Sly and Brian: Deep Sense of Boomer Loss

Waking up last Wednesday with the news that Sly Stone had died was a hit in the gut. I bought his records, danced happily to his songs, and in fact played a few of them over and over again on 45s. I also waited 90 minutes for a free concert at the Chicago Lakefront for him to not show [the first Mayor Daley banished him forever from playing in the city since it was a city-sponsored free concert]. “Troubled Genius” is truly what Sly Stone was. The reality was/is that Sly had a brief, luminescent career of about a decade until the mid - 70’s and then he faded from view for the better part of the last several decades due to heavy drug use and mental illness as a result. This is why most Millennials and Digital Natives have never heard of him. However, Sly absolutely changed popular music and influenced many major artists during his candescently bright yet short career.

[NOTE: This is the first of a series of columns on generations, obviously this one about the Boomers. I have long spoken and written about generations. To me they show a way into the future if one looks at the progressions from generation to generation. The generations are the Boomers, the GenXers, the Millennials, and the Digital Natives. The last two are most often referred to as Gen Y and Gen Z. I will explain the names in a future column.]

To quote from the New York Times Obituary on Sly Stone:

“As the critic Joel Selvin said: “There was Black music before Sly Stone and Black music after Sly Stone”. …Though Mr. Stone eventually receded from center stage, his vibrant, intricately arranged songs left her mark on a host of top artists, including George Clinton, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Michael Jackson, Outkast, Red Hot Chili Peppers and D’Angelo as well as jazz musicians like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock.”

….Sly and the Family Stone’s most recognizable songs, many of which would be sampled by hip-hop artists, include “Everyday People”. “Dance to the Music”. “ I Want to Take You Higher”, “Family Affair”. “Hot Fun in the Summertime” and “Thank You[Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin]

Here is a link to the full New York Times obituary

The cultural significance of Sly Stone cannot be overstated. At a time of growing black power and the separation of black and white music, he put together a multi-racial and a mixed gender band with white men and women along with black men and women with huge afros. He helped to make the afro hair style popular, and almost single handily was responsible for the whole platform shoe phenomenon. [Millennials and Digital Natives, ask your dads if they every wore platforms. I did]

Sly Stone was a feel good, fun force that bridged the explosive 60’s and the more depressed 70’s. From the unlimited creativity of the 60’s to the drug addled 70’s, he was the one who most shaped this transition. He was a true style-setter and musical genius who lost his way.

Then a day later the true gut blow occurred when I saw that Brian Wilson had died, also at 82. Two musical heroes gone in two days. Two Boomer influences that shaped a generation are now dead. Boomers are rapidly losing heroes and style-setters who lead us into new places and lives. It was once said by some Nobel Prize recipient that one truth he knew was that everyone remembers the lyrics to the songs they listened to when they were 10-14 years old. How true! The Beach Boys were the single biggest group in America before the Beatles and there is not a Boomer that cannot sing along with many of the songs.

Some comments from Boomers since Brian’s death have actually stated that it was due to the Beach Boys that they moved to California. Brian’s songs told of a world with cool, fast cars, beaches, surfing, girls and fun, fun, fun. As a Midwestern teenager growing up in Chicago, the Beach Boys [ and Jan and Dean] prompted me to become a skateboarder so that I could “sidewalk surf”.

There is no question that Brian Wilson is one of the most talented musical forces of my lifetime. Here are some quotes that underscore that:

Paul McCartney: “God Only Knows” from the Pet Sounds album is the greatest song ever written”

“It was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water. I figure no one is educated musically ‘til they’ve heard that album”

George Martin [the legendary producer of all the Beatle records]: “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band never would have happened if not for Pet Sounds”

Bob Dylan: “Brian Wilson should leave his ear to the Smithsonian”, and “Brian Wilson made all his recordings with four tracks but you couldn’t make his records if you had a 100 tracks today”

Here is the full New York Times obituary You will notice that with Wilson’s obit it starts on the front page and then takes up two full pages in the front section. Stone’s was only slightly smaller. In other words, the paper of record [ at least still in the world of obituaries] had given as much space for an obit as a world leader.

Brian Wilson hugely affected music – specifically the Beatles- and culture. He and the Beach Boys to a great degree defined California to early 1960s America. One could argue that the group triggered and amplified surfing and the youth car culture that was brilliantly described by Tom Wolfe later in the 60’s.

Brian Wilson became a damaged human being through drug use and mental illness. In this way he was similar to Sly Stone [ and so many other musicians of the Boomer generation] but that is not what ties these two adjacent deaths of two 82-year-old men. It was the transformative, sheer genius of what they did, how they did it and the effect it had on the world and my generation.

Boomers, our heroes are dying. We are, if we haven’t yet, leaving stage center and finally [in the words of GenXers] moving off to the sides of the stage. Our generational time is no longer on the main stage.