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Sly And The Family Stone Dot Net Articles
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The Nine Lives Of Sly Stone
Rolling Stone, September 1973
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By Stuart Werbin
Patty is 17, her friend Shawn a little older. It is 7:30 and the girls have been on-the-job
for two hours. Their job is to look pretty in borrowed clothes and be photographed for
Seventeen magazine, which now owes $120 to the Wilhelmina Modelling Agency for each of the
girl’s services, although not a single photograph has been taken. The idea is a fall fashion spread,
featuring three pop stars: Kris Kristoffersen, Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone. The subject of
today’s spread is Sly, and he’s late.
“I’m sending the girls off to wait in the park,” the magazine editor announces wearily. “This way
everything will be set up for the moment Sly arrives. We have to start paying overtime at five, but
I’m not concerned with that because it’s already inevitable we’ll have to do that, but I’m beginning
to worry about light and shadows. We’ve set this thing up on a hill for maximum sunlight. It’s almost
four.”
Penny from Epic publicity consoles the editor by explaining that she has spoken to both Stephen Paley
– photographer turned Columbia A&R man who is Sly’s closest compatriot at the CBS building – and Ken
Roberts, Sly’s personal manager. She has a double guarantee that Sly is “on his way”, although stories
vary slightly on estimated times of arrival, and how many members (if any) of the Family Stone will be
accompanying him. “He’s sort of like Mercury,” Penny opines, “you think you’ve got your hands on him,
but before you realize it he’s slipped away.”
“You’ve been just wonderful,” Penny from publicity tells a writer from a New York daily. “I feel like
I should do something to make this up to you somehow.”
“Listen,” he replies, “forget it. I’ve covered Sly before. I don’t even consider him late for the first
90 minutes.”
"I blame everything on being sick. The flu bug will kick your ass, even if you’re president of the Senate."
At the stroke of four, Sly sweeps in, a dazzling miasma of red, white and black. The task now becomes
moving him to Central Park. An additional ten minutes passes as limousine seating arrangements are
worked out. Sly crowds in with a lady friend, a reporter, and Family Stone horn players Jerry Martini,
Pat Rizzo and drummer Andy Newmark. Sly says he wants Ken Roberts in his car. It is explained that
Roberts is still upstairs and has instructed the car to go ahead of him. “OK,” Sly agrees amiably.
The star cuts into a conversation between the drummer and the reporter and offers a fact about
photography: “Richard Avedon,” he says, “is the greatest photographer in the world. After he shot the
pictures for my album, Richard Avedon told me that he would shoot anybody I wanted him to shoot
anytime. That’s what the greatest photographer in the world told me. Heh, heh, heh.” With a laugh that
shuts his drowsy eyes. “Heh, heh, heh.” Grinning a great wall of ivory white calcium. “Anybody. Anytime.”
For the “greatest photographer in the world”, Sly, like numerous great men and women of the arts who
came before him, had been asked to jump for the camera. He did, and the resulting pictures grace the
jacket of his latest album Fresh. Now with 90 degrees of New York heat heating against the red-sequined
brim cocked over his brow, he is being asked to keep on jumping, surrounding by Shawn, Patty and a team
of look-alike jumping beans.
“More explosive; be more explosive,” the leader of the three hired photographers shouts amidst the thumps
and the Nikon clicks.
“Phew, I don’t know,” Sly replied. “I think we might need some more rhythm. You might think we got the
makings of a new group here, but I ain’t no accordion player. Heh, heh, heh.” And all the jumping girls
laughed along.
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