It’s a Sullivan moment as iconic as Elvis, The Beatles, or The Supremes. Sly & The Family Stone got the coveted call to be featured performers in December 1968. Following Sly’s invocation, “Don’t hate the Black, don’t hate the White/If you get bit, just hate the bite,” the band stormed through a torrid medley of their hits. As the band continued to cook, Sly and his sister Rose mischievously leapt off the stage and danced giddily together down the center aisle. The buttoned-down Sullivan crowd was frozen in equal parts delirium, terror, shock, and awe amid the ruins of the shattered Fourth Wall. At the climax, Sly punctuated by signing off: “Thank you for letting us be ourselves!” Ed Sullivan called Sly over for a final on-camera handshake, his signature stamp of approval.
San Francisco’s adopted son had finally arrived …
Of paradigm-shifting legends who’ve made recent transitions, the epitaph following the death of Sylvester Stewart/Sly Stone, is inarguably the most elusive and perplexing. One of the undisputed vanguard and influential music creators in the late 20th century, Stone left a brilliant, frightening, messy Gordian knot of a life which remains largely undeciphered. What is unmistakable is the unparalleled genius behind dozens of hits and a catalog of more than 100 official releases that near single-handedly recalibrated the globe’s ear for popular music.