Latest / DISGRACELAND / Sly Stone: Guns, PCP, a Psycho Mutt, and a Fugitive from Justice

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Sly Stone: Guns, PCP, a Psycho Mutt, and a Fugitive from Justice · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: sly Stone are insane. He suspected that his own bass
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: player hired someone to kill him. He was strong armed
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: by the Black Panthers, did cocaine with Miles Davis. His
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: La mansion was overrun with cocaine, PCP guns and bodyguards.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Drawn the attention of local law enforcement. He was soon
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: crossing paths with cops from coast to coast and was
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: busted time and time again for drug offenses, including the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: time that he went on the Lamb under a false
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: name and was declared a fugitive from justice. If there
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: is any justice in this world, sly Stone will be
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: remembered as the mastermind of great music, music that was
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: intended to break down barriers of race and genre, all
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: in the serve of making people happy. That music I
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: played for you at the top of the show that
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for my
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: melotron called Vanity Calamity MK two. I played you that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: loop because I can't afford the rights to a clip
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: from Rod Stewart's Maggie May And why would I play
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you that specific slice of business in the front party
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: in the back Geeze, Could I afford it? Because that
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: was the number one song in America on November one,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, and that was the days sly and
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the Family Stone released their fifth studio album, There's a
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Riot going on, an unexpectedly dark missive that hinted at
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: darker days to come. On this episode, drugs, paranoia, a
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: fugitive from justice, Murky missives, and sly Stone. I'm Jake
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Sly Stone wanted to take
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: them higher, every last hippie down there in the mud
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: on old Man Yasker's farm, half a million easy Stone,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: on Acapolca gold, tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Sly knew where freedom could be found. He had the map.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: He could light their fire while they had to do
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: his stand and repeat after him.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Higher.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Three point thirty am was an early wake up call,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: but the people couldn't resist. Tense, unzipped sleeping bags cast aside.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Every one of them looked up at the stage and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: saw themselves reflected in the integrated faces of sly and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the Family Stone. Men, women, black, white, everyday people. The
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: rhythm pulsated, was unrelenting, and so was Slies. Called to action,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: want to take you higher. The crowd responded by echoing
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the word back to him.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Higher.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Sweat ran down Sly's forehead to his oversized glasses. His
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: mutton chops glistened, The fringe jacket felt damp against the skin.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: It's close now, he could feel it. Freedom, the great release.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: It was like a god released a pie piper. He
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: led and they followed. Boomshaka, Laca, Laca. They're all in
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: it together, and together they'd be free. Together, they would
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: move as one. One year later, in nineteen seventy, sly
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Stone wasn't moving. He didn't want to dancing to the music.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Let's not and say we did. Staying in one place,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: living inside yourself, Now that felt fucking great. Sly rarely
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: left the home studio in the lot of his Tutor
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: style mansion at seven eighty three bel Air, the one
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: he was renting from Papa John Phillips. When he did
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: step out, he cruised LA's freeways in a cocoon on
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: wheels thirty six foot Winnebago. He didn't engage with the
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: outside world. It wanted too much from him to perform
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: night after night to take everyone higher. The pressure was overwhelming,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the attention was a mind fuck. He was on his
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: own trip now and he was taking no passengers. Those
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: blissed out masses. Back at old man NASCAR's farm, they
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: could find their own way. Sly's new path was dimly
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: lit and was paved with cocaine and PCP, and it
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: let him here inside alone, safe too outsiders, the place
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: felt anything but safe. If slies on hind pit bull,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: that bug eyed motherfucker named Gun. Yes, that's right, a
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: pit bull named Gun. If he didn't make you paranoid,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: then the hired muscle with actual guns did. Who the
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: fuck were the these guys anyway? They weren't around back
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: in San Francisco. They only started showing up once Slide
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: moved to La. The drugs, the people, the vibe. Everything
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: was different in LA. But then everything was different everywhere.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: The sixties were over.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: It was the.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Seventies, Martin's dream, the hippies dream, the memories. Everyone just
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: woke up. Dig it for what it is. A dream,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: just another glass half full scam that tricked you into
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: believing that things could actually change, And that boogeyman weren't real,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: but things weren't getting better, and the Boogeyman were apps
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: a fucking lutely real. They had names like Crazy Charlie
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: and Tricky Dick. They'd always been there and they always
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: would be doing the dirty work with a flashlight while
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: your back was turned, or walking through your front door
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: with a pistolae right between your eyes after you opened them,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: really opened them for the very first time. Nineteen seventy,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: now that was a reality. Everywhere you turned there was
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a riot going on. Hard hats beating on anti war
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: protesters in the streets of New York City, Snipers on
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the roof at Jackson State Police cruisers, burning at Cotela
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: before Dead Ohio. The Panthers. They claimed they were on
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Sly's side, that they were part of the solution. But
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Sly was looking out for number one. Now. He only
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: trusted a few, like his right hand man hamp Bubba Banks,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Bobby Womack, and Billy Preston. Miles was all right that
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: new record bitches Brew was a motherfucker, No doubt. Sly
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: wanted to make soul music if it sounded like that.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Miles like the swing by Sly's mansion head on up
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: to the loft where Sly was working on a new shit.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: The Miles found Sly overdubbing that same track so many
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: times that the sound coming from the real was murky
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: as fuck, murky, just like Miles's voice. Slide you got
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: any of that blow. But the Panthers what did they
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: really want not to share in sly stash. They had
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: their motives. They wanted Slies music for themselves, and they
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: were prepared to get it by any means necessary. They
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: strong armed him to dump his white manager, fire his drummer,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Gregor Rico, and his saxophone player, Greg's cousin Jerry Martini,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: both of them white, and replaced them with black musicians.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So that was what made Sly in the Family Stone
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: so great in the first place. It wasn't by chance
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: that Sly hired black players and white players. He assembled
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: that band was intention. Could Jerry Martini blow as well
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: as some of the other cats, didn't matter. He was
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the right guy for the part and more waste than one.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: It was like the song said, everybody was a star.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: The Panthers did get their way, even though they weren't
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the ones to make it happen. Gregor Rico saw the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: writing on the wall, Sly's ego and the Ascendant. They
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: all for one and one for all ethos that had
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: driven the Family Stone for years. Mere Vapor trails in
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: its wake. If Sly wasn't laying down the track himself,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: he was having someone like Bobby or Billy do it
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: than one of his own band members. Shit, you'd get
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Miles to blow more than cocaine if he could. Greg
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: knew what that meant. Pretty soon Sli would replace Greg
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: with that meister rhythm king Mark too. He was in
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: love with a fucking machine, Gregor Rico bail before the
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: record was even finished. When that record, was A Riot
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Going On was finally released in November of nineteen seventy one,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: two years had passed since Woodstock, closer to two and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a half years since the band's last studio album. Regardless,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Riot went to number one because people were clamoring for
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: something new from Slide, but what they got wasn't what
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: they expected. There's a Riot Going On was hangover music.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: It sounded exhausted, pessimistic. The vibrant, life affirming songs that
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: defined the Family Stone's first four studio albums were long gone.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Even Family Affair. The leadoff single was funk Music on
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Life Support. Rock critic Grail Marcus famously referred to the
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: record as musaic with its finger on the trigger, and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: although it had since been reevaluated as one of the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: greatest u turns in rock history, at the time of
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: its release, there's a riot going on sounded like a shock.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: It even shocked Larry Graham, the band's bass player. Larry
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: just wanted to be funky, which this shit most definitely
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: was not, at least not in a conventional sense. It
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: didn't help that Sly begin to suspect that Larry had
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: hired his own muscle to do him in. Someone had
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: tried to poison him. Sly was sure of it. At
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a party, Who else was the target of those spike
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: drinks if not Sly? Such was the conceit of ego,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and the ego had landed an alter ego. Sly Stone
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: was just that a character created by a man named
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Sylvester Stewart. And Sylvester Stewart wasn't himself anymore. He was
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the other guy. He was Sly. Sly was taken over.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Sly was obsessed, Sly fixated. Sly said, did you see
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: that shadow, What was that noise? Who is that person
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: over there? And are they cool? Somebody's watching you, brother,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the others in the family. Stone chalked it up as
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the corruption of Sylvester Stewart by his alter ego, which
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: was only made worse by the corruption rock by the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: powers that be in Los Angeles. Southern California was fear, drugs,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and delusion, the heart of darkness. Sly's own heart had
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: gone dark. None of the shit even faced him, not
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: even in February of nineteen seventy three when the pounding
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: started on the front door of seven eighty three bel
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Air loud, progressive. It could be the county sheriff and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: maybe the Feds. Look around cocaine everywhere, Angel does, sedatives, rifles, guns,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: and that fucking psycho Mutt. But sly didn't panic. Sly
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: oozed cool. Sly Stone had people to take care of
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: shit like this, people on both the right and the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: wrong side of the law. But the guy who created
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the sly Stone alter ego, Sylvester Stewart, he was scared shitless.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: He was at numb plus like slide. He was plused
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: as shit. Slye was in control like he always was.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Sly said, yeah, man, Lenna, come in, let him break
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: down the door. What did he have to lose? Sylvester
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Stewart meanwhile, was sweating his ass off. He had plenty
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: to lose. The question was just how much would he
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: lose when that front door swung open and the outside
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: world came crashing in. Word was sly Stone had gone
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: full on Howard Hughes. He was a recluse, a hermit,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: growing out his fingernails and pissing into jars. The rumors
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: were everywhere. Sly Stone was not. I was once the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: ecstatic face of rock and roll's future, and that face
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: was all over the place. The Open Coliseum, Winterland and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: San Francisco, the psychedelic supermarket in Boston, to Fillmore West,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the Fillmore East, Detroit, Vegas, Decatur, Harlem ed Sullivan Top
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: of the Pops on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: From nineteen sixty seven to nineteen sixty nine, sly and
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the Family Stone cranked out four breathless albums and a
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: couple of non album singles that mass genres and blue
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: minds dance to the music, sing a simple song, thank
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: you for letting me be myself again? Everyday people they
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: could not miss. They were the epitome of late sixties cool,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: on the cutting edge of the music industry, and they
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: delivered each new creation with confidence and virtuosic talent. Slah
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Stone had worked towards this moment for years back in
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the Leahoe when he was still a just Sylvester Stewart,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: one of five kids singing gospel music in his father's
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Pentecostal church, touring churches up and down California. He knew
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: he was probably the most talented kid in the house
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: full of talent, but he didn't hog that talent. He
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: spread the love and the joy. His idea of family
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: wasn't limited to the people living under his roof. He
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: ran with a local gang. Actually, the Cherrybusters were less
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: a gang and more a bunch of kids who just
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: wanted to look cool together, which, as anyone who has
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: started a rock band can attest, is probably even more
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: important than sounded cool. For at least the beginning stages,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Sylvester sounded cool from the jump. His dynamic voice made
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: him a regional celebrity. As a DJ on KSOLFM, the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: number two black station in San Francisco. He spun Dylan
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: and the Beatles next to his latest arm B tracks.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: No one was crossing genres like that on commercial radio.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: His reputation as a tastemaker grew. A small local label
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: hired him as a house producer. Sly oversaw early hits
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: by white rock groups like The Beau Brummels and The
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Mojo Man. Legend has it. He even helped the Little
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Bay area band called the Warlocks produced their nineteen sixty
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: five track Kick Come Down, just one month before they
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: changed their name to The Grateful Dead. Music was freedom, black,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: white rock, soul. Any attempts to defind a song didn't
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: do it justice. It undersold the experience. Music was about expression,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the feel, the harmony, the possibility. When he became Sly Stone,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Sylvester Stewart took it one step further. He wanted his
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: music to make people happy, no matter their color or creed.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Sly and the Family Stone walked that walk from their
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: inception in nineteen sixty six. Sly's brother Freddy on guitar on,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Larry Grahama on bass, Two Black Men, Sly's sister Rose
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: on keys, and Cynthia Robison on trumpet, Two Black Women,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Jerry Martini on saxophone and Gregor Riico on drums. Two
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: white men, But when they sang thank you for letting
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: me be myself, they didn't just mean their gender, or
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: color or their skin. They were talking about all that
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: leverprint robes and caves, wigs and go go skirts, afros
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and knee on jewelry and goggle shades. Like any gang
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: worth their salt, the family Stone had their look down.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: He took them until their second album, nineteen sixty Eights
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: danced to the music to get their sound down too.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: The album's title track, which managed to introduce all seven
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: members of the band in just three minutes, was the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: band's first top ten hit. As the calendar turned from
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight to nineteen sixty nine, Their single Everyday
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: People held the number one spot on the Billboard Hot
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: one hundred for four weeks. But slash Stone, or rather
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Sylvester Stewart's self doubt, grew an equal measure to his
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: band's success. What if the next single wasn't as good
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: as the last? What if the band couldn't maintain this
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: level of excellence? What if the crowds kept getting bigger
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: sly one from being everywhere to being nowhere. In nineteen
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: seventy alone, he missed twenty six of the family Stone's
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: eighty scheduled gigs. It's not like he was backstage with
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: a case of cold feet bailing at the last minute.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: He didn't even bother the shoe up. That was the
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: rumor floating around the crowd of seventy five thousand at
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Grand Park in Chicago July in nineteen seventy. The Free
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: show was an olive branch from an unreliable and erratic grifter,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: a show to make up for the last Chicago show,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: which Slide missed. The rumors ran as hot as a
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: ninety degree temperature. Slide didn't give a fuck about Chicago
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: shit man. Slide wasn't even in the state. The audience
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: was hot, drunk, and stoned, and they chanted Sly's name
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: over and over it. Sly never took stage, so the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: crowd did. Thousands of people surged, feet, trampled bodies, bottles
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and rocks, sword through the air. Chicago pead swarmed. The
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: crowd picked up whatever they could find, sticks, dirt, scraps
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of asphalt, possum, and the cops responded with teargas, red
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: and swollen faces cried out, windows shattered, street signs and
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: lampposts uprooted. A police cruiser was overturned. Another was set
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: on fire. Rioters jumped from the bushes and ambushed the cops.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: The pigs are rich, they yelled, like they were on
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the Cambodian border. Keep attacking. The cops drew their service revolvers.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Shots rang out hot fun in the summertime. At nine
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to fifty pm, about six hours after the riot began,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: it was over one hundred and fifty arrests. At least
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: one hundred people, including twenty four cops, were treated for injuries.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Three kids had been shot by the police, and sly
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Stone he was far far away. He was back home.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Some said he only left the sanctuary to ride around
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and is one of bago. Others said an impostor was
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: now playing the role of Sly. The real sly Stone
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Sylvester Stewart that motherfucker was dead. Lapd got that particular
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: tip from a phone call. He was nineteen seventy three.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: A voice on the other end of the line said,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: there's a dead body at seven eighty three, bel Air.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: The cops went over to Sly's place, ready for anything.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: His reputation preceded him. He had a recent bust at
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: his Winnebago out on Santa Monica Boulevard to thank for that.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Now cops were banging on slie front door and his
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: muscle tried to stall. No use, The cops are inside.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Within seconds. They told everyone to stay where they were
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and not to fucking move. They opened every drawer, returned
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: every cushion, No dead body, lots of guns, drugs too.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Sly Stone didn't give a fuck, and when Sylvester Stewart
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: protested from somewhere in the back of his mind, Slie
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: placated him with more drugs. Later at the courthouse, sly
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: slipped into the bathroom to snort coat off the countertop.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: He could do whatever he wanted, go a wall from
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a scheduled concert, get high in court. He was untouchable.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: His lawyer disagreed, sly he can't do this. As lawyer said,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: that's what I pay you for. Sly responded, so I
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: can do this. Sly's defense argued that the guns the
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: LAPD confiscated were part of an antique collection and that
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the pills were prescription drugs. Slide didn't know if the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: cops had found any of the KINE or PCP. He
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: was barely paying attention and he didn't really care. In
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the end, he got one year's probation in court ordered rehab.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: That little slap on the wrist didn't so much hurt,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: but the next slap did. That came courtesy of Clive Davis,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: president of Columbia Records, parent company of Sly's label Epic.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Clive was irritated Sly was late delivering his new album
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: There's a Riot Going On was two years old now,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and why couldn't Slide be more like Marvin or Stevie?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: For Sly's peers, every year meant at least one new album.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Wasn't Sly a genius like the rest? It didn't help
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: that the record plant in Sasolito, the one place Sly
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: would leave his home studio for these days, wasn't exactly
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: conducive to getting work done. They built Sly's own room,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: called the Pit, sunken floor, carpetageacuzzi lothbed for when the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: hour stretched into days. Clive was pissed. He suspended Sly's contract.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Shape up or ship out? Fuck that Sly thought. No
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: one told Sly I want to finish a record, not
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: even Clive Davis. So Slide took matters into his own hands.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: He went down to the record plan, flanked by two
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: of his dudes, big menacing types. The record plan's manager
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: didn't know if these were the guys she'd heard about
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: underworld mafioso types like Edward Eddie chan Elliott or Jr.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Of L Toronto, the kind of company Sly kept these days.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: But she didn't need to know their names. She saw
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the pieces strapped to their belts, and she knew they
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: meant business. And when Sly spoke in that low, menacing voice,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: practically an octave deeper than how he sounded on the records,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it was obvious he was all business. Give me my
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: fucking tapes. The tapes aka Sly is still unfinished new album.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: But the tapes didn't belong to Sly, they were property
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of Epic. Sly could give it, damn. Those were his
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: songs on those tapes, his voice, his blood, his sweat,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: his tears. He repeated his demand the fucking tapes now.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: The studio manager wasn't backing down. Sly Stone didn't scare
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: if one of his goons wanted to get knots, and fine,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: let's get knots. Go ahead and shoot. Sly knew you.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: This wasn't working. He calmed his voice, told his guys
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: to chill. He asked the manager if the two of
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: them could speak privately in a different room. Out of
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: earshot of his muscle, sly went from a shot callar
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: to a beggar. Don't embarrass me, he said, please just
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: give me the tapes. But the studio manager wasn't the
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: one embarrassing Sly. He was just embarrassing himself, and he
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: knew it was true. He left the record plant empty handed,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and he felt about as low as that sunken floor
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: room at the record plant, and soon he'd feel even
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the lower. We'll be right back after this, word, word word.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: June twenty second, nineteen eighty three, Fort Myers, Florida, Imada
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Airport Hotel. There was no answer from Room two twenty one.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: The bell hop knocked a second time with his free hand.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: The other hand balanced a tray of hotel food. He
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: waited nothing, and this was odd. He knew someone was
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in there. The front desk had received several calls that morning,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: sly Stone demanding room service. He sounded as angry as
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the previous night, when he stoned into the hotel lobby
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: after playing at a local bar, said the owner stiffed them.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: The motherfucker didn't pay up. That pissed Sly off, not
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: just because it was wrong, but because Sly needed the money.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Bad finances had been a bit since the mid nineteen seventies. Fresh,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the album Sly labored over at the record plan and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: finally delivered in the middle of nineteen seventy three, was
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: a solid effort with some great songs, like the single
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: if You Want Me to Stay, but each subsequent release
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: offered diminishing returns. The bottom line and his bank account
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: diminished too, so did the family Stone original members left
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: one by one. It was hard not to embrace complete
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: disillusionment while your band leader embrace complete self destruction. By
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the time of the nineteen seventy sixth album Heard You
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Miss Me While I'm Back, Cynthia Robinson was the only
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: holdover from the Glory Days, and even she eventually left.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Despite the record's title, no one was missing Sly all
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: that much by that point. The title of his next album,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine's Back on the Right Track, gave the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: impression that things were chugging along just fine. It was
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: all for show. Sly had gone off the rails long
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: before in the mid seventies. Broke, strung out and still paranoid,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: sly Stone hit up his friend in one time manager
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Ken Roberts, for some money. Sly was desperate. In exchange
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: for the cash, he irrevocably made Roberts the recipient of
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: his performance right royalties, which is the money a songwriter
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: is paid every time his song is performed, meaning on
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the radio, concerts, jukeboxes, stadiums. So not a good deal
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: for Sly. In nineteen eighty, the IRS levied a multimillion
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: dollar taxilian on Sly's income due to years of unpaid taxes,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: which meant that he didn't even see the majority of
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the money he was making from his music. Sly had
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: nothing left but a habit. He felt that habit call
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: out to him as he made a bee line to
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the lobby of the Fort Myers Ramata. His nerves shook
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: like a low eastring plucked by Larry Graham's thumb. Freedom
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: awaited him upstairs in Room two twenty one. The next morning,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the bell hop continued to knock on Sly's door louder,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: this time, still only silence. He began to worry, what
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: with Sly's demeanor the night before in the reputation. He
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: dragged around the bellhop called for the general manager, who
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: quickly appeared with a key. He unlocked the door and
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: slowly turned the doorknob, and the men stepped inside. They
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: saw two bodies, sly Stone and a woman, both out cold.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Next to sly was a glass pipe, a torch, a
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: razor with white powder. When the paramedics arrived, sly was
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: starting to come too, and they asked him if he'd
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: been freebasing cocaine. Yes, sly responded, but it's all gone,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: not just the drugs, the money, the family, Stone, everything
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: was gone. But sly Stone was given a chance to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: get it all back, the good things at least, if
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: he stayed away from drugs, then the money, the family,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: of the music, they could all be his again. He
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: just had to do one thing. All he had to
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: do is recognize that sly Stone was a character that he,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Sylvester Stewart, had control over, and if Sylvester refused to
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: give in to slie demands, he didn't cater to Slize
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: every urge he'd once again achieve greatness. This was the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: solution presented by the staff at the Lee Mental Health Clinic,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a six acre retreat in Fort Myers, where sly Stone
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: did six months of court ordered drug rehab in nineteen
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: eighty four following his conviction for possessing freebasing paraphernalia. For
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: those six months, it seemed to work. Sly receded into
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the background and Sylvester peeked out from behind those dark,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: oversized glasses. He was clean, coherent, focused, he was thankful
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and thoughtful. But when he was released from reab he
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: was still broke. Sylvester Stewart didn't make the money. Sly
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Stone made the money. Sly Stone had always made the money.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: So sly Stone got to work. Sly sold his publishing
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: interest in most of his compositions to Michael Jackson as
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a way to pay off debts. This was in nineteen
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: eighty five, the same year that the Kingdom pop famously
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: took control of the Beatles catalog from Paul McCartney, and
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: then at the end of the decade, according to sly himself,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: sly began a professional relationship with a manager named Jerry Goldstein,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Sly later alleged that between December of nineteen eighty eight
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and February of nineteen eighty nine, Goldstein, through his company
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Goldstein Music, made about thirty loans to Sly one hundred
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: dollars here on dollars there. The loans helped Sly pay
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: living expenses and pay for more cocaine. But in late
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: February nineteen eighty nine, Goldstein, in his attorney, had a
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: new proposition. If Sly wanted to keep getting cash loans
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and thus keep getting drugs, Goldstein told him that he
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: needed to sign an agreement that made his entity even Street,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the manager of Sly's personal and professional financial affairs. The
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: pitch was this, Sly was still in deep with the irs,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: it would be better if his assets weren't his name,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: and if his royalty payments weren't being sent directly to him.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: The deals a lifeline. It would ensure that his cash
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: flow wouldn't completely dry up and that there would always
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: be a little scratch he could get his hands on
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: when he was desperate. Because at nineteen eighty nine, at
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the end of a decade in which he was arrested
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: numerous times for failure to pay child support, for possession
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: of cocaine, for violation of probation, and for state narcotics charges.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Sly Stone was perhaps more desperate than he'd ever been.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: He failed to appear in an LA court for those
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: narcotics charges and instead fled the state, running away to getaway.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: He was hiding out in New Jersey, Connecticut under the
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: name Sylvester Allen. A California judge issued a bench warrant
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: for his arrest. Sly Stone ended the nineteen eighties as
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: a fugitive. Sly Stone was nowhere to be found, But
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: what else was new? He was always late. He was
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: laid to his own wedding in May of nineteen seventy
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: four fromt of twenty one thousand people at Madison Square Garden.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Decades later, in two thousand and six, he was laid
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: to a musical tribute in his honor at the Grammy Awards.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Five Songs into a Star studded Metal. He appeared blonde moawk,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: silver robe, platform boots, cast on one arm, owing after
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: he played half of one song. It was all part
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: of Sly's legend. His behavior grew to overshadow his astonishing
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: body of music. He was a JD. Salinger of funk.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: He was unstable and unreliable, the wildest of wild cards
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and rock and roll stck, a once brilliant pop and
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: funk king whose years of hard drugs turned him into
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: a joker. Sly Stone was a cautionary tale, and now
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: in twenty ten, the crowd at the coach Hell of
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Valley Music and Arts Festival kicking themselves for not heating
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: that tale, for allowing themselves to get excited over a
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: comeback show and a reunion that, on paper seemed like
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: a long shot. It was two in the morning, some
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: three hours after a reunited Sly and the Family Stone
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: were scheduled to take the stage. The collective desire to
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: witness Sly take a festival crowd higher like he had
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: all those years before at Woodstock. That was an ultimate
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: act of desperation by fans stuck in their past. You
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: can make it if you try. Were fucking naive, hit
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: dippy bullshit. That was. But then a little after two
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: am people began to take the stage. There were the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: horn players Cynthia and Jerry, and look, Freddie Stone Ship,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Gregor Rigo on drums. It was happening. The Family Stone
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and materializing right before their eyes, and then Sly, is
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: it really him, the guy in the long blonde wig
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: with the Captain's at Holy shit, it was him. But
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the band's attempt to finish just one song were fractured
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and pitiful. Ditto for every time Sly stopped the song
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: to mumble into the mic. He told the crowd that
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: he'd been kidnapped, that he had a lawsuit pending against
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: his former manager, Jerry Goldstein, and that he'd been living
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: in hotels. It all sounded like the ramblings of a
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: crazy person, but there was some truth to what he
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: was saying. The following year, in twenty eleven, a profile
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: on The New York Post revealed that Sly was in
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: fact penniless, homeless, and living in a white camper van
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: that he parked on the side of a residential street
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: in Ellie's Crenshaw neighborhood. Just a few years earlier, the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: cash advances had stopped rolling in from Jerry Goldstein. Sly
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: had nothing, and that caused him to take a harder
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: look at the agreements he signed Back in nineteen eighty nine.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: He cried foul, said he'd been conned, coerced to signed
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: his life away when he was at his most vulnerable,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and then after he signed the agreements, Jerry Goldstein's lawyer
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: negotiated a settlement of Sly's irs taxing in nineteen ninety six,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: which meant that for fifteen years, Sly's royalties were not
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: going to tax collectors but to banks and companies managed
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: by Goldstein, including roughly three million dollars from BMI alone.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: So Sly sued, and in twenty fifteen a Los Angeles
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Superior Court jury found that slie Stone had not been
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: fully paid for his songwriting royalties. Jerry Goldstein, his lawyer,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: in their Entity Even Street, owede Sly five million dollars
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: in royalties and damages. The verdict was huge. Sly thanked
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: the everyday people of the jury. With that money, he
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: could stop living in a van on the streets. He
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: could pull himself out of poverty. Sly Stone one of
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the most creative musical minds of the twentieth century. He
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: could finally get some of his dignity back, get clean,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: make a new record, Take the People Higher one more time,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and maybe Sylvester Stewart will get his too once again,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: take control over his alter ego like he had for
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: those few months at the lead mental health clinic in
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: the eighties. Put the badshit behind him. Forget about running
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: away living in the lamb, busted under a phony name
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: and Connecticut an extra died it back to California. They
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: locked him up. They never threw away the key. Forget
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: about the more recent run ins with Johnny Law, like
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the one in twenty eleven when the lapd pulled over
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: his van for some stupid traffic violation and claimed they
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: found cocaine rocks in his clothes. Freedom from all that
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: bullshit was going to be a brand new high, but
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: the high didn't last. Just eleven months after winning his
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: court case, in December of twenty fifteen, a Superior court
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: judge ruled that sly Stone would not be able to
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: collect the five million dollars after all. In his decision,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: the judge said that when sly Stone assigned his royalties
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to Evens Street in nineteen eighty nine, he was given
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: a fifty percent ownership of the company. In return, mister
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Stewart entered the agreement with the assistance of advisers, that
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: judge wrote, who received a substantial benefit. At the time
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: of the ruling, sly Stone was seventy two years old.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: For eleven months in twenty fifteen, sly Stone lived in
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: a dream, A dream in which he got when he
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: was owed and then some A dream in which things
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: finally went up for once instead of down. A dream
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: where the world took sly Stone higher. But just like
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the final years of the nineteen sixties, when Slyn the family,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Stone channeled a dream of inclusion, acceptance, and joy to
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: their groundbreaking music, this dream wasn't meant to last and
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: end it like all dreams do, leaving sliz Stone living
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: in the here and now in the real world, a
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: world that is full of disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: episode can be found on the show notes page at
• 34:31
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• 34:35
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• 34:38
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• 34:41
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• 34:45
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• 34:49
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• 34:51
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• 34:55
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• 35:00
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• 35:04
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• 35:17
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