Over more than 50 years of going to concerts, many of them in my job as a music journalist, I’ve seen thousands of shows. Sly Stone, who died on Monday at the age of 82, was responsible for what I’d say was one of the five most memorable shows I’ve ever attended.
That doesn’t mean it was a good show, mind you. In fact, it was terrible – but man was it memorable. And it’s a measure of just how singular Stone was as a performer, a songwriter and a cultural force that I would happily sit through the whole godawful mess again, and so, I imagine, would the couple hundred people who suffered through it with me.
Because on a night when Stone was late (no surprise), probably chemically addled (ditto) and barely able to play, the memory of what he had accomplished and what his music meant hung in the air inside the Las Palmas Theater, a dingy joint off Hollywood Boulevard that was occupied by a batch of true believers who heard the sloppy, lazy sound coming from the stage and willed it in our minds to become the sinewy, expansive funk that Stone pioneered 20 years earlier.
We hated what he was doing and we loved being there to watch him do it. That was Sly.
This happened back in November of 1987, when Stone announced that he would perform four shows at the Las Palmas, a 375-seat theater that normally played host to Frank Sinatra imitations courtesy of promoter Nick Edenetti. But Edenetti apparently lived in the same apartment building as Stone, who’d spent the last decade-plus making a little bit of music but showing up late if he showed up all, while getting arrested for drugs and for failing to pay back taxes and child support. His career needed a boost, even as paltry a boost as the Las Palmas could provide, so a deal was struck and it was set: two shows a night, 8:00 and 10:00, for two nights, Wednesday and Thursday, $24 a ticket.
The Los Angeles Times asked me to review the show, so I showed up a little before 8 p.m. to find a handful of fans milling about and stagehands just beginning to set up the equipment. Stone wasn’t there yet, of course, but nobody minded.
“It wouldn’t be Sly if he showed up on time,” said one fan with a shrug.
At 8:45, Sly did show up. Timely, by his standards. But another 20 minutes passed, and a woman came onstage, introduced herself as Marisa Stewart and announced, “We’re waiting for one more member of the band, and it’s not Sly.”
Sensing an opportunity, an audience member yelled, “Do you need a drummer?”
“No,” she said. “We need a guitarist.” She wasn’t joking. A guitarist came out of the audience and followed her backstage.
At 9:42, almost an hour and 45 minutes after the first show was scheduled to start and only 18 minutes before the late show was supposed to begin, the audience decided that they couldn’t wait for Sly Stone music. So they started singing his hit “Dance to the Music,” continuing until Edenetti came onstage and said,”There won’t be two shows. It’s gonna be one long show. Probably one of the best shows you’ve seen in your life.”
Stewart poked her head out from backstage and offered that Bobby Womack was the band member who hasn’t arrived. Five minutes later, Edenetti announced that Womack had arrived. A few minutes after that, the audience started singing “Hot Fun in the Summertime.”
And then at 10:00 (right on time for the late show!) Stone took the stage wearing a pink sweatsuit and black-fringed boots. “They’re not gonna keep me out of this business, no way,” he muttered, his head inches from his keyboard and his microphone squealing with feedback.
He tried to play “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” which sounded better when the audience was doing it. The band consisted of one big name, Billy Preston, along with the guitarist and a second keyboardist who were recruited from the audience. Not surprisingly, they sounded seriously under-rehearsed. (Womack did not show up, and his rep later said he was never booked for the show even though his name was on the marquee.)
Stone played for 21 minutes, forgetting the words to “If You Want Me to Stay” and then telling the audience he’ll be back in five minutes, “maybe nine minutes at the most.” He paused and then added, “Honest to God, I know you think I’m leaving, but I won’t.”
The promised five-to-nine minute intermission ended up lasting for 39 minutes, which gave the audience time to sing three more songs on their own. Then Stone came back, played for 16 more minutes and left again, followed by a three-minute encore. A crowd of fans surrounded the box office asking for refunds, to no avail.
I detailed all of this in my review in the Times, and ended with this:
“One of pop music’s most mercurial talents emerged from seclusion with a sloppy, woefully unrehearsed show that was, in the end, more a sorry footnote to his career than a bona-fide comeback attempt. And still, his audience hung around in the hope that he’d summon up a little bit of the old Sly magic. They sang his songs to him, and they danced in the aisles when he gave half a reason to do so.
“That says something for the power of the music that this man made — two decades ago.”
Postscript: The Times sent me back to the Las Palmas Theater the following night to see if the second show was any better. That night, Stone was arrested for nonpayment of child support as he tried to enter the theater and was taken to jail before the show could begin. Edenetti promised to bail Stone out and get him back onstage, but he never did. A fistfight between Edenetti and a disgruntled patron broke out in the lobby.
And nights like that, I suppose, are part of the legacy that Sly Stone leaves behind. But I have no doubt that everybody who attended those Hollywood shows almost 38 years ago has indelible memories of being part of an audience that was responsible for the best music that was made that night: the group singalongs of “Dance to the Music,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime” and “I Want to Take You Higher” that turned a debacle into a bonding experience.
But maybe it’s wrong to say that the crowd was responsible for that music. The maddening brilliance of Sly Stone brought those songs into being; on a chilly November night, our motley crew of disappointed concertgoers simply became the latest to give them life when Sly no longer could. And as long as funky music exists, other musicians and fans will no doubt be doing the same.