06 10 25 1035 The Fox Rick Lewis on passing of Sly and the Family Stone's Sly Stone

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is Colorado's Morning News.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
The funk music pioneer and frontman of Sly and the
Family Stone sly Stone, has died at the age of
eighty two, peacefully after a prolonged battle with COPD and
other underlying health issues. Sly and the Family Stone formed
in March of nineteen sixty seven. The band quickly made
its way up the charts in the Winner of nineteen
sixty eight with Dance to the Music, which was later
chosen for the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Rock

(00:21):
and Roll Hall of Fames Five Hundred Songs that Shaped Rock.
Every composition of the band was penned by Stone. Joining
me now in the KOAE Common Spirit Health Hotline studio.
He is the host of The Rick Lewis Show on
one of three five of the Fox that would be
rick Lewis. When you texted me, you said, this one
really was a gut punch for you.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yeah, this one hit hard for me, you know. Not
a surprise that he passed. He's eighty two years old.
These had a lot of health issues over the years.
But I was a big fan as a kid, still
a big fan today. He was an influenced Still a
lot of artists. When he came up from the Bay
Area in the sixties played Woodstock and we were talking

(01:00):
off the air. I think he's maybe the first big
crossover artist, you know, from funk to rock, and he
is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The
guy was a prodigy. He could play every instrument. Some
said he was the best musician they'd ever met. Bootsie
Collins was a guy that said he was the best

(01:20):
musician I've ever played with. He could play everything.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
When I think of the Family Tree, I do think
a sly Stone and it's a few branches down, but
it does make me think of a prince or somebody
like that. There's just multi talented that people tried to
pigeonhole in a genre but realize no, the broad mass
appeal and somebody who could play in just about everything
but just happened to have a nice vein or body
of work in this realm.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Absolutely, and just the talent in that group was phenomenal.
Larry Graham, oh yeah, considered one of the best bass
players ever, was in the Family Stone and went on
to have a really great solo career as well. The
interesting thing about sly is he was like a shooting

(02:04):
star in the late sixties, and then by the mid
seventies it was pretty much over for him because of
drug use erratic behavior. People didn't want to work with
him anymore because you didn't know which Sly you were
going to get. And the last half of his life
was really sad and miserable.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
I heard stories all the time about how he wouldn't
show up for concerts, his own gigs. Yes, his band
would be on stage, but Sly was nowhere to be found.

Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yep, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
He lived in his van for a while, he was
homeless for a while. Just a really sad story. And ironically,
Questlove produced a documentary called Sly Libs, which came out
this year, and then he died yesterday. You know, I
thought about you when I saw that. Yes, there you go.
That's your sense of humor right there. And there's a

(02:53):
movie apparently in the works that Sly had been working
on right up till his death, putting the final pieces
together of a film about him and his life, which
I think now will be even bigger than it would
have been since he passed.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
It is sad when I think about this, and we
are men of a certain age that newer generations unless
they're really music geeks and go through the files, but
they aren't familiar with Slidestone.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
And as you say to me, is somebody.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Look, I'm a white kid that grew up in pretty
much white Denver back in the seventies and eighties, but
I totally knew who Slyestone was and always thought, Man,
I'm playing his music oldies station, some rock stations, definitely,
you know, whatever you want to call adult contemporary stations.
The music was transcendent of again what you would call
those formats and genres. You know.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Also interesting about him, and I think maybe one of
the reasons I connected with him.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
He was a DJ in the Bay Area, huh.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
And he was from Vallejo, California. I saw that.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, Yeah, he was a DJ in San Francisco before
he had a band, before he became big and well known.
So also I kind of related with that with him.
We've got a big show coming up Friday at the
Buffalo Rose and Gold, and we're going to do a
little trivia to him. We're going to play a little
medley sly stuff on Friday night.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yeah, and looking forward to doing that.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
What's your favorite song?

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Is it? Hard to pick.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
I think Family Affair, Oh Yeah is probably my favorite.
Thank you for letting me be myself again. And we've
been playing that my band forever, so it'll be easy
to roll that out on Friday night.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
He's just got that funk feel to it, which I.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Love absolutely Man the funk Man and his drummer, Greg
Rico was such a great drummer too, white dude that
played in that funk band, which I'm a little jealous.
I'd love to be a white dude and a great
funk band like that.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
I'm telling you. As a kid growing up, I wanted
to sing backup for Earth Wind and Fire. I said,
you got my Mike, I just sing back up and
being the you know, dancing and singing absolutely by I
wanted to do that.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Hey, why we have you here? I want to talk
about now.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
The Broncos are getting into the mandatory part of this season,
the preseason, the camps.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
And they like, what are you looking forward to most?

Speaker 3 (05:00):
I think it's going to be a good year and
the continued development of bow Knicks.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
He had a really good rookie year.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
He seemed like the kind of guy that's not going
to regress and step back in his second year, which
is very common in the NFL. I think we're going
to see an even better version of bow Knicks this year,
and they added some weapons for him finally a tight
end Evan Ingram. I think we'll have a major impact
on the offense. I hope RG Harvey can be the guy.
We'll soon find out. Defensively, they had one of the

(05:31):
top three defenses in the league last year. They improved it.
So there's a lot of reasons to be excited for
this Bronco season this year.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
From your lips to slies years. Because I'm assuming he's
in heaven, he can talk to the Almighty and say, hey,
let's be good for the Broncos.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
My friends.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
Absolutely man always good to talk to. Marty. Thank you too, brother,