Documentary on Sly Stone From ‘Questlove’ Dances to the Music of a Different Drum

The lead singer and creative force behind the legendary band Sly and the Family Stone, Sly Stone deserves the celebratory documentary treatment, and the new Hulu movie “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” certainly recognizes the musician for the trailblazing alchemist that he was between the mid-1960s and the early ’70s. Yet the film attempts to be something more than just an appreciation of Mr. Stone’s life and career, as noted by its parenthetical alternate title. It’s this topic that both differentiates the doc from other music biographies and saddles the proceedings with a theme it cannot explore with any real depth. “The Burden of Black Genius” turns out to be “The Burden of Avoiding a ‘Behind the Music’-Style Documentary.” As directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, member of the hip-hop band the Roots and Jimmy Fallon’s late-night bandleader, the feature splices together performance footage, photography, TV news segments, contemporary commentary, song lyrics, psychedelic effects, and more to create a cornucopia approximating Sly and the Family Stone’s genre-blending music. The audiovisual melange begins immediately with a quick summary of Mr. Stone’s innovations and influence, his rise and fall, talent and demons. Coming in at about two and a half minutes, the typical length of an early song by the band, this highlight reel intro also resembles a social media video, edited as it is for impact and speed.The editing slows down to showcase key moments from an archival interview with Mr. Stone (no present-day interviews with the 81-year-old musician are featured), as well as when Mr. Thompson includes commentators and other Black artists such as André 3000 and Chaka Khan, much as he did in his Oscar-winning documentary “Summer of Soul.” In that fantastic film, the interviewees address a specific event and its context, whereas in “Sly” they not only speak about their admiration for the man and his music, but expound on concepts such as “Black genius.” It becomes clear this line of inquiry is better suited to a different documentary than one honoring someone as unconventional, even slippery, as Sly Stone.When focused on his beginnings and the music, the doc soars. We learn how Mr. Stone, born Sylvester Stewart in Texas in 1943, grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, excelling in music programs at school and participating in church bands and gospel choirs. Later in the early 1960s, he hosted a radio show that reflected the city’s diversity and experimentation in its playlists. Soon he becomes a songwriter himself as well as a producer, with Grace Slick appearing to discuss how he produced the original version of “Somebody to Love.”In 1966, he and saxophonist Jerry Martini formed what was to become the iconic band, with Mr. Stone’s brother and sister, guitarist Freddie Stone and keyboardist Rose Stone, on board, as well as trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, drummer Greg Errico, and bassist Larry Graham. Sly and the Family Stone’s mix of Black and white musicians and women and men not only felt new but radical, particularly considering the social turmoil of the 1960s. The utopian inclusiveness of hit songs like “Dance to the Music” and “Everyday People” — appealing to Black and white audiences alike — contrasted with the civil rights protests, assassinations, and police brutality of the time. Yet Sly also wrote songs with a more political bent; Nile Rodgers explains how in his youth, when he was a member of a Manhattan branch of the Black Panthers, the band’s song “Stand!” meant for him allegiance with the movement. Some of the doc’s best moments occur when Jimmy Jam, half of a pioneering writing/producing team with Terry Lewis, discusses Mr. Stone’s songcraft. His casual yet keen remarks about “Stand!” and the smash “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” which the duo would go on to sample in Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation,” provide a chance to explore the songs for their musicality and not just for their lyrics or contextual meanings. Listening to the song and seeing it performed, “Thank You” still sounds revolutionary all these years later, with many considering it to be the first funk song ever.After the band plays Woodstock, arguably the peak of its career, the documentary begins to chart Mr. Stone’s descent into drug addiction and the band’s dissolution. Mr. Stone himself declares that it was “too big” and “too much all at once.” When “There’s A Riot Goin’ On” comes out in 1971, the album echoes the disillusionment with ’60s idealism felt by many, as well as the personal pressures of stardom. While it contained “Family Affair,” the band’s third no. 1 song, the muddy-sounding record was rejected by some critics. This leads the film’s director to make a comparison between Mr. Stone and David Bowie and the specious observation that the latter could change personas but the former could not — without taking into account the empirical differences, beyond their respective races, in the careers of the two artists.From the mid-’70s on, Mr. Stone’s story plays like a standard cautionary tale of rock music excess and dissipation. Mr. Thompson and his commentators consider self-sabotage and the idea of Black guilt regarding success, and while these theories may be relevant to other artists, they never seem to fully apply to what we see and hear of Mr. Stone’s experience. The portrayal of the icon as both a martyr to “Black genius” and an exuberant innovator ultimately feels tonally dissonant, both distinguishing and muddling what could have been a masterful documentary.

Documentary on Sly Stone From ‘Questlove’ Dances to the Music of a Different Drum

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