[JPL] Re: Sly not showing for a concert

[Arturo]

I had to chuckle when I read Jae's recollection about Sly tardiness at
appearing for a concert as it copnjured up a bittersweet memory for me, it
was the summer of 1970 and my ex and me when when we were just shacking up
before marrying along with our best friend couple went to Inglewood's then
new Fabulous Forum(home of the Lakers and Kings) to see one of our favorite
bands, Sly & The Family Stone. The opening act was unknown to us at that
time, a funky horn band out of Oakland named Tower of Power with Rick
Stevens on vocals(Rick is still doing time in Folsom for murder), wow Tower
had 18,000 folks shaking they fannies for nearly 2 hours, then 1/2 hr went
by and no Sly, then an hour, still nada, finally a spokeperson said there
will be a bit more of a delay before Sly and Family played so they brought
out Tower again and they played for about 30 minutes more much to the
delight of everyone, then after a short break, the Family Stone minues
Slvester Stewart began to play a song and then Sly staggered onto to stage
and it was quite obvious to everyone that he was pardon the pun, stoned out
of his mind and his playing and singing were atrocious and folks included my
crew walked out 4 songs into the set. We were terribly dissapointed with Sly
and stopped being fans of theirs however we became huge fans followers and
perhaps groupies of Tower seeing them 15-20 times over the next 2-3 years in
So Cal and traveling to San Diego, San Fran and Phoenix to see them perform
live. My ex knitted a skull cap for trumpeter Greg Adams who wears it on the
cover of their 3rd LP, the self-titled release with What is Hip for Warner
Brothers with Lenny Williams as lead singer. I recall that about this time
Sly was busted on the Sunset Strip in a motor home when he was pulled over
by the L A Sherrifs and found several kilos of cocaine......One of my pals
from back then remembers Sly as an influential radio host for a progressive
radio station in the S F Bay area(KSAN?) in the early 60s before becoming a
musician.

Arturo