I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly and the Family Stone by Jeff Kaliss Read Free Book Online Page A

local clubs. But "it's hard to do a hundred percent both
ways," points out Sly's former KDIA colleague Chuck Scruggs.
"He'd come in late and leave in a hurry ... and I believe he left the
station because he got so busy, he couldn't make his air schedule."
Had Sly stayed in radio, "He probably would have developed his style.... He commanded an audience, because he was a people
person, and he was [from] the community."

    Bob Jones, another KDIA DJ, says that the station, for a while,
held on to hopes that Sly would return to the airwaves someday
after leaving them in 1966. But in any case, Bob is grateful for Sly's
radio legacy. "Sly was absolutely good theater," says Bob. "He
always had an opening and a closing, and the opening was dramatic. He was definitely an influence on me, and I was doing the
same thing later: theater for the mind." Over the next couple of
decades, though, on-air "personalities," black, white, or otherwise,
who spun discs while ad-libbing their way into the ears and hearts
of their listeners would gradually disappear from the dial.
    Ria Boldway, finishing up at Vallejo High, stuck by Sly during
those busy years when he was transitioning from school into multiple careers. During her senior year (1962-1963), Ria had started
spending more time at the small place Sly had rented in Vallejo
after moving out of his childhood home on Denio Street. She ultimately moved to San Francisco, accompanying Sly on some of his
gigs with the Mojo Men. Of Sly's radio days, she remembers that
"he was incredibly popular, as he was in high school. He was
always one to show off, be lighthearted, and laugh his head off, and
that's what he did on the radio as well." But Sly was also capable
of being serious in an intimate setting. Ria had brought up marriage, and Sly had talked about having kids. "He said, `Oh, we'll
have the most beautiful little golden babies,"' she recalls. "Now,
I'm a dark human being [of Mediterranean mien]. `He'll never
have golden babies with me,' I thought to myself. But instead of
saying anything to him, I kept it to myself."
    In one offhand moment, Sly told Ria, "I'm gonna get a blond
wife and a white car and a white dog." She hadn't worried about
the remark till Sly's attention began drifting away from her. Her regret came to a head one night when Sly bid her good-bye before
taking off for a gig at the Condor. "I think I was still underage and
couldn't go to some clubs yet," Ria says. "He'd gotten dressed and
he got into a white Cadillac convertible with [the blond Condor
waitress-turned-topless-icon] Carol Doda. And he went off. And
I realized a whole lot of things then: that it was just not gonna happen, that we would not get married, as we had spoken of doing.
He had other things on his mind; it was all career."

    After that sad realization, "I talked to his mother and his father,
and moped around the house for a while. I realized it was not
gonna go anywhere. His mama didn't want it to anyway,'cause she
was afraid my father would kill him. She loved me and everything,
like one of the little kids she took care of. She said, `Just let him go
and do what he needs to do: And I did." Ria later left the country
and married another man, but cherished her memories of her high
school lover and would try to get close to him a couple of more
times-after he'd launched himself into fame with the Family
Stone.

     

Dance to
the Music

1966-1968

    Black and white, the young rebels are free
people, free in a way that Americans have
never been before in the history of their
country.
    -ELDRIDGE CLEAVER
Soul on Ice
    HE APPETITE FOR LIVE MUSIC
in San Francisco in the late '60s
supported an effervescent club
scene in the North Beach neighborhood and beyond, where youthful talent could mature. Before deploying his considerable guitar
skills around the city's clubs, Sly's younger brother, Freddie, had
studied music in college for a short while and had been briefly