around today, now, that's what I mean. I
because I've sung I've sung this song a lot in
the shower, but I hate exactly. I'm like, don't make
me do it right now, because I definitely am not sure.
But part of it, like when you watch it if
you like, look up the YouTube of them playing it live,
(27:48):
that intro is so long, like don't wait, don't hold
your breath for the singing to start because every every
part comes in on its own.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That that was right. That was actually the other appeal
that they had. It wasn't just like a rock crowd
because Sly was a hippie, like he was into jamming.
So all the album cuts for these songs are three minutes,
but live like they were not playing for just three minutes.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
No, they're like twelve minutes and stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Like his influence was like the Grateful Dead, Like that's
what he wanted his man to be, like, like the
Grateful Dead with saxophones.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
And thank god, thank god for him needing to still
bring in black people, because I can't tell you if
The Grateful Dead is even good. I get that they
have a huge following, and I've actually been to Phil
Lesh concert, so I kind of know, yeah, rip, But
(28:47):
I'm like, they you got just have the song start
and end, that's what we like, and then you can
change it to a new song. Don't do don't just
play a song forever and have it be whatever. And
so I that would take away for me a lot
of the experience if it was a jam band, Like.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
What song are we playing right now? Sometimes it gets
a little bit far. So you also wanted to talk
about Frisky, which is track four. This is not like
a high energy record either. It's a good record. It's
(29:33):
a good driving record if you are in traffic totally,
I would not a highway record. But if you're gonna
hit some red lights and you're trying to not mind.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Exactly walking down the street in your ball bottom pants
at this at the roller skating rank. That's why I
like that. That's why I picked the song. I just well,
not that, but I vicked it because I just I
just really liked the groove. I just really liked the
beat of it. It just stood out to me as
like a song that didn't stand out but was still
(30:09):
like kind of a bop.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
H Yeah, there's not There's not a bad song on
this record. There's like a lot of stuff that doesn't
necessarily stand out, but there's nothing that it's like, I
hate that one.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
It's so annoying, which now we have every album has
a song like that that comes.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Out, and you have to have one annoying song. For TikTok,
this is thankful and thoughtful.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I'm thinking me away. I don't think I'm the all.
His voice is so great, and he does sound super
high all the time.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, yeah, he sounds super high. But that's another takeaway
from the movie. Like sometimes he was he even just
a speaking voice, was like very high and reedy, and
other times he was like boom me, And it's just
like what is his actual voice? Because you also hear
it in the music, like he'll use that like really
(31:11):
nasally ready high thing. Like you sing on this or
whole sing really low. I always thought before the movie
that he like background singers and just this whole like
crew of people did. I wasn't even sure that sly
Stone was actually a vocalist in the band, and then
(31:32):
it's he's actually he not only is the main vocalist,
he does probably more vocals than I even would have
thought that he did because of how he manipulates his
voice and how how low he can go right.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
More vocals and more everything. He was playing most of
the instruments on this album. It seemed like on the
studio album it was I think also noteworthy. This is
before auto tune right like now, I mean, I think
about another rip. This isn't r even though not rip
sly rip Amy Winehouse like she famously had some concerts
(32:11):
where she was super high and she was not a
good singer really like she was not hitting the notes
and stuff, and with sly like the I mean everything.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
The other weird thing about his voice is the every
register sounds like a conversational. He doesn't necessarily sound like
he's singing no, but he is.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
He's just always singing yeah, and he sounds perfect all
the time. Like I imagine there were some like people. They
would describe some concerts as bad bad shows or bad concerts,
but they didn't say like he was bad if he
played badly, like he showed.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Up three hours later, Yeah, didn't show up.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
And it was like bad vibes and nobody was really
playing that well kind of implied and people didn't really
show up. But it wasn't like he was always able,
like his just musician ship and his ear and everything
were so out of this world that even if he
was out of his head, he could still perform.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Still get the job done. Yeah, keep on dancing. Did
we want to talk about that that this is a
reference to, uh oh, she's I already forgot.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Wait before we go in to keep on dancing? I
we didn't. Thankful and thoughtful. I think it's just that
also stood out to me as like a way that
he's talking to the world and he's he's like he
never seemed like he never like dug his heels in
on being like a piece of shit. Yeah, like he
(33:42):
he always he's like kind of self aware and noticing
and he's like, I'm just going through it, guys, Like
I'm I'm like even when Yeah, he showed up late
to that one concert. There was one where it was like, uh,
there was another band who was playing for him and
they were.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Touring with him, and they made that band stand, They
made that.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Band stay on it, and I just remember them showing
like muddy feet and then being like it was raining,
it started raining, And that's like the whole Woodstock.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Thing, right, Yeah, but that was a different time.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Different one, but yeah, gotcha. So but like he comes
on and he's like, I apologize. It was my fault.
It wasn't their fault.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
And the bands just starts flaying and everyone is like gay.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Exactly, and it's like, yeah, that's the other part which
I could really is like he he knew that he
could get away with it, Like ultimately he and he,
I mean he didn't want to, but it's like he
was kind of, you know, the burden of black genius.
He's like, y'all are making me perform when I'm obviously
not doing good. So like I I'm sorry, Like this
(34:49):
is what you get. And so I thought that kind
of comes through in this thankful and thoughtful sentiment.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, it's like a moment of clarity. Else another sort
of reflective track is actually keep on Dancing from this record,
(35:19):
which like references back to an early hit by sliding
the family Stone.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Another really cool way of vocal quality that he's bringing,
like that we you don't hear as much.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Of Yeah, yeah, so dance to the music slides big
hit breakthrough. And then he's sort of like reminding everybody like,
remember when I did that song No, I.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Thought that was so funny and great, and like was
it little introduction to just his sense of humor of
keep on of no dance to the music that he
literally he came out with an album, he's like, and
it flopped, right, And everybody came out with an album
it flopped, and he's like, this album is great. You
(36:17):
guys are wrong. Dance to the music. That's and he's
and they're like, you have to come out with a hit.
And he's like, I have an idea. How about you
guys dance to the music right now? And and he
got them to dance. Yeah. Literally, he like, actually so genius.
I'm like, okay, current songwriters put that in your pocket,
like just literally, and there's so there are so many
(36:40):
who slides straight. No, that's what he said. And when
he's like to the left, take it back now, y'all
literally one hop this time and then like and then
literally coming back around and be like, keep on dancing,
let's go. Like it's just so it's so funny, and
because it's like he's he just knows he's he's like
(37:06):
it's like a joke of it's like a joke of
with himself, but it's actually really doing that.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Also borrowing from yourself never a bad move. You know,
you've play the hits, he know, but he famously didn't
want to play the hits, but he would use like
he would use snippets. Seems like.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
One of my favorite tracks on this record is their
version of k Sarah Sarah. This is like, wait, what
is the original song? Oh, it's a Doris Days. It's
from a movie though a man who knew too much anyway,
(37:58):
it's a famous song from a movie.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Isn't it a bomb movie?
Speaker 2 (38:02):
It's a Hitchcock movie. Okay, anyhow, you know this is
a little bit borrowing from a jazz tradition of taking
a popular song and jazzing it up. And here he
took this popular Doris Day record and did like an
R and B thing with it.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
It is a beautiful song.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And speaking of the bass, Marcus Miller, who's a famous
R and B funk jazz bassist, does a beautiful instrumental
version of this song solo bass, which I really love.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
And who was the lady singing.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
On the original version? On his version on slized version
of I don't know?
Speaker 1 (38:46):
This reminds me. It's reminding me of the the Loop
a song. He says, she say right with no not
loops not he says, she say the one. Wow, I'm
not remember.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
So I think the female vocals on this song are
Rose Stone, who is his sister. So she was still
in the band at this point.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Okay, cool. It did seem that it was like that
she was kind of she kind of stuck around.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
She was a family member, so true.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
True. It reminded me of daydreaming.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah with Jill Scott.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Jill Scott like it's in the same way of like, yeah,
you get a lady singing. It's an old club, it's
an old song, and it's a yeah we're remixing.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
It, yeah, yeah, essentially remixing it for sure. And that
was the other revelation is like all the voices on
these records at least the early ones were members of
the band, so a lot of the female vocals are
Rose or uh, Synthia's her name the trumpet player, right,
Cynthia Robinson. Yeah. And then like Larry Graham when he's
(40:06):
when in dance to the music, when it's there's a
guy singing about playing his bass guitar, like that, that's
Larry and the guy singing about playing his guitar is Freddy,
Like it's it's the whole. They're not like just background singers.
They're also they have an instrumental role in the band,
but they're all very talented people. And then the last
(40:28):
track on it was is one that always kind of
stuck out to me.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, it's a little weird.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Babies making babies because you know, you talk about Sly
is a Is he a political artist? Not really, but
he's for sure socially conscious. And I always figured like, okay,
I mean he's just like making a song that's referencing
a real problem, teenage pregnancy.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
I guess, hey, why not why not make that the
last track.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
They did?
Speaker 1 (41:08):
He say, from the Womb to the Tomb. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know if he's really hitting it. This this
song from the Womb to the Tomb is just a cliche.
And then he says baby's making babies again, is he
the first person to say babies making babies? I feel
like he's not.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I yeah, I feel like he's not. I remember when
I first heard this song, I was like, is that
really what he's saying?
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah? Right, And you're like, is he just talking about
that actually or is he maybe saying something more complex?
But it doesn't seem so, which, Hey, it is a
serious problem, you know, not to be a teenage pregnancy apologist, Okay,
(41:53):
but I do wonder when did it start being not cool?
Because yeah, there was like for a long time in
human history like.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
A teenager was when you had a baby.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, it wasn't like a bad It wasn't it was bad.
I assume that all of them were having a bad time.
But at the same time, it was like, you know,
queens and stuff do it. It was like what you're
supposed to do, Yeah, like get married and start having
babies right away when you're like fifteen sixteen, we.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Gonna have like twenty of these most of them we're
gonna die.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Exactly exactly, and we need to have heirs to the
to the land or whatever. Yeah, so yeah, I do.
I am always kind.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Of like when that's an interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Question obviously, Like I mean, I know, my grandfather was
twenty years older than my grandmother, and to me, I
think she was like twenty two. She wasn't like she
wasn't a team but she you know, and back then,
twenty two was pretty was ancient to not have she me. Yeah,
she was, but like or she was seen as that
(42:55):
obviously I'm kidding, but like she she twenty two year
world is a child to me by our current standards,
like by the current age gap, you know, conversation, a
twenty two year old is a baby making a baby.
So I'm I'm just I do wonder that like when, yeah,
when when did that become like a big social issue.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, I mean it would It would have to have
been in the twentieth century maybe like a post war.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Thing must have been, right, No, I mean what this
is totally off topic. But I was also just recently,
like I was seeing I see all the kids on
the train going home with their parents, like kids that
are like clearly in their late teens and like their
parents have to pick them up from school and take
them home, and like.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
You know, and maybe it's when people maybe it's when
high school became a thing that like everyone had to
go to.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
That makes sense because I'm like, okay, not only did
you used to just send your kids home on the train,
you would send them to the mines. Like they're literally
like ten year year old's working in mind let alone
walking there by themselves.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
So they're making they're making their own wages. They have
a job. Kids don't have jobs today, that's true.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Nobody wants to work anymore, not like me who has
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
All these kids are just making podcasts.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
It's true. That's they need to walk up hill both
ways to the minds and then they'll know how to
get home on the subway. But not according to sly Stone.
He says, no, no, no, send the kids to school.
Let's get them an education, and we're not having that.
And he he said, make it the eleventh track of
(44:42):
my album. That you know. He he was hoping this
was going to be his upswing. Unfortunately it seems like
it was.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Apparently this one kind of pigeonholed him into specifically a
black audience, whereas the previous records he was appealing to
kind of everybody. But now it was like, you're a
soul artist, you're an R and B artist, you don't
rock anymore, you don't jam.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, and yeah, right, he wasn't jamming and then and
then he just like wasn't really relevant after that either.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, a lot of the efforts that followed this were
it was a guy who was trying to get his
cultural cachet back, and there were a lot of like
award show appearances, do like late night panel as sort
of like a caricature version of himself, and that continued
through the eighties when he was still making records, and
(45:37):
eventually he stopped playing shows. I think it was eighty
seven was the last concert he performed.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
And then when were they Do you remember when they
were inducted into.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
The Rock I think that was like ninety three or something.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
That was a really cute part.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, the whole band, the whole original band shows up
for their induction and it was when they it was
before it was like in a arena thing, before they
had like this, you know, this established kind of program
of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, whereas basically
like a dinner like a like a fancy like reunion
(46:15):
sort of dinner, so like they're all wearing like tuxedos
and stuff, and they're giving their speech and they're like, uh,
we're sorry, Slide couldn't be here. We were all really
hoping and none of us have talked to him. And
then he just like comes out like a purple soon.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
He's like a purple like leather boilers. Yeah, yeah, iconic.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
And he says like two sentences and he's like, I'll
see you soon. And then they did not see him soon.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Yeah, And that's when I thought they were gonna be
like because he died the next day. But he's alive. Yes.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
He also apparently really struggled with stage fright and performance anxiety,
and that was one of the things behind the legendary
tardiness when it came to playing shows and the riots
that followed. So it kind of seems like after he
got out of the habit of performing, he just really
(47:11):
couldn't get back into it, couldn't really get himself to
do that again. He appeared on stage in like the
mid two thousands when there was like a Grammys salute
to sign the family Stone, and supposedly he played a
little bit there. I don't recall it. I don't think
they showed any footage of it. But yeah, he's really
(47:33):
kind of just led a private life. Also, this is
the guy with a major drug issue who maybe doesn't
really know how to perform if he's not on drugs,
and he was arrested a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, they really they you really.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Don't want to. Yeah, there's a one point where they
show his like literal rap sheet and it's like there's
like drug possession and stuff, and then there's like is
a fugitive from just there's like serious crimes. So yeah,
I mean it seems like eventually he kind of made
the decision that he had to make for his health.
(48:12):
And he's got three kids. We were saying earlier seems low.
It does, But I was good for him.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I'm impressed. I think that he was the type of
guy he wasn't he didn't want kids, and if he,
I'm sure he's so happy that you have them. But
like it didn't like none of them were planned really
except for that last one.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Sly Junior is the son of his only marriage, and.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
It seems like that was kind of like a whole
They kind of painted it as like a publicity stunt
and so like having this like actress wife, young actress
wife and having a baby with her. He wanted to
like have his comeback, I'm a family man or something.
But I think that if he was a normal if
he was like not a rock star, like the normal
guy version of himself, he wouldn't have had kids. But
(49:03):
because it was it was also the seventies and stuff,
like people just everyone had kids back then, Like there
was a lot less. It was a lot weirder as
a woman to like never have a kid, and that
like he he he landed on three, like he he
could have ended up with many more if he had
wanted to, He could have sired children all over the globe. Sure,
(49:27):
I really related to something that came up in this
later portion whenever he was getting interviewed and somebody the
journalist was like, it's been a long time, we haven't
seen you. You haven't been up too much lately, and
He's like, I've been up to a lot at home.
I was like, speak on it, yes, Like I relate
to this so much, like, yeah, you haven't seen me
(49:48):
because I've been cooking in the lab. I've been doing
stuff that has nothing to do with you people. Okay,
maybe you'll see it, maybe you won't. Yeah, and yeah, okay,
maybe he was high and maybe, but like I do
believe that he was making music and getting up to
a lot of shenanigans in the home. Like that part
(50:08):
became very vague, like is he on drugs right now?
Is he not? Because he is still alive. Obviously got
off the drugs at some point. Yeah, and like this
that was kind of in that later era where he
had gone to the he went to rehab and then
they were like it lasted like six months. But then
(50:29):
they didn't say I mean, now when you're old, you
kind of are allowed to do some drugs. They like
prescribe them when you're super old. But it does seem
like like I can't see anybody being like, you know, no,
sly you can't have a drink or whatever. Like I
(50:49):
know the old men, the like men in their eighties
who are like ostensibly, you know done, You cannot stop
them from getting their substance. Is well.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Keith Richards a few years ago was like, yeah, I
don't drink anymore, and they're like really He's like yeah,
it just wasn't interesting to me. And like he is
currently sipping a glass of wine.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
It's like he's like, oh no, this, this is not
this isn't drinking exactly.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
About like an entire bottle of Scotch. I don't do
dad anymore.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Exactly, So exactly what I exactly what I mean.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Well, we hope it keeps him alive longer. His kids
say that he's doing great.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Yeah, he has a great relationship with his family now
and it's very cute and they're just like, yeah, let
him be, let him live, let him live on through
this documentary and his music. It was really it was
a treat.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
And that's an episode. If you want to watch sly Lives,
it's on Hulu.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Not sponsored.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
This is not sponsored, but if anyone wants to sponsor us,
this is I guess how it would sound.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
It's true. We could do a whole episode on something.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yeah, and act like it's not sponsors exactly. I don't
think we would think we would do that.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
But no, check, yeah exactly, let's discuss. We'll discuss, we'll
whisper it.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
So thanks everybody for listening. Please subscribe so you can
miss an episode and we'll be back next time.
Welcome to at First Listen, the music podcast for people
who don't always get the hype but walk to.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique, and today we're talking about sli
in the Family Stones nineteen seventy three album Fresh. Why
are we doing that because, like I don't know. Two
months ago, a documentary came down about Slying the Family
Stone on Hulu.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We're right on the edge.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, we're on the cutting edge. We're so current. We
finally got around to watching it after an aborted attempt
to do this episode when we realized that neither of
us had seen the film yet.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We were waiting. We were waiting for it to be
extra ripe, and I was extra I was extra excited
about it.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Speaking of ripe, it's like eight degrees today, So the
city is ripening for sure. That's true in good ways
and bad ways.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
The same temperature. I'm like, can we give it away?
Is it too early? What if people haven't seen the movie?
The spoilers?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I think we can spoil it.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, the same degrees approximately as the age of sly
Stone currently who lives.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
At the time of this recording, to the best of
our knowledge. Yes, these things can change. Quickly. Yeah, he's
eighty two. Yeah, as is the temperature and slign The
Family Stone is like the perfect summertime music. I don't
particularly love this album compared to other Sly records. Dominique
(01:53):
chose it. I think it's one.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Of the I don't think I chose choices.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
In the d documentary, they do mention this album as
being the last good one that he made.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It was the last good one and all the last
great have been their words. But it was also like
the They kind of said that, like the one before,
it wasn't as good, and then this one was him
trying to be like, hey, I'm black, I'm I'm cool
with you guys. Right, So it was like more black
than his other than his previous couple of albums, or
(02:24):
maybe blacker than his other album before. Maybe he was
trying to, you know, connect with some listeners who might
not otherwise be tuning in.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, major theme of the movie and a lot of
stuff that was news to me was that Sly was
really on the on the fence in terms of a
lot of a lot of civil rights racial issues in
the late sixties and seventies. Slang The Family Stone the
(02:58):
band was a mixed race, mixed gender band. There were
white people in it, there were women of color in it,
and then there were a bunch of black guys in it.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Which that's like, it's.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
People like, where do we play this music?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah? This is doesn't make edny sense. Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Is this rock? And is this jazz? I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I can't tell by their color. No, it's so funny
because I don't. I like didn't register that anytime before this.
Before watching this movie, I'm like, Okay, it's a band.
I'm not I'm not thinking it's weird at all to
have women and men in a band together, for sure.
(03:37):
And then I'm dev and then like I think I
just didn't notice the white people because the drummer was white.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Drummer's white. Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Notably Greg Erico notably a lot of Jewish action going
on shout out because like he said, he was like,
my grandmother was a Russian Jew And I was like same, yeah,
and he kin groove exactly. Yeah. He was like a
(04:07):
great he was. It was so cool how they what
was the band that he was it? Everyday people that
he was like, we're gonna get everybody, get your the
best guys, from your band, and I'm gonna get the
best guys from my band and we're gonna make.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, that was like the band before sigh in the
family Stone was two or was it one band or
was it two bands?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It was started off as two bands that sly has.
It was Slyes band was one of the bands, and
then there was another band.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
And then he was trying to put together a band
with his brother or was it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I don't know, don't know. This is a The documentary
goes in depth about all of these.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Little too in depth and we forgot someone.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
There's a lot. No, it's very in depth. He is.
It is a fascinating It is a fascinating life. I
think it was one of those things where so many
people in the documentary seemed like they could have their
own documentary.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Angelo was really angling for it, D'Angelo. You might not
have heard that name in I don't know a decade,
maybe more. Heavily featured. He's like the main interview in this.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
He was, and I noticed that he's wearing very unique outfit,
not unique that unique for like an old older man.
He's not too old.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It's like a little Prince cosplay.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, like Prince Cosplay. It's definitely giving Lenny Kravitz vibes.
But I also not wearing my rings right now, so
you can't tell. But I'm also in the house of
silver rings, so I can't hate too much.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
But it is one of the things that struck me
about the documentary, the story of this music and how
they draw all these connections to the music of like
Janet Jackson, and that one is specifically a rhythm nation
that song is specifically highlighted in the movie. But how
the hip hop generation went back to Sly and the
(06:14):
Family Stone Records and Chic Records and like Cool in
the Gang and all that stuff and just like plucked
stuff out of it. One of the sounds of early
hip hop was the drums from Maybe It's Everyday People,
from one of these early Sly records, And so it's
specifically it's Greg Rico, the Russian Jew is the drummer
(06:39):
on a lot of these incredible hip hop records right
because of sign the Family Stone, and he was I
remember this part. He was a member of Sly's previously
existing band, and Sy was insistent that he was going
to be the drummer in whatever they were doing.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, that was a really interesting little tibbit. That's like
the type of thing that you want them to make
the documentary documentary about. It's like he.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Looks actually, I was trying to place why he looks
so familiar. He looks like Stanley Tucci.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
A lot. But it's funny. My dad like the.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Guy who would be the drummer and side of the
family stone.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
My dad gets the same comment. I think it's like, yeah,
Jewish thing, Jewish Italian kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, you look like a stout, handsome, bald guy.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
A little bit cool, cool guy. Yeah, that was a
cool tidbit. I definitely like it. It's cool the way
they also talked about like that he had no idea.
He's like trying to have his comeback, which reminded me
of when we talked about it's like.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Rick, we talked to her, No, do you mean lots?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So it makes a lot. I did the same. They
did the same thing. I think we called him hammer,
which I think is worse, but uh yeah, so it
makes a lad lockjaw, like we were wondering. I wonder
if he knows about it right now and it's not
as far removed. Maybe maybe it is like twenty years
(08:20):
but that he had no idea. I thought that was
really cool because it also tells the story of how
music evolves. And it's because you don't know about the
cultural context that you're able to think it's like cool and.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Discuss Mama said, Knock You Out is built around a sign,
the family stone sample.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
That's what that was. Yeah, And then there was this
whole thing with like disco. Something I've always found interesting
is how disco was the precursor to like house music
and electronic music, which was also happening at the same
time as like hip hop and rap and everything, and
Sly was like not disco, yeah, but like definitely disco
(09:06):
adjacent in terms of vibes. Right.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah. One of the one of the reasons he broke
through so hard that they cover in the movie is
because he was kind of a hippie, was really sort
of his lane, and this was at sort of the
late sixties sixties, seven sixty sixty nine Summer of Love
era when that was kind of where mainstream music was living.
(09:33):
So he was this black hippie who had a lot,
who was appealing to black audiences for the R and
B side of his music. White audiences for like the
rock side of the music, and just because he was
being pushed up by both of those groups, became like
one of the biggest rock stars in America, and some
(09:56):
bad things happened after that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, they they told the whole nice story, and it
was definitely this foreboding thing that they kind of teased
at the beginning of Like it started out all about
the music and it became about other things.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Which is obviously drugs. Do you want to take a
break and get into the Fresh album. Let's do it,
and we're back on a first listen to music podcast
for people who don't always get the hype but want to.
(10:35):
And today we want to get the hype around Fresh
from forty two years ago.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Forty two years ago, an album from forty two years ago,
about a documentary that came out two months ago.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It's fresh, Yeah, hot off the presses. I actually did
want to talk a little bit about where your awareness
of slang the family Stone began or like what role
does this music have in your life if any before this.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Episode, Well, my family I come from black hippie hate mom,
so that Sly was always kind of a figure on
the side and all of these songs like I've heard
my mom sing them. I've heard my mom like singing
the different harmonies just like of like stand or whatever.
(11:30):
And I if You Want Me to Stay is like
on my breakup playlist. It's like an important I just
love It's such a great song.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
And yeah, it was just some of the music that
you grew up.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, totally, totally. I had no idea that I had.
It was like I thought every musician that my mom
listened to was dead, Like I assume Stevie Wonder was dead,
like growing up because it just seemed old, like all
the other old stuff. Sure, but then I found out, Yeah,
(12:08):
he's very much alive this entire time. And just like, yeah,
my mom loves Prince also, so like my parents have
both always been you know, they're my family. My parents
are musicians, and they both were always into the the
(12:31):
sassy rock, soul genre bending kind of guys.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, it's interesting that Sally had this reputation as a
genre bender in his time and now it doesn't really
it doesn't really come off that way nowadays that he
was bending genres. But that's the big part of what
they talk about. His appeal was in the movie like.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
What would you call it though, I would.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Say it's probably R and B soul, but.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
It is funk and it is rock.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
But funk is is less a genre and more of
a component of good music to me, right, Like I
would argue that almost any music that's popular has an
element of funk in it.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Well, that's that's the Andrew definition of good music if
it has the funk. And didn't they say that his
bassis like kind of originated that funk.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
So that that part made me laugh. Larry Graham is
a probably on bass Mount Rushmore him and like Jacko
Pastorius and like maybe Victor Wooten and somebody else I
don't know. Uh So Larry Graham the basis for the
original lineup of SLI in the Family. Stone is credited
(13:52):
with inventing or popularizing slap bass that technique, and it's
funny because there's a lot of videos of him online
of him explaining how he came up with that, how
we started doing it, and why he continued doing it
as like a pillar, a cornerstone of his style. I
(14:17):
wasn't really sure how that had anything to do with
this story in this movie, so I thought it was
an interesting choice that he tells that story again in
the movie. I mean, it's definitely of consequence to music.
I mean, a good slap bassed sound is one of
the best sounds in contemporary music. I'm not sure that
(14:41):
it really fit in the movie. So the fact that
he was like able to shoehorn that into a documentary
about black genius, I thought was very funny.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I mean, I didn't know. Okay, you know, you're a bassist,
your base connoisseur. Sure, so that's like, so that's for you.
You already knew it, and you're kind of like, Okay,
this guy, we get it. You know, you came up
with it, but I guess, but like I had never
heard it before, and they talked about how it was,
(15:14):
didn't he say that it was like because they didn't
have a drummer something right.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So he started his story is that he was in
a duo, like a gospel duo or something with his mother,
who was a keyboard player or organist. So they didn't
have it. It was just bass and whatever instrument she
was playing. So in order to introduce more percussion and rhythm,
he started doing a slapping thing on his base and
(15:42):
then he got invited into Sly in the Family Stone
and was like, I'm not sure if this is going
to work with a drummer, and it ended up working
actually amazing.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, So I think that that was cool and I
think that element it really ties it into the whole
Sly story, Like I didn't know, like it didn't pop
out to me as like not.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I mean, yeah, it's an innovation of Sly in the
family Stone. Yeah, and that's maybe the best part of
the movie is getting to know the band and all
these different players and the impact that they had through
this project.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And it definitely kind of gives Sly credit for everything too,
Like he he was the one that like thought that
this would all go together really well.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, and he and that makes sense with his background
as a musical prodigy turned radio DJ turned music icon.
So he was like this kid who had this crazy
musical ability. Somehow they didn't really get into how he
(16:55):
became a radio DJ, but had like the super popular
show in the Bay Area in the sixties as a teenager.
Then he started producing records. He produced whatever the band
before Jefferson Airplane was that featured Grace Slick, like, he
produced that stuff. He produced a lot of rock bands,
(17:15):
a lot of R and B, and then formed his
own band eventually and left the radio thing behind.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So what was did you have a a relationship with
Sly before? So?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I knew the music as like anybody knows, you know,
he's one of these artists that the music is just around,
whether you're hearing it at like a wedding or at
a party or in like a sports arena, like you
just hear Sly in the family Stone music around. At
some point, many years ago, I was prompted, probably from Base,
(17:52):
something about me learning Base made Sly appeal to me
more so I started diving in. And the special memory,
the special place that it has for me is A
couple years after college, I strongly considered a career change
(18:13):
to get out of journalism entirely. And I got this
sales job that required me to drive a lot, and
I hated this job so much I eventually quit. I
quit the job after I had an anxiety attack one day,
and that was like the signal that you cannot do
this anymore. You're not making any money and you hate it.
(18:34):
But so I was driving around a lot, so I
was listening to a lot of music and for like
a month, I just had like a slim of the
Family Stone Greatest Hits or essential just like onen loop
in my car. It was like the only thing that
made me happy enough to continue working, Like anything heavy
(18:55):
would just make me too angry. So like the positivity
that exudes from sligning the Family Stone music really helped
me during that time in my life.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That's nice.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
But as a result of that, I don't really have
because I was listening to the Greatest Hits, I don't
really have a good sense of what was from what album.
So for you picking Fresh for this episode, now I
know at least what is on Sly's last great album.
And also the original band not featured here. I know
they had all gotten so sick of his shit that
(19:33):
they left by the time this record came out. But
there are some good songs, and we've kind of done
a bit of an interlude here, so maybe we'll take
another break and get back into it.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
And where's that first listen.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We're finally talking about Fresh or we're getting into it.
It's happening, and.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
We were going to talk about in time the.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
First interesting Yeah, so this one they talk about in
the documentary about specifically because Greg Errico, the drummer, had
just left the band, Sly was examining ways to get
around the lack of a drummer, and so he used
one of the first generation drum machines to come up
(20:29):
with a pretty major innovation in actually electronic music. So
this is one of like the stock basanova beats or something.
And what Sly did is, they explained it was he
changed where the one falls and then he built a
(20:49):
song around it.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
It was hilarious the way they talked about it, because
they were they started saying like, oh, these drum machines
are so lame, like nobody uses them, and like you
hear it in elevators and stuff, and then they were
kind of like but he kind of ate though low key,
like they wanted to be mad about it, but it
(21:13):
actually ended up being really cool and like import me.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And grey Erico is really complimentary in the documentary. But
you're also thinking, like, I'm sure at the time he
was like fuck this guy.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, he's like, you replace me with a drum.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Machine with a drum machine and it's good, fucking genius, asshole, Like,
I'm sure that had to be enraged.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I would be pissed. I would be pissed for sure.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
But yeah, it's like the first major hit in time
by selling The Family Stone to feature a drum machine,
and it's the first thing you hear on the track
on the album.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
He walked so the gorillas could run and click one
button on a on a drum machine. But it is.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It is interesting because like now drum quote unquote drum
drums sampling, the sounds are so detailed because they're recorded
by real drums. They're not synthesized sounds, and you can
adjust the velocity of the stick on the head of
the drum to get a different sound. So you can
(22:15):
make an entire album with drums in any style and
it'll be almost imperceptible that it's not a human being
playing it and.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
It doesn't even matter. Like that was the other thing
is at the time, like it would have been seen
as corny, but now it's not. Partially because of this
and because of obviously everything you said, but like being
able to produce music that he would play live with
(22:45):
a drummer, Yeah, using the drum machine is so cool.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, and just taking that limitation and finding your way
around it while you're in the depths of an extremely
severe cocaine addition.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, and just like in general, all of your friends,
like don't you don't have any friends anymore. Your life
is totally upside down.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Right, the slign in the family Stone band, which I
maybe we should just mention everybody who was in the
band so people get an idea. So Sly Stone, his
brother Freddie Stone, his sister Vet Stone, Jerry Martini was
the sax player. Cynthia Robinson was the trumpet player who
also had one of Sly's kids, Larry Graham you mentioned,
(23:29):
the bassist, and Greg Riko the drummer. So it was
that unit of seven people and they were super close
for the first several years of the band, and then,
as they tell it, Sly's drug use and probably some
of their own issues just sort of got in the
way and broke up with the band. I think Greg
was the first one to leave, and then Larry left,
(23:49):
and then eventually by by the mid seventies, by seventy five,
the original band was all gone.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And it was it's actually such a short period of
time in the scheme of things, like ten.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Years crazy how much they did.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Like it's it is crazy, and it's it makes absolute
sense that, like you, especially a guy like him, would
totally lose it. I mean, we've seen this story so
many times now. That there was also all these people
that were just like hangers on hippies, like who were
(24:24):
just hanging out at his house, which like it would
be impossible to be sober because those people are just
hanging out for the drugs.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Probably they have literally nothing else to do.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Literally and there yeah, like runaway like rich kid hippies.
I'm picturing a combination of them and like the guys
that he grew up with and everything. Yeah, that like
he was very set up for this situation that he
was in when this album was coming out.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And then so when you think of it, like all
my friends, my best his friends are leaving me. The
song if You Want Me to Stay hits a little
bit different. So that's track two on this record. And
Larry Graham leaving the band did not mean that the
basslines were gonna slack. This is I think Rusty Allen
(25:19):
playing it so clearly. You know, Sly's been one of
the most famous musicians of his era. It was not
a problem to find good.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Players, right. Yeah, seeing this documentary, it was like listening
to this album for the first time because I had
listened to it in preparation of our episode, realizing, oh,
we were supposed to talk about the documentary, but it
was like I hadn't listened to it before. Now having
(25:50):
all this information and then hearing this song, obviously it
makes way more sense. I love how he truly like
talked through his music about his personal experience, Like in
that moment, he the way they's told the story was
like people were giving him pressure about this and so
(26:11):
he like he said, this is how I feel about it, actually,
and it makes way more sense than Like I always
saw it as like a breakup song, which it is. Yeah,
but it's like a breakup with everybody.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah. I think he was also divorced at least one
time by this point, so yeah, you could that was
definitely where his head was. And also, like Sly is
a lyricist, he's he's not known for that, and understandably so.
His lyrics are very simple, often very repetitive, but he
did have a gift of saying everything in just like
(26:50):
a few words, in a short couple of lines.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
If you want me to stay is already.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I don't know what the next lyric is, but I
get it already. That's not even a complete sentence.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Oh yeah, don't understand it. Also, yeah, I think it's
like if you want me to say, i'll be around
something world who knows. And it's also makes way more sense,
like obviously he was high and everyone was high. I
(27:20):
think the way that people talk about the seventies was.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That I'll be around today.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I'll be around today, now, that's what I mean. I
because I've sung I've sung this song a lot in
the shower, but I hate exactly. I'm like, don't make
me do it right now, because I definitely am not sure.
But part of it, like when you watch it if
you like, look up the YouTube of them playing it live,
(27:48):
that intro is so long, like don't wait, don't hold
your breath for the singing to start because every every
part comes in on its own.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That that was right. That was actually the other appeal
that they had. It wasn't just like a rock crowd
because Sly was a hippie, like he was into jamming.
So all the album cuts for these songs are three minutes,
but live like they were not playing for just three minutes.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
No, they're like twelve minutes and stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Like his influence was like the Grateful Dead, Like that's
what he wanted his man to be, like, like the
Grateful Dead with saxophones.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
And thank god, thank god for him needing to still
bring in black people, because I can't tell you if
The Grateful Dead is even good. I get that they
have a huge following, and I've actually been to Phil
Lesh concert, so I kind of know, yeah, rip, But
(28:47):
I'm like, they you got just have the song start
and end, that's what we like, and then you can
change it to a new song. Don't do don't just
play a song forever and have it be whatever. And
so I that would take away for me a lot
of the experience if it was a jam band, Like.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
What song are we playing right now? Sometimes it gets
a little bit far. So you also wanted to talk
about Frisky, which is track four. This is not like
a high energy record either. It's a good record. It's
(29:33):
a good driving record if you are in traffic totally,
I would not a highway record. But if you're gonna
hit some red lights and you're trying to not mind.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Exactly walking down the street in your ball bottom pants
at this at the roller skating rank. That's why I
like that. That's why I picked the song. I just well,
not that, but I vicked it because I just I
just really liked the groove. I just really liked the
beat of it. It just stood out to me as
like a song that didn't stand out but was still
(30:09):
like kind of a bop.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
H Yeah, there's not There's not a bad song on
this record. There's like a lot of stuff that doesn't
necessarily stand out, but there's nothing that it's like, I
hate that one.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
It's so annoying, which now we have every album has
a song like that that comes.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Out, and you have to have one annoying song. For TikTok,
this is thankful and thoughtful.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I'm thinking me away. I don't think I'm the all.
His voice is so great, and he does sound super
high all the time.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, yeah, he sounds super high. But that's another takeaway
from the movie. Like sometimes he was he even just
a speaking voice, was like very high and reedy, and
other times he was like boom me, And it's just
like what is his actual voice? Because you also hear
it in the music, like he'll use that like really
(31:11):
nasally ready high thing. Like you sing on this or
whole sing really low. I always thought before the movie
that he like background singers and just this whole like
crew of people did. I wasn't even sure that sly
Stone was actually a vocalist in the band, and then
(31:32):
it's he's actually he not only is the main vocalist,
he does probably more vocals than I even would have
thought that he did because of how he manipulates his
voice and how how low he can go right.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
More vocals and more everything. He was playing most of
the instruments on this album. It seemed like on the
studio album it was I think also noteworthy. This is
before auto tune right like now, I mean, I think
about another rip. This isn't r even though not rip
sly rip Amy Winehouse like she famously had some concerts
(32:11):
where she was super high and she was not a
good singer really like she was not hitting the notes
and stuff, and with sly like the I mean everything.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
The other weird thing about his voice is the every
register sounds like a conversational. He doesn't necessarily sound like
he's singing no, but he is.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
He's just always singing yeah, and he sounds perfect all
the time. Like I imagine there were some like people. They
would describe some concerts as bad bad shows or bad concerts,
but they didn't say like he was bad if he
played badly, like he showed.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Up three hours later, Yeah, didn't show up.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
And it was like bad vibes and nobody was really
playing that well kind of implied and people didn't really
show up. But it wasn't like he was always able,
like his just musician ship and his ear and everything
were so out of this world that even if he
was out of his head, he could still perform.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Still get the job done. Yeah, keep on dancing. Did
we want to talk about that that this is a
reference to, uh oh, she's I already forgot.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Wait before we go in to keep on dancing? I
we didn't. Thankful and thoughtful. I think it's just that
also stood out to me as like a way that
he's talking to the world and he's he's like he
never seemed like he never like dug his heels in
on being like a piece of shit. Yeah, like he
(33:42):
he always he's like kind of self aware and noticing
and he's like, I'm just going through it, guys, Like
I'm I'm like even when Yeah, he showed up late
to that one concert. There was one where it was like, uh,
there was another band who was playing for him and
they were.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Touring with him, and they made that band stand, They
made that.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Band stay on it, and I just remember them showing
like muddy feet and then being like it was raining,
it started raining, And that's like the whole Woodstock.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Thing, right, Yeah, but that was a different time.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Different one, but yeah, gotcha. So but like he comes
on and he's like, I apologize. It was my fault.
It wasn't their fault.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
And the bands just starts flaying and everyone is like gay.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Exactly, and it's like, yeah, that's the other part which
I could really is like he he knew that he
could get away with it, Like ultimately he and he,
I mean he didn't want to, but it's like he
was kind of, you know, the burden of black genius.
He's like, y'all are making me perform when I'm obviously
not doing good. So like I I'm sorry, Like this
(34:49):
is what you get. And so I thought that kind
of comes through in this thankful and thoughtful sentiment.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, it's like a moment of clarity. Else another sort
of reflective track is actually keep on Dancing from this record,
(35:19):
which like references back to an early hit by sliding
the family Stone.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Another really cool way of vocal quality that he's bringing,
like that we you don't hear as much.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Of Yeah, yeah, so dance to the music slides big
hit breakthrough. And then he's sort of like reminding everybody like,
remember when I did that song No, I.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Thought that was so funny and great, and like was
it little introduction to just his sense of humor of
keep on of no dance to the music that he
literally he came out with an album, he's like, and
it flopped, right, And everybody came out with an album
it flopped, and he's like, this album is great. You
(36:17):
guys are wrong. Dance to the music. That's and he's
and they're like, you have to come out with a hit.
And he's like, I have an idea. How about you
guys dance to the music right now? And and he
got them to dance. Yeah. Literally, he like, actually so genius.
I'm like, okay, current songwriters put that in your pocket,
like just literally, and there's so there are so many
(36:40):
who slides straight. No, that's what he said. And when
he's like to the left, take it back now, y'all
literally one hop this time and then like and then
literally coming back around and be like, keep on dancing,
let's go. Like it's just so it's so funny, and
because it's like he's he just knows he's he's like
(37:06):
it's like a joke of it's like a joke of
with himself, but it's actually really doing that.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Also borrowing from yourself never a bad move. You know,
you've play the hits, he know, but he famously didn't
want to play the hits, but he would use like
he would use snippets. Seems like.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
One of my favorite tracks on this record is their
version of k Sarah Sarah. This is like, wait, what
is the original song? Oh, it's a Doris Days. It's
from a movie though a man who knew too much anyway,
(37:58):
it's a famous song from a movie.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Isn't it a bomb movie?
Speaker 2 (38:02):
It's a Hitchcock movie. Okay, anyhow, you know this is
a little bit borrowing from a jazz tradition of taking
a popular song and jazzing it up. And here he
took this popular Doris Day record and did like an
R and B thing with it.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
It is a beautiful song.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And speaking of the bass, Marcus Miller, who's a famous
R and B funk jazz bassist, does a beautiful instrumental
version of this song solo bass, which I really love.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
And who was the lady singing.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
On the original version? On his version on slized version
of I don't know?
Speaker 1 (38:46):
This reminds me. It's reminding me of the the Loop
a song. He says, she say right with no not
loops not he says, she say the one. Wow, I'm
not remember.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
So I think the female vocals on this song are
Rose Stone, who is his sister. So she was still
in the band at this point.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Okay, cool. It did seem that it was like that
she was kind of she kind of stuck around.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
She was a family member, so true.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
True. It reminded me of daydreaming.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah with Jill Scott.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Jill Scott like it's in the same way of like, yeah,
you get a lady singing. It's an old club, it's
an old song, and it's a yeah we're remixing.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
It, yeah, yeah, essentially remixing it for sure. And that
was the other revelation is like all the voices on
these records at least the early ones were members of
the band, so a lot of the female vocals are
Rose or uh, Synthia's her name the trumpet player, right,
Cynthia Robinson. Yeah. And then like Larry Graham when he's
(40:06):
when in dance to the music, when it's there's a
guy singing about playing his bass guitar, like that, that's
Larry and the guy singing about playing his guitar is Freddy,
Like it's it's the whole. They're not like just background singers.
They're also they have an instrumental role in the band,
but they're all very talented people. And then the last
(40:28):
track on it was is one that always kind of
stuck out to me.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, it's a little weird.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Babies making babies because you know, you talk about Sly
is a Is he a political artist? Not really, but
he's for sure socially conscious. And I always figured like, okay,
I mean he's just like making a song that's referencing
a real problem, teenage pregnancy.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
I guess, hey, why not why not make that the
last track.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
They did?
Speaker 1 (41:08):
He say, from the Womb to the Tomb. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know if he's really hitting it. This this
song from the Womb to the Tomb is just a cliche.
And then he says baby's making babies again, is he
the first person to say babies making babies? I feel
like he's not.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I yeah, I feel like he's not. I remember when
I first heard this song, I was like, is that
really what he's saying?
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah? Right, And you're like, is he just talking about
that actually or is he maybe saying something more complex?
But it doesn't seem so, which, Hey, it is a
serious problem, you know, not to be a teenage pregnancy apologist, Okay,
(41:53):
but I do wonder when did it start being not cool?
Because yeah, there was like for a long time in
human history like.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
A teenager was when you had a baby.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, it wasn't like a bad It wasn't it was bad.
I assume that all of them were having a bad time.
But at the same time, it was like, you know,
queens and stuff do it. It was like what you're
supposed to do, Yeah, like get married and start having
babies right away when you're like fifteen sixteen, we.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Gonna have like twenty of these most of them we're
gonna die.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Exactly exactly, and we need to have heirs to the
to the land or whatever. Yeah, so yeah, I do.
I am always kind.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Of like when that's an interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Question obviously, Like I mean, I know, my grandfather was
twenty years older than my grandmother, and to me, I
think she was like twenty two. She wasn't like she
wasn't a team but she you know, and back then,
twenty two was pretty was ancient to not have she me. Yeah,
she was, but like or she was seen as that
(42:55):
obviously I'm kidding, but like she she twenty two year
world is a child to me by our current standards,
like by the current age gap, you know, conversation, a
twenty two year old is a baby making a baby.
So I'm I'm just I do wonder that like when, yeah,
when when did that become like a big social issue.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, I mean it would It would have to have
been in the twentieth century maybe like a post war.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Thing must have been, right, No, I mean what this
is totally off topic. But I was also just recently,
like I was seeing I see all the kids on
the train going home with their parents, like kids that
are like clearly in their late teens and like their
parents have to pick them up from school and take
them home, and like.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
You know, and maybe it's when people maybe it's when
high school became a thing that like everyone had to
go to.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
That makes sense because I'm like, okay, not only did
you used to just send your kids home on the train,
you would send them to the mines. Like they're literally
like ten year year old's working in mind let alone
walking there by themselves.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
So they're making they're making their own wages. They have
a job. Kids don't have jobs today, that's true.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Nobody wants to work anymore, not like me who has
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
All these kids are just making podcasts.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
It's true. That's they need to walk up hill both
ways to the minds and then they'll know how to
get home on the subway. But not according to sly Stone.
He says, no, no, no, send the kids to school.
Let's get them an education, and we're not having that.
And he he said, make it the eleventh track of
(44:42):
my album. That you know. He he was hoping this
was going to be his upswing. Unfortunately it seems like
it was.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Apparently this one kind of pigeonholed him into specifically a
black audience, whereas the previous records he was appealing to
kind of everybody. But now it was like, you're a
soul artist, you're an R and B artist, you don't
rock anymore, you don't jam.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, and yeah, right, he wasn't jamming and then and
then he just like wasn't really relevant after that either.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, a lot of the efforts that followed this were
it was a guy who was trying to get his
cultural cachet back, and there were a lot of like
award show appearances, do like late night panel as sort
of like a caricature version of himself, and that continued
through the eighties when he was still making records, and
(45:37):
eventually he stopped playing shows. I think it was eighty
seven was the last concert he performed.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
And then when were they Do you remember when they
were inducted into.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
The Rock I think that was like ninety three or something.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
That was a really cute part.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, the whole band, the whole original band shows up
for their induction and it was when they it was
before it was like in a arena thing, before they
had like this, you know, this established kind of program
of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, whereas basically
like a dinner like a like a fancy like reunion
(46:15):
sort of dinner, so like they're all wearing like tuxedos
and stuff, and they're giving their speech and they're like, uh,
we're sorry, Slide couldn't be here. We were all really
hoping and none of us have talked to him. And
then he just like comes out like a purple soon.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
He's like a purple like leather boilers. Yeah, yeah, iconic.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
And he says like two sentences and he's like, I'll
see you soon. And then they did not see him soon.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Yeah, And that's when I thought they were gonna be
like because he died the next day. But he's alive. Yes.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
He also apparently really struggled with stage fright and performance anxiety,
and that was one of the things behind the legendary
tardiness when it came to playing shows and the riots
that followed. So it kind of seems like after he
got out of the habit of performing, he just really
(47:11):
couldn't get back into it, couldn't really get himself to
do that again. He appeared on stage in like the
mid two thousands when there was like a Grammys salute
to sign the family Stone, and supposedly he played a
little bit there. I don't recall it. I don't think
they showed any footage of it. But yeah, he's really
(47:33):
kind of just led a private life. Also, this is
the guy with a major drug issue who maybe doesn't
really know how to perform if he's not on drugs,
and he was arrested a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, they really they you really.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Don't want to. Yeah, there's a one point where they
show his like literal rap sheet and it's like there's
like drug possession and stuff, and then there's like is
a fugitive from just there's like serious crimes. So yeah,
I mean it seems like eventually he kind of made
the decision that he had to make for his health.
(48:12):
And he's got three kids. We were saying earlier seems low.
It does, But I was good for him.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I'm impressed. I think that he was the type of
guy he wasn't he didn't want kids, and if he,
I'm sure he's so happy that you have them. But
like it didn't like none of them were planned really
except for that last one.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Sly Junior is the son of his only marriage, and.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
It seems like that was kind of like a whole
They kind of painted it as like a publicity stunt
and so like having this like actress wife, young actress
wife and having a baby with her. He wanted to
like have his comeback, I'm a family man or something.
But I think that if he was a normal if
he was like not a rock star, like the normal
guy version of himself, he wouldn't have had kids. But
(49:03):
because it was it was also the seventies and stuff,
like people just everyone had kids back then, Like there
was a lot less. It was a lot weirder as
a woman to like never have a kid, and that
like he he he landed on three, like he he
could have ended up with many more if he had
wanted to, He could have sired children all over the globe. Sure,
(49:27):
I really related to something that came up in this
later portion whenever he was getting interviewed and somebody the
journalist was like, it's been a long time, we haven't
seen you. You haven't been up too much lately, and
He's like, I've been up to a lot at home.
I was like, speak on it, yes, Like I relate
to this so much, like, yeah, you haven't seen me
(49:48):
because I've been cooking in the lab. I've been doing
stuff that has nothing to do with you people. Okay,
maybe you'll see it, maybe you won't. Yeah, and yeah, okay,
maybe he was high and maybe, but like I do
believe that he was making music and getting up to
a lot of shenanigans in the home. Like that part
(50:08):
became very vague, like is he on drugs right now?
Is he not? Because he is still alive. Obviously got
off the drugs at some point. Yeah, and like this
that was kind of in that later era where he
had gone to the he went to rehab and then
they were like it lasted like six months. But then
(50:29):
they didn't say I mean, now when you're old, you
kind of are allowed to do some drugs. They like
prescribe them when you're super old. But it does seem
like like I can't see anybody being like, you know, no,
sly you can't have a drink or whatever. Like I
(50:49):
know the old men, the like men in their eighties
who are like ostensibly, you know done, You cannot stop
them from getting their substance. Is well.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Keith Richards a few years ago was like, yeah, I
don't drink anymore, and they're like really He's like yeah,
it just wasn't interesting to me. And like he is
currently sipping a glass of wine.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
It's like he's like, oh no, this, this is not
this isn't drinking exactly.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
About like an entire bottle of Scotch. I don't do
dad anymore.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Exactly, So exactly what I exactly what I mean.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Well, we hope it keeps him alive longer. His kids
say that he's doing great.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Yeah, he has a great relationship with his family now
and it's very cute and they're just like, yeah, let
him be, let him live, let him live on through
this documentary and his music. It was really it was
a treat.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
And that's an episode. If you want to watch sly Lives,
it's on Hulu.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Not sponsored.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
This is not sponsored, but if anyone wants to sponsor us,
this is I guess how it would sound.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
It's true. We could do a whole episode on something.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yeah, and act like it's not sponsors exactly. I don't
think we would think we would do that.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
But no, check, yeah exactly, let's discuss. We'll discuss, we'll
whisper it.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
So thanks everybody for listening. Please subscribe so you can
miss an episode and we'll be back next time.
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