Friday, January 27, 2006

Slap Your Grammy Now: Sly Stone

From CNN:

According to a press release from the Grammy Awards, there's going to be a special tribute to Sly and the Family Stone at the February 8 awards. And according to a report in Friday's Washington Post, the tribute may include the reclusive Sly Stone himself, along with the original band members.

Ron Roecker, a spokesman for the Recording Academy -- the organization that oversees the Grammys -- wouldn't confirm for the Post that the reunion is on the Grammy-night schedule. "The facts are what we put in the press release," Roecker said. "As far as anything else, it's all just rumor. But we do believe that he is attending the Grammy Awards."

...Motown copied Stone -- the Temptations' 1969-70 hits, such as "I Can't Get Next to You" and "Ball of Confusion," are obviously influenced by him -- and his sound can be heard today in everyone from Lenny Kravitz to Michael Jackson. Will he be at the Grammys? That's still anyone's guess.

"I don't think Sly has been hurting from his underground status -- I think he likes the mystique," Rickey Vincent, author of "Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One" and host of a funk radio show in the San Francisco Bay area, told the Post. "But it would be nice to see him make a triumphant return."
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That would be nice. I'd like to see a new record even. As a solo artist reimagining his old hits with an orchestra, of course.

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