‘I never lived a life I didn’t want to live’: Sly Stone on addiction, ageing and changing music for
- 8 months ago
#I #livedlife #I
In 2019, Sly Stone's doctors presented him with a stark ultimatum. A crack addiction stretching back decades had ravaged his body to the point of potentially irreversibility. “They told me that if I kept smoking I would destroy my lungs or die,” he says today. To be fair, this couldn't have come as news. He said he had been taken to hospital in an ambulance for the fourth time in recent years and was suffering from breathing difficulties the last one occurring just two weeks before he saw doctors. On every previous occasion, a doctor had presented with same ultimatum that Stone refused believe, discharging him from the hospital against orders, even if it took an hour go house and call one of many dealers, struggling from room hospital parking lot. After all, he was the legendary Sly Stone, and at least part of his legend was based on his dissatisfaction with doing anything he didn't want to do. At height success, in years immediately after he more less single-handedly changed face soul – 1967's Dancing to Music ushered in era psychedelic soul, leaving a number major Black artists subsequently changing their approach and even struggling to keep up with innovations mighty Motown – almost He was as famous, or infamous, for his freeway freeway approach as he was for music. If didn't think equipment was up to standard or he didn't feel the weather wasn't right, would cancel gigs at last minute. The label began promoting not the album they were expecting, Incredible and Unpredictable Flapper and The Family Stone—dubbed—but 1971's bleak, murky, experimental Goin' on a Riot. “It oozed possibility and was music for an era when America felt drained,” as Stone sings, his voice husky and hiss-laden. Stone reportedly recorded and re-recorded so many times that the tape was almost transparent. Insidious and the Family Stone in 1968. From left Larry Graham, Gregg Errico, Freddie Cynthia Robinson; front from left Rose Stone, Sneaky Jerry Martini. GAB Archive Redferns Some people thought their behavior was admirable, demanding agency in an industry based on denying Black artists ' agency. Some people thought he was unbearably arrogant. “I'm me when I'm me,” he shrugged to a Rolling Stone reporter. In the long years after his star waned, he remained as unrepentant and stubborn as ever. In all her dismay a hopeless drug addict who hadn't released an album of new material since 1982 – no matter how many lurid articles portrayed her, she was allegedly lost during making of Ain't But One Way, forcing producer Stuart Levine to release the finished product It's left to best way you can put it together or how many loudly trumpeted comebacks don't pass. “I've never lived a life I didn't want to live,” he tells me today. But by the fourth hospital visit, something had clearly changed. Perhaps he had a vision death connected to the number of friends former colleagues who had in previous years Bobby Womack, his former managers Dav
In 2019, Sly Stone's doctors presented him with a stark ultimatum. A crack addiction stretching back decades had ravaged his body to the point of potentially irreversibility. “They told me that if I kept smoking I would destroy my lungs or die,” he says today. To be fair, this couldn't have come as news. He said he had been taken to hospital in an ambulance for the fourth time in recent years and was suffering from breathing difficulties the last one occurring just two weeks before he saw doctors. On every previous occasion, a doctor had presented with same ultimatum that Stone refused believe, discharging him from the hospital against orders, even if it took an hour go house and call one of many dealers, struggling from room hospital parking lot. After all, he was the legendary Sly Stone, and at least part of his legend was based on his dissatisfaction with doing anything he didn't want to do. At height success, in years immediately after he more less single-handedly changed face soul – 1967's Dancing to Music ushered in era psychedelic soul, leaving a number major Black artists subsequently changing their approach and even struggling to keep up with innovations mighty Motown – almost He was as famous, or infamous, for his freeway freeway approach as he was for music. If didn't think equipment was up to standard or he didn't feel the weather wasn't right, would cancel gigs at last minute. The label began promoting not the album they were expecting, Incredible and Unpredictable Flapper and The Family Stone—dubbed—but 1971's bleak, murky, experimental Goin' on a Riot. “It oozed possibility and was music for an era when America felt drained,” as Stone sings, his voice husky and hiss-laden. Stone reportedly recorded and re-recorded so many times that the tape was almost transparent. Insidious and the Family Stone in 1968. From left Larry Graham, Gregg Errico, Freddie Cynthia Robinson; front from left Rose Stone, Sneaky Jerry Martini. GAB Archive Redferns Some people thought their behavior was admirable, demanding agency in an industry based on denying Black artists ' agency. Some people thought he was unbearably arrogant. “I'm me when I'm me,” he shrugged to a Rolling Stone reporter. In the long years after his star waned, he remained as unrepentant and stubborn as ever. In all her dismay a hopeless drug addict who hadn't released an album of new material since 1982 – no matter how many lurid articles portrayed her, she was allegedly lost during making of Ain't But One Way, forcing producer Stuart Levine to release the finished product It's left to best way you can put it together or how many loudly trumpeted comebacks don't pass. “I've never lived a life I didn't want to live,” he tells me today. But by the fourth hospital visit, something had clearly changed. Perhaps he had a vision death connected to the number of friends former colleagues who had in previous years Bobby Womack, his former managers Dav