ith hindsight, it’s pretty clear that Sly and the Family Stone’s musical and career trajectory were the quintessence of cocaine – the exhilarating rush of creativity and success followed by the inevitable crash and burn. Even by the standards of the pop music career, rare is the talent as brimming with energy that burns quite as brightly and burns out quite as quickly, tragically and pathetically as Sly Stone’s did, when in a matter of four years, he went from reigning as the biggest, most dynamic star in pop music to being a PCP-junkie who set a pitbull named “Gun” on his infant son. Sad, because in his heyday, Sly had the pop sense of a Lennon-McCartney, the backing band of a James Brown, and a multi-racial line-up that looked liked Bobby Kennedy’s America – not to mention an uncanny knack for capturing the everlasting now in a catchphrase, like the oft-quoted “Diff’rent strokes for different folks” and “Everybody is a star.” Flanked but unmatched by such Woodstock brethren as CSN, Janis Joplin and even Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone didn’t only mirror the zeitgeist, hell, they were the zeitgeist.


As told by The Essential Sly and the Family Stone, a 2-disc compilation of music every bit as indispensable as its (admittedly generic) title implies, there were two very different sides to the Family Stone coin – both equally brilliant. One had inspiring and relentlessly optimistic fare like “You Can Make It If You Try,” “I Want To Take You Higher” and the title track from the group’s early tour de force, Stand! (1969) – songs that remain among pop crowning achievements. Along with “Dance to the Music,” “Sing A Simple Song” and the Fourth of July barbeque staple, “Hot Fun In the Summertime,” this is the material that ensured a place in the annals in pop music history for Sly and the Family Stone, regardless of whatever came after.


But Christ, what came after. Were the story to have ended there, Sly’s body of work would be altogether less affecting, because it was only what he did after those hits that the music became human – painfully so. Only then would we realize that the flip side to the sheer energy of “You Can Make It If You Try” was the lethargic drag of “Can’t Strain My Brain.” Even while he was still on top, Sly would find himself locked in his own personal hell of violence, guns and drugs – impregnating band members while parlaying the whole cynical trip into some of his most profound music yet.


In retrospect, we could’ve seen it coming – the bitter sarcasm of “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey” betrayed more than a hint of cynicism, while the ten-minute “Sex Machine” was equal parts bloated indulgence and bluesy bluster. Who knows when the exact moment was that Sly’s Trip turned into Sly’s Trap, but the pinnacle of the group’s artistic achievements as well as seeds of his destruction can be found in the 1970 double A-side single, “Everybody Is a Star” b/w “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” which appropriately conclude disc one of The Essential Sly and the Family Stone. The former is the group’s raison d’etre – its wordless doo-wop chorus gently fluttering underneath the plaintive expression of individual empowerment that had been Sly’s credo up to that point. What we couldn’t have known then was that the song would effectively signal the end of that era.


The song that would kick-off the beginning of the Family Stone’s second phase, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” was, in reality, another bid adieu to his pop persona. Over what was shockingly new musical terrain for 1970, a popping slap-bass riff leading the charge, the song opens with the singer staring defiantly at himself in the mirror: “Lookin’ at the Devil/Grinnin' at his gun.” But by the song’s conclusion, it’s clear that an exhausted Sly is taking a bow:


Youth and truth are makin' love
Dig it for a starter
Dyin’ young is hard to take
Sellin’ out is harder

I want to thank you for lettin’ me be myself
Again


Had that been the end of his career, which Sly surely considered a possibility and 1970’s flawless Greatest Hits compilation posited, we might never have known the depths of despair that lyric addressed. But when the long-delayed There’s a Riot Goin’ On appeared in stores a year later, only a deaf, dumb and blind kid could’ve mistaken the record as anything other than the sound of debauched emptiness – the type of which the group had been indulging in at least since they moved into a Papa John Phillips’ home many months before, under the auspices of beginning production work on the album.


What resulted from those sessions was predictably bleak and desperate. The darkest of dark pop masterpieces, Riot has the air of an aimless funk jam recorded at the ass-end of a heroin party. And if accounts are to be believed, most of it was – replete with hoarse, searing vocals, suitably crummy sound and broken-down drum machines.


But hidden underneath the badly degraded tapes (and remastered brilliantly here), were some of Sly’s sharpest observations yet. Gone were the boisterous, inspiring calls to action of yore, replaced with allegories about bad scenes and worse relationships like those described in “Luv N’ Haight” and the Billy Preston-assisted hit “Family Affair.” Taken in tow with tunes that only revealed themselves several listens in, Riot hardly had the makings of the group’s first chart-topper, yet number-one it became to a public that had been eagerly awaiting the record for almost two years.


Several of the Family Stone made a hasty exit during the Riot sessions, with drummer Greg Errico tiring of the singer’s erratic behavior and bassist Larry Graham reportedly jumping out of a hotel window to avoid being gunned down by Sly’s bodyguards. At a coke-snorting meeting of the deranged minds set up by Columbia honcho Clive Davis to encourage the completion of the next Family Stone record, Miles Davis was purportedly threatened with his life by Sly for playing dissonant chords on a nearby organ. Compounding matters further, the bandleader was making headlines for missing hundreds of gigs and appearances.


All of this served to make 1973’s Fresh surprisingly, well, fresh under the circumstances. Generally regarded as his last gasp, and largely performed by the man himself, Fresh refined the tight polyrhythmic funk of its predecessor with a cleaner, more upbeat sound, while giving Sly an opportunity to poke fun at his own problems, with lines like “I’ve switched from coke to pep and I’m a connoisseur.” The whole affair, with titles like “Frisky” and a return to the more politically-charged themes of “Babies Makin’ Babies,” gave the impression that there may be life in the man yet.


Alas, for a public moving on to Parliament’s mothership, Sly’s ride was just about over. 1974’s gentle Small Talk and the solo High On You that came the following year weren’t scraping the bottom of the barrel as some might have you believe, but neither were they late-period masterworks; their creator simply wasn’t in any kind of shape to see their tentative new directions through to completion.


Unlike previous compilations, The Essential Sly and the Family Stone includes a few tracks from those frustratingly out-of-print albums, including the classic funk staple, “Loose Booty,” which sounds better in this “hits” context, and the proto-disco of “I Get High On You” (missing, sadly, is the latter record’s fascinatingly-complex and Jungle Brothers-sampled “Crossword Puzzle” and anything from 1976’s Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I’m Back). Those tracks and a few cuts from the band’s debut make The Essential Sly and the Family Stone the Sly compilation to own in the Sony catalog.


Still, it’s hard not to feel like there’s a bit of a missed opportunity here. Admittedly, Columbia/Legacy’s “Essential” series has a fairly narrow criteria to work with, and it’s nice that they unearthed tracks like previously uncompiled “Love City” and the band’s first single, the gritty “Underdog,” but couldn’t they have at least written modestly comprehensive liner notes and tossed in an unreleased track or two? As it is, The Essential Sly and the Family Stone sounds like a remastered and modestly-expanded Anthology, which has been available since 1981. For fans, 35 songs might seem like a little too much (six songs from Fresh?) – for collectors, who will likely already own the imports, it’s probably not enough.


Sure, I’m quibbling, but it all raises the specter of deluxe reissues of Sly’s complete catalog and a long-overdue boxed set – one that would do well to include copious liner notes and rare tracks like Sly’s work with Little Sister and Joe Hicks, which provide the crucial missing link between Stand! and There’s a Riot Goin’ On. Though Sly himself might be the one holding things up (he reportedly lives in public housing today), the fact remains that he gave birth to one of the greatest bands in the history of pop music – one whose story deserves to be told in full, warts and all.


But for really interested beginners, The Essential Sly and the Family Stone is as good a place to start as any. Those with more of a passing interest should seek out the pre-Riot and still in-print Greatest Hits or even better, Anthology, should they want a taste of the cocaine darkness. But it’s every bit as deliriously seductive as you’d imagine, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.