← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Remembering Two Music Giants, Sly Stone and Brian Wilson
00:23:27
This month, the music world lost two giants: Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone, and Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.
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Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Brian Wilson and Sly Stone were two titans of the music world. Stone and Wilson both emerged in the 1960s in California based family bands that went on to shape the future of popular music. The Beach Boys introduced innovative recording techniques to the world of rock and roll and music that incorporated classical and jazz influences throughout. Intricate vocal harmonies like on this song.
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Alan Light
I may not always love you but long as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it. I'll make you so sure about it. God only knows what I'd be without you.
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Alison Stewart
Sly and the Family Stone blended rock, funk and soul in organic ways. Its membership was radical, interracial and mixed gender at a time when either one was unique. Their songs expressed optimistic themes about brotherhood while also tackling serious racial issues in the latter parts of the civil rights era. Here's one song. Following career highs and decades of chart topping albums, Stone and Wilson both struggled with addiction and mental health issues later in their lives. Wilson and Stone died this week, both at the age of 82. I'm joined now by Alan Light, a music journalist at Esquire, to celebrate their music. Hi Alan.
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Alan Light
Hi Alison.
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Alison Stewart
Anybody? Everybody, we want to hear from you. Tell us your favorite Beach Boys song, your favorite Sly in the Family Stone song. What did their music mean to you? 212-433. WNYC 212-433-9692. Brian Wilson, born in 1942. Sly Stone, born in 1943. Both grew up mostly in California. Stone, originally from Texas, went to California. Tell us a little bit about the music world they each grew up in and how they found their way into music.
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Alan Light
Well, I think first of all, everything that you just noted in introducing these two characters that is so astonishing that what, within a couple of days these two guys passed these truly brilliant, truly tortured, both at the same age of 82, both. So California identified, both identified with these family bands. I mean it's, it's kind of unbelievable. All of the parallels, very different musicians, but all the parallels between these careers that, you know, came to this end essentially at the same time. And the family element is a huge piece of what these both, both of these figures came from. For Brian Wilson, obviously, the Beach Boys became him. Two of his brothers, a cousin, trained very much at the feet of their father, their very ambitious and frustrated musician father, creating harmonies and sounds and realizing this genius that Brian had for hearing incredible melodies and incredible sonic concoctions that he. That he and he alone was able to pursue. Sly Stone initially coming out of a family gospel group. And how much again, those harmonies, the relationship between those voices, the relationship between those sounds continued to inform everything that he did, even as he continued to expand and extend into all of these different styles that he was bringing together. The influence of these guys is immeasurable. For, you know, Paul McCartney says no Beach Boys, no Sgt. Peppers. He has always said no Sgt. Peppers. Only hearts Club Band without Pet Sounds. Whole schools of indie rock we see this week. People from Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, you know, everybody talking about these melodies that Brian wrote. And for Sly, what happened to the music of Stevie Wonder, to the music of Miles Davis? There's no. There's still a Prince, but a very different Prince without Sly and the Family Stone. There's still d' Angelo, but a very different d' Angelo. All of the samples, it's so many directions that these guys leave an impact that it's really breathtaking.
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Alison Stewart
If you had to be able to describe the genius of each one, what was the genius of Brian Wilson? What was the genius of. Of Sly Stone?
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Alan Light
I think in both cases, it really sort of comes down to this idea of synthesis and in different ways. I think for Sly, it was really bringing these different musics together. That it was rock and pop and soul and funk and the funk that he invented, and bringing in electronic rhythm machines, shifting the way that rhythm and the rhythm section operated within, even within R and B, it's all of the stuff that he is drawing from and bringing into this music. For Brian Wilson, it's almost. It's a little bit more insular because it. I mean, he wrote these incredible melodies. Everybody talks about, you know, just the pure. What. How he put notes together. But beyond that, what he did in the studio, that he was able to take these sounds in his head and find the orchestrations and the arrangements and the sound that brought them to life. And when you see some of the footage of him that exists in the studio, putting the Pets in Sounds record together, putting Good Vibrations together, nobody was making these songs that had these different parts and elements that were almost these orchestral suites that were using oboes and strings and rock bass and harmony group singing. It was bringing to life and realizing these sounds that we'd Never heard before. So for both of them, it was the way that they were combining these elements, even if they were different things they were working with.
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Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Justin, who's calling in from Brooklyn. Hey, Justin, thanks for making the time to call all of it. You're on the air.
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Justin
Hey, Alison. Hey, Alan. Great to be here with you. I'm a huge, huge fan of both these artists, but especially Sly. I wanted to talk about. There's a riot going on and just how not only influential and important of an album it is, but how it represented such a shift in tone, not only for Sly, but for. I feel like for pop music in general, you know, the layering, how complex it was, and the heaviness of the subject matter. And Sly was able to take something that was so beautiful and so blissed out, yet sad at the same time. And it's an album that I still turn to time and again. I've been listening to it quite a bit over these past few days.
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Alan Light
You're absolutely right, Justin. And the way that that album holds up in a modern world is kind of unbelievable. But it's another thing that's amazing with both of these guys. There's a very clear break within their careers. And if they only did the first thing, if the Beach Boys had only done the surf music. That's a Hall of Fame career on its own. I mean, they created this mythology and vision and sound and image of California, took that out to the world in a way that changed, you know, changes everything. And similarly, for Sly and the Family Stone, the early stuff you played everyday people, everybody is a star. I want to take you higher, sort of up to Woodstock. The optimism, the mixing race and gender, and all of the stuff that they display. And then both of them take this kind of darker, more interior turn, you know, for Brian, he says, I'm not touring anymore. I'm going in the studio. He makes Pet Sounds. Nobody cares about Pet Sounds. But it turns out to be recognized as one of the greatest and most influential records of all time. For Sly, it isn't about this big, explosive band thing. It's what Justin is talking about. There's a riot going on that becomes much darker, more serious, more interior. And then they do some of the greatest work of all time in this, you know, in that next chapter. So it's really amazing that even if it's just the one piece that's already historic, and then they go on to do something arguably even greater.
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Alison Stewart
Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, two music titans who passed away this week. Both at the age of 82. We're discussing their impact. Call in or text to us. Join the conversation. Tell us what their music means to you or your favorite song from either one. 212-433. WNYC 212-433-9692. My guest is Esquire music writer Alan Light. Let's go way back. Let's go back to when they were in high school. For Wilson, he joined the Beach Boys. They were called, I think, the Pendlet at first. And then for Stone, he was part of the Viscaynes, a doo wop group. I'm going to play a little bit each side by side. This is the Biscaynes with a long time ago. Let's listen. And then we play a little surfer girl. All right. We heard the similarities between the two.
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Alan Light
Just a little bit.
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Alison Stewart
Just a little bit. Where did Wilson and Stone's influences differ?
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Alan Light
Well, I think with both of these guys. And really, when you talk about almost anybody sort of at this altitude, when you talk about a Bob Dylan, when you talk about a Bruce Springsteen, when you talk about these guys, talk about, you know, a James Brown. They're such scholars of the music that precedes them. I mean, for Brian Wilson, the way that he would talk about George Gershwin, he made an all Gershwin record late in his career. The four freshmen were his idols. Coming up for those harmonies that they sang and the ability to identify which are the things out of that that work for me. What do I do with the models that have been set. And with Sly, it was coming out of this gospel tradition. It was coming also out of a doo wop thing. But all of his study of pop music, where he became a DJ in San Francisco.
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Alison Stewart
That's right.
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Alan Light
Playing on A, not on an R and B, on a pop station. And mixing, playing, you know, white pop records, R and B records, surf records. Starting to produce for rock bands in San Francisco that, you know, these are not people who were thinking in terms of narrow category. And you hear that. I mean, I was listening to one of the later. I think it was on Small Talk, one of the late Sly records, where there's a straight up doo wop song, really, that he cuts on there. Like, that's never gone those relationship of voices. And we hear it when he does I want to take you higher and introduces each of the instruments and they play and they each sing. And you're each of the voices. Well, those are. That's from harmony groups and from doo wop groups. And, you know, that's those things stay in there as you go on to innovate, you don't, you know, you're. You're taking all that stuff forward. You're not ditching it as you, as you move ahead.
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Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Karen is calling in from Gowanus. Hey, Karen, thanks for calling all of it.
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Alan Light
Hi.
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Karen
Hi, Allison. Thank you for having me.
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Alison Stewart
Sure.
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Karen
I wanted. I wanted to tell a story about the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson. They were my first concert when I was three years old in 1980, and I grew up in Southern California, so I saw them at the Ventura County Fair with my family and neighbors. And apropos to your last segment, my dad likes to tell this story that that concert is where I got my personality. And it was the first time that I was dancing and really just like, came alive. So Beach Boys have always been really special, and I've been fortunate to see them probably four or five times in my life, including in the 80s at Dodger Stadium. So really sad this time.
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Alison Stewart
Oh, thanks for calling in.
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Alan Light
Listen, seeing the Beach Boys in Southern California is, you know, what he say? That's as close to, you know, the source as you can get. That's full saturation.
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Alison Stewart
Well, when you think about their fan bases, who are the people who were listening to the Beach Boys and who are the people who are listening to the Family Stone? And did they cross over?
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Alan Light
Well, I think they did cross. I think the timing is a little funny because the Beach Boys, the sort of golden era of the Beach Boys, really just slightly precedes the emergence of the Family Stone. And the Beach Boys are so Southern California identified in the Family Stone. We're so Northern California identified. So, look, there's a lot of intermixing. That's if you look at the charts in 1967 and you see, again, rock groups and psychedelic groups and emerging harder rock groups and. And Motown and like, all of these things are coexisting, you know, always the Beach Boys pointed to, they were offered and they did not take the offer to play the Monterey Pop Festival, which was really the first big new model festival that leads the way to Woodstock. That leads the way. And always sort of lamented that could have been the thing that would have kept us cool, you know, by not doing that, it identified us with the old guard and not the new guard. Moving forward. Forward. So by the time you hit Woodstock and you hit Sly Pinnacle, the Beach Boys are kind of old news at that point and a little bit sort of retrogressive. But the reality is these, you know, The Beach Boys existed, continue to exist in the consciousness and in the culture beyond, you know, that. That moment. So there's a. There's obviously a lot of interplay and. And let's not ignore them. We haven't really said these are, you know, Brian Wilson and Sly Stone. These are American tragedies. Yes, the music is, you know, forever. And the music did all the things that it did. But these were deeply, deeply troubled individuals who really paid a cost for the success and the visibility and the prominence and the expectations and the pressures. And in different ways, really, you know, it broke them. And they're in some ways both stories of not. It's not fair to say, unfulfilled promise, because once you've changed the world of music, by the time you're 30, what's, you know, what have you not fulfilled? But both had that sense of thinking in a different universe, in a different climate, given different kinds of, you know, opportunities where they could have continued to take this music.
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Alison Stewart
Yeah. Both Wilson and Stone suffered with substance abuse and addiction, mental health problems later in their lives. How did it show up in the music they were making?
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Alan Light
Well, I think it's this. This insularity, which is a great positive and a great negative. Right. The ability to completely go inside yourself and create this stuff that only you can hear in your head and nobody else can really understand or translate. That's an incredible thing to achieve, but also an impossible thing to live with. And so for. For Brian Wilson, it was these stories of he brought a. He put his piano in a sandbox in his living room so that he could feel the sand when he was composing and find that inspiration for Sly. We had a caller mention there's a riot going on, which basically he just closed himself in a room in a mansion in LA and created that record and that sound that nobody had heard by himself and, you know, turned that over. So the sense of that sort of completely unparalleled vision and dream results in incredible work, but also results in how do you go and walk around and live in the world with that? And so for both of them, you sort of hear them hit a wall. Brian gets a little bit of a second chapter in the late 80s. He does return. He makes the Love and Mercy album. There's the I Just Wasn't Made for these Times documentary. Pet Sounds, which had really kind of disappeared, is reintroduced to the world. The Smile record that he had scrapped, walked away from, had a breakdown and never finished. That was supposed to be his masterpiece. He does finish as a solo project. In the early 2000s. And though it was all very fragile, he was able to get back out there, was able to tour, was able to sort of see some of those projects through. Sly just is, at a certain point, is gone. And there are these occasional moments. You know, they did that Grammy tribute to Sly, apparently. I was just having this conversation with somebody who was there. The rehearsals were great. He was really into it. He was excited to be there. The show came. He was not feeling it. He came on. On set for 30 seconds and walked off. And all of that just reinforced this sense of, you know, Sly's just not present now, happily, before he was gone, his memoir came out, came out.
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Alison Stewart
The documentary came out months ago.
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Alan Light
The documentary that Questlove made came out. He was able to at least see telling his story in. In those ways or seeing his stories told with that appreciation happen right at the end. Good for that. But there's also, you know, everything that was in between that really was lost decades.
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Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Marianne. Hey, Marianne, thanks for calling, all of it.
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Marianne
Hi. This is so great. This. This piece. I was 15 years old. It was 1969, Madison Square Garden, and I'm going to see Sly and the Family Stone. And it was like. I don't know if they were at their most popular, but it was. I knew every song. I just was crazy about Sly and the Family Stone. And then the opening act was Richard Pryor. And Richard Pryor was. I don't even. I don't think I knew who he was. He had the entire Madison Square Garden in tears, laughing before Slamming Family Stone came out. So that was. It was just a very memorable time. And I absolutely loved music. And I did wonder over the years, because every time I still have, like, a CD of theirs, and every time I play it, it's like the same feeling. And I always wondered what happened. And now understanding a little better what did happen with him. But just as a parallel thing, I also liked the Beach Boys. So my sister, who was three years older than me, when she was 14, we lived in the Bronx, she took the bus to Fordham University and got to see the Beach Boys for, like, at a gymnasium at Fordham University. And that was. Yeah, it's so funny that you could have done that. You know, you see them in that context.
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Alan Light
But anyway, seeing both of those bands at, you know, that's at their peak, if we're talking about, you know, mid-60s Beach Boys and 1969, Sly and the Family Stone, you can't. You can't do much better. And let it be said, I mean, the Beach Boys really, they continued to tour after Brian and then when Brian came back. But if you go back and look, the. There's the famous film, the. The Tammy show. That was the documentary with, you know, early big rock and roll all star show that was put together in LA with all these amazing acts. That's footage of the early Beach Boys playing. And they were a great live band early on. That's sort of a fantastic document of that. And Sly in 1969, that's when he played the Harlem Cultural Festival. That was in the summer of soul film from Questlove. And then a couple of weeks later, plays at Woodstock and steals it from virtually everybody. I mean, when the Woodstock movie comes out, you know, Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner and Sly's performance really are the things that took that into the stratosphere.
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Alison Stewart
You have seen an outpouring of praise from Bob Dylan to Questlove. Chuck D, Kiss frontman Paul Stanley have all written about these two gentlemen. When we're listening to the radio, the radio. When we're listening to songs, who should be saying thank you to Brian Wilson.
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Alan Light
And to Sly Stone, it's hard to say. It's hard to separate out who should not, one way or another, be saying thank you. Because that impact is so intense. I mean, in, you know, what the hip hop samples have meant to Sly's career. You know, what that whole phase, what the Beastie Boys did with that sample on Paul's Boutique again, what artists like d' Angelo and Maxwell and those guys, you know, the sort of neo soul thing that came so much out of Sly again, what he meant to Prince and then what that meant to everybody who follows that. Sure, there's stuff that is in a direct line, but as you said, from Bob Dylan to Sting, we're hearing the Brian Wilson tributes. Showing that you could make records that way, showing that you could use the studio as an extension of a rock band, is just something that transforms. There's music before those Beach Boys. There's music before something like Good Vibrations, and there's music after.
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Alison Stewart
Alan Light is Esquire's music writer. Thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it.
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Alan Light
Thank you, Alison.
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Alison Stewart
I'm running, I'm doing roulette. I'm gonna go out on It's a Family Affair. That's what we're gonna go out on.
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Alan Light
It was a number one hit. Nothing, nothing wrong with that choice. It's a family affair.
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Alison Stewart
It's a family.
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Alan Light
Affair It's a family affair It's a family affair one child grows up to be.
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Alison Stewart
And that is all of it. All of it is produced by Andrea Duncan Mao, Kate Hines, Jordan Loft, Simon Close, El Malik Anderson and Luke Green. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio. Our engineers are Juliana Fonda, Matt Mirando and Irene Trudell. Our interns this season are Francesca Bazzi and Sam Schmia. Luscious Jackson does our music. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here next time.
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