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EYEWITNESS

SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE’S FRESH HELL

Bringing rock, funk and soul into interracial harmony, super-swaggering polymath Sly Stone changed the course of popular music with 1971’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On. But, derailed by endless dunes of cocaine, mob tactics and selfsabotage, 1973’s Fresh was his last creative stand, given added guignol by a doomed showbiz wedding on-stage at Madison Square Garden. “You can’t really fathom how deep that shit was,” remember friends and colleagues. “Sly said, ‘I have done too much wrong, I don’t think God will take me back…’” Interviews byJOEL SELVIN

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Let me have it all: Sly Stone in a spin, on-stage in 1973.
Portrait by RICHARD McCAFFREY
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Mojo
Dec-23
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