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

pulling him down. And that was his struggle, more or
less. It is tough being black, I guess. But I'm glad he realized there
were people of his own race trying to pull him down, and people
of other races pushing him down. I never had that much of a
problem."
    There were problems, Frank also remembers, with interracial
dating, even though Sly's natural-born attractiveness transcended
any color barrier. Frank compares the young Sly with their black
piano-and-trumpet-playing schoolmate John Turk, who'd known
Sly since childhood and would continue their musical relationship
into the 1970s. "The difference was, John Turk was kind of like a
lounge lizard, everybody knew what he was there for, and John
Turk was there just to go get some white women. Sly, on the other
hand, was there and had white women go for him.... They
bugged him, they'd call him, and I was there for some of those
calls, the finest girls. He'd make a date with 'em, and then he
couldn't go pick 'em up. So guess who did? Yours truly!"
    Thus Frank found himself yet again pressed, or persuaded,
into service for his buddy. "I'd say, `How the hell do you think
they're gonna like a Filipino pickin"em up any more than a black
guy?' He goes, `But, man, you're not a nigger: It worked. We never
had any problem. I got a few weird looks, but nobody told the girls,
`You can't go out with him: Then the parents would say, `But you guys be home by twelve."' Frank would take the date to a prearranged meeting point, deliver her to Sly, and then connect with
one of his own. "I'd say, `Okay, be back here by 11:30 and I'll take
her home.' But I'd have to wait till 1:30 or 2:00, and then take 'em
home! Thanks a lot, Sly."

    Frank thought that Sly shared everything with him, but he
didn't realize how well his friend was living up to his new nickname. During the L.A. stay, for example, Sly had been taking side
trips with songwriters Motola and Page to record solo projects
without the knowledge of his fellow travelers. Back in Vallejo, Sly
had started making recordings with his younger brother, Freddie,
and others, and on some weekends sustaining his instrumental
chops with club bands in the black part of the Terraces, also without telling the other Viscaynes that he might have competing gigs.
    On a double date shortly before spring graduation in '61 (Sly
had to wait and make up a unit in summer school before getting
his diploma), Frank came to the realization that his best friend had
been secretly carrying on a relationship with a sister Viscayne, Ria
Boldway. More than any other member of the group, Ria seems to
have been sensitive to racial issues in their community. She and Sly
and John Turk all joined a group called the Youth Problems Committee, specifically to address these matters. Ria was also more
interested than most of her white girlfriends, even as a preteen, in
the rhythm and blues being beamed toward the Bay Area black
demographic over KDIA radio. Ria now recalls how she'd been
inspired by "Ray Charles and [jazz vocalist] Betty Carter performing together. And it's so funny, because even Sammy Davis was too
square for me by the time I was sixteen. He wasn't funky enough
for me."
    Although she was two grades behind Sly, Ria shared choir
practice with him, and apparently a certain amount of classroom mischief. Despite their superior voices, they both ended up flunking one semester of choir, having amused themselves by baiting a
substitute teacher. As far as Ria knew, Sly got "great grades" otherwise, and was generally a standout among the student body. "He
was a star before he ever became a star," she says. "He just glittered
when he walked, like Richard Cory," in the poem by Edward
Arlington Robinson, which was also a popular folk song.

    Ria points to other juvenile harbingers of later Sly Stone
behavior, including "his smile, and his ability to put everybody on.
And I understood what he was doing, and most people didn't. He