Thankful n' Thoughtfull: The Sly Stone Dedicated Chronological Listening Thread

207. Sly Stone - Get Away (I'm Back! Family & Friends, 2011)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK1OLARof5s
Far and away the best of the lot, even if its just a plagal cadence over a drum machine. Did they actually did out a Rhythm Ace for this, or just re-use a bit of the "Family Affair" tracks? Barebones as the structure is, there's a spark of Sly's old arranging acumen; the mix of wah wah guitars, a bobbling bassline, suspended organ chords, crescendoing horns, and gospel backing vocals is both dreamy and propulsive. Sly's raspy voice, now little more than a whisper, is once again out front, plaintive but still melodically playful. The lyrics, just two verses and a refrain, return to familiar tropes - hesitancy about commitment, a faith in music ("You can get away from the guy who loves you / They'll break your heart in two / I can get away from the girl who feeds me / She don't need you like I need you" and "I would bet my pay for a year and a day / If I couldn't be wrong / About this melody written for you and me / And we might as well sing the song"). It's not an incredible song but it is fittingly wistful.

Agree, I like that song.

Based on what I’ve seen of Sly since that WTF Grammy’s performance I can almost hardly believe he is singing on this as well as he is. Can’t he almost barely speak at this point? How is he even carrying a tune? Is it possible this is actually an older cut?

208. Funkadelic - The Naz (First Ya Gotta Shake The Gate, 2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbPLMpgRc-o
Our final entry. While it would be foolish at this point to expect Sly to go out with a bang, he doesn't exactly go out with a whimper either, more like a giggle. This is thanks to George, who, 30 years on, is still trying to pull Sly out of his hole. His loyalty is remarkable. Sly delivers an abbreviated version of Lord Buckley's classic sermon recounting the life of the titular Nazarene over a decent digital funk groove. Clinton characteristically layers in a bunch of synthesizer and electric guitar details into a backing track that more or less works, and then lets Sly loose, looping bits of his monologue here and there. The connection between Buckley and Sly's vocabulary is made explicit, and there's obviously layers of significance woven in here in terms of Sly's life and career - the savior archetype, motormouthed hipster patter, funk. Lots of echoes here. (In one odd bit of symmetry, Buckley's lines: "if they can't straighten it they know a cat that knows a cat that's gonna get it straight", which is very close to Sly's henchman Hamp Banks' description of himself: "When it got to big for me, I knew the cat that knew the cat that could get it done.") Thankfully, Buckley's text does not extend beyond the loaves and fishes story, sparing the listener any implied parallel between Sly's own failings and Christ's demise.

Since further musical output from Sly seems unlikely at this late date, this serves as a strangely fitting capstone to his discography. Hopefully this thread has made the overarching arc of his career clear, even if it's a cliche at this point: a series of undeniable and monumental achievements, marred by a depressing capacity for self-sabotage that lasted for almost 50 years. Unlike Brian Wilson - whose own life and career is in many ways an inverted, white-bread, mirror image of Sly's (Sly loves dualisms but who knows if he would appreciate or acknowledge this one) - there hasn't really been any late-period redemption. Wilson, while still eternally haunted and damaged, got his shit together and appears to have achieved some measure of functionality and peace; the core of his musical talent has never left him, he still loves music, he needs it and believes in it and works at it. By contrast, when Sly attempted a similar comeback in the 2000s it was hampered by his all-too familiar problems and habits. In many ways it's just too late. The Summer of Soul doc and forthcoming QuestLove doc are a historical corrective, rightly emphasizing his massive talent and impact. Based on advance press and published excerpts, Sly's autobiography (which comes out tomorrow), will no doubt shed some light on the details of Sly's life and his perspective on it, but it seems unlikely to contain much in the way of critical self-examination. For an artist who claimed to write his songs while looking in the mirror, he seems to have spent much of his life running away from his own reflection.

*applause*

epic thread, ty One Child

Yeah, this was great, thanks so much.

Cheers, amazing work

Yes incredible effort on this thread, ty <3

Great thread, though becomes inevitably more depressing as we move into the later years.

Legendary thread! Loved reading from start to finish

Surely this is the gold standard for listening threads? So thorough and insightful.

One of my favorite ILM experiences over 20 years here. Just a treasure trove of top shelf analysis.

What am I going to do everyday at lunchtime now? LOL.

Great thread! Thank you so much! Respect.

I didn't give anywhere like enough time to this thread but it's a great acheivement!

Oh, no mention of "If I Didn't Love You", also on First Ya Gotta Shake The Gate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBpt8Yu3Q8s

We never did discuss "My Gorilla is My Butler", either...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbZQ6tIeNH8

It's strange that Sly's status as a "survivor" almost makes his career sadder than if he had died at some point in the last 50 years.

Just finished reading the oral history from a couple of years back in anticipation of reading Sly's new one.

All I can say is ...wow. I blame PCP.

After listening to Questlove's podcast with the autobio writer, I listened to 'Life of Fortune & Fame', which is pretty striking and was apparently on a comp of unreleased '60s tracks that came out in the '90s called Funkmeister. Curious if One Child had heard these?

Also at the very end there's a clip of an actually unreleased '80s Sly song, just a DX7 and drum machine. It's very Prince-y, really something.

Nice clip, thanks for sharing.

BTW it’s kind of nuts that OneChild started this thread 3 1/2 years ago and finished the 208th and last entry the day before his memoir was released.

Autobio is great!

I downloaded Small Talk prompted by this thread - had never heard it - and it's absolutely blazing my Saturday, "Can't Strain My Brain" is wildly, weirdly great. Thank you Sly and Shakey.