Passages

[Lemmy Caution]

I was doing a Sly tribute and then switched off to some Bob Marley, and there are distinct similarities. 400 Years sounds a lot like Sly's darker edgier songs. Then there are Bob's vocal swoops and vocalizations which kind of mimic Sly. The playful, simple buoyant ballads such as Baby We've Got a Date or Three Little Birds sound like Sly's You Caught Me Smiling and such.
The funk guitar sound just replaced with a choppy lilting guitar. I don't know if I'm on to anything, but was struck by the similarities and overlap I noticed.
Edit: Bend Down Low is a Marley tune which could pass as a Sly effort.

[flyonthewall2983]

Brian Wilson

Just before summer

[TechnicolorAcid]

Brian Wilson

We live in a sick world if Mike Love can outlive Brian Wilson. Rest in Peace.

[bad future]

We live in a sick world if Mike Love can outlive Brian Wilson. Rest in Peace.

I suppose, but they've always been from an America where Mike Love would inevitably outlive Brian Wilson and that makes it all the more interesting and strange how they could bottle that America so magically, and makes all of Brian's creative achievements, from the fleetingly unencumbered ones produced so masterfully that he could be mistaken for mere conduit between tape and the divine, to the unassuming years before and the many frustrating, varyingly compromised decades that followed, all the more miraculous.

[thirtyframesasecond]

In a better world, Sly Stone would have become a cultural touchstone, advertising Corona and such, iconic a la Snoop Dogg. But the 80's and 90's were not so forgiving. The connection came to mind as both were musical pioneers, quirky characters, with their own style and worldview. Sly evinced a playful, enigmatic soul, full of wordplay and wit. A true original.

For a few years Sly & the Family Stone were the black (and white) equivalent of the Rolling Stones. There's a Riot Going On album up there with Marvin Gaye's What's Going On as capturing an era, encapsulating an ethos. Sly got derailed by fame and drugs. But his legacy is great. His music and fashion a precursor to funk. And as he aged, he sported some wild style, including a large blond floppy mohawk. Check out pics of Sly from 1990 on.

When Sly covered Que Sera Sera in 1973 a rumor started that he was dating Doris Day,
I saw him perform once at the Beacon Theater circa 1985. A Bobby Womack concert with Sly as special guest star, out on furlough from a Florida alcohol rehab center. And Sly came out all in leather, big fro, big grin jamming on guitar. Place went wild. Womack and Sly went way back.

Sly was a musical prodigy. Got started as a SF deejay which exposed him to a variety of sounds and led to producing some emerging SF artists just as the scene got interesting circa 1965. So Sly learned how to use the studio to create the sounds he wanted.

An interesting look at early Sly can be found on the compilation Sly Stone - Precious Stone - in the Studio with Sly Stone 1963-65 Kent 539 - (Ace). Starts off trying to cash in on the dance craze (Don Covay had a similar start), moves to girl group tunes, dips his toe into Impressions style Chicago soul, plus some soul efforts. But the most interesting are the half dozen collaborations with Billy Preston at the end, presumably 1965 endeavors. Life of Fame and Fortune sounds like a Jagger ballad, same with As I Get Older. Take My Advice is the gem, a catchy Sly tune, with a loose recording style. I think most or perhaps all of these are demo recordings. Can't You Tell I Love Her is also recognizably in the soon to be formed Family Stone mode. The Sly-Preston output reminds me of the Larry Williams-Johnny Watson collaborations.

I'd be interested to know who Sly considered his primary influences? Little Richard and Ray Charles perhaps? I'm not sure. Sly did know his music history and indeed the title of his masterpiece album derives from and repurposes for a new era the refrain from The Robins 1954Riot in Cell Block #9.

Along with Sly's 2023 memoir, which has gotten good reviews, there's a 2025 documentary Sky Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) produced by Questlove.

He must've made a ton from Jam and Lewis lifting a sample from Thank You.... on the Rhythm Nation title track.

[hearthesilence]

He must've made a ton from Jam and Lewis lifting a sample from Thank You.... on the Rhythm Nation title track.

There's no shortage of Sly sampling. "Sing a Simple Song" alone is perhaps one of the most sampled records in history.

Brian Wilson

JFC, what a shitty week. Sly and Wilson gone within days of each other, at a time when all this fascist nonsense is coming down on their home state and doing the polar opposite of everything their music stood for. Two massively important and influential greats of the 1960s, and strangely both had their careers undercut by personal struggles, albeit very different ones. It's miraculous Wilson didn't live his final decades in seclusion the way Sly mostly did, and thankfully it led to the completion of SMiLE, which shockingly lived up to the unrealistic hopes espoused by its believers - I was not one of them and could never get through the curated bootlegs that came into my possession, but I reluctantly checked out the completed 2004 arrangement and was completely humbled. And yet, I don't think it overshadows Pet Sounds - that's not a criticism of SMiLE so much as a testament to Pet Sounds. The box set of its sessions is still one of my favorite listens, one that wipes away all the books and essays that dwell on Wilson's struggles - all you hear is a creative genius completely in control of his senses, and as it unfolds, it's astonishing to hear someone realizing music that he knows in his head while a studio full of world-class session musicians follow his instructions like a seasoned crew who trusts the navigator to know what they don't.

[dadaistnun]

Harris Yulin

[hearthesilence]

Harris Yulin

He appeared at BAM last fall to discuss Candy Mountain. I wasn't there, but he did do a Zoom or FaceTime interview around that time that you can see here.

[zedz]

He must've made a ton from Jam and Lewis lifting a sample from Thank You.... on the Rhythm Nation title track.

There's no shortage of Sly sampling. "Sing a Simple Song" alone is perhaps one of the most sampled records in history.

Even deep cuts ended up as hip-hop royalty:
De La Soul's 'Say No Go'
draws from
Crossword Puzzle

And
Beastie Boys' 'Shadrach'
wouldn't exist without
Loose Booty

Both of these songs show that he was far from a spent force after Fresh.

[colinr0380]

Harris Yulin

He appeared at BAM last fall to discuss Candy Mountain. I wasn't there, but he did do a Zoom or FaceTime interview around that time that you can see here.

A great character actor. A couple of roles come immediately to mind: his scene as the complicit cop in the middle of the remake of Scarface, and amusingly contrastingly on the other side of the gun doing the Tony Montana role in the 1990 Gene Hackman remake of Narrow Margin in the scene that kicks off the action of the film (I can only find that scene in black and white, but it sort of works that way!) Weirdly we've lost three actors in quick succession who appeared in the Narrow Margin remake in just under a year. Speaking of Gene Hackman films, Yulin is also in Night Moves.

As well as in Rudy Wurlitzer's Candy Mountain, he also appears in Woody Allen's Another Woman (with Gene Hackman!) and playing the conspirator in Clear and Present Danger (with Anne Archer from Narrow Margin!).

Although probably he'll be most familiar as the slime-empowering angry Judge in Ghostbusters II!

[therewillbeblus]

My favorite Yulin role might be in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - he's terrific as the conservative patriarch of Jane Krakowski's beau's fam

[flyonthewall2983]

He has the best death in Scarface, last thing he says to Tony is fuck off, it’s maybe one of the best scenes in the whole movie for that alone.

[tolbs1010]

He has the best death in Scarface, last thing he says to Tony is fuck off, it’s maybe one of the best scenes in the whole movie for that alone.

It's a top contender for best 'Fuck you' in film history.

[GaryC]

Malaysian-British actress Pik-Sen Lim, aged 80. No real online obituaries yet. She was in the Doctor Who serial The Mind of Evil. This was written by her husband (the late Don Houghton) and she provided the translation of the scene where the Doctor and Chinese delegate Fu Peng have a brief exchange in Hokkien - a language neither Jon Pertwee or Kristopher Kum actually spoke, so they had to learn the lines phonetically. She was one of the most regularly-seen actors playing Chinese roles in British TV in the 70s, being a regular on the sitcom Mind Your Language and Spearhead.

[Never Cursed]

This is from way back in January, but I don't think anyone mentioned the passing of John Doumanian, ex-husband of Woody Allen's former long-time producer Jean Doumanian and bit player in sixteen of Allen's films. I believe he is most prominent as the cokehead in Annie Hall. If ever you do a Woody Allen watch project (as I am in the middle of) and log the films on Letterboxd, this guy immediately becomes one of your most-viewed actors of that year.

[bearcuborg]

The stunningly beautiful Ananda Lewis, dead at 52. She was perhaps the last MTV VJ I cared for, before they pretty much abandoned the music video format for reality shows. But she would often host Charles Aaron, the great hip hop writer from Spin Magazine on her show. At least she tried when MTV was giving up.

I have a great deal of empathy for those who make their own choice when dealing with breast cancer, as a double mastectamy just feels so barbaric...but ugh, gone way too soon... Folks, when you're of a certain age, get that cancer screening.

[hearthesilence]

Filmmaker Joel DeMott, per her partner in life and filmmaking, Jeff Kreines. Their best-known films are probably Demon Lover Diary and Seventeen, which you can read about here.

[domino harvey]

Food Network personality Anne Burrell at 55

[dadaistnun]

Alfred Brendel

[ellipsis7]

Screenwriter Mark Peploe

[dadaistnun]

Shiho Fujimura

[beamish14]

Screenwriter Mark Peploe

Afraid of the Dark is really in desperate need of an HD release

[flyonthewall2983]

Gailard Sartain

[hearthesilence]

Mick Ralphs, co-founder and lead guitarist for the great, influential rock band Mott the Hoople and later for the much more lucrative but much less compelling Bad Company.

[Beloved Aunt]

Gailard Sartain

Maybe he can be buried under Annette Bening when she passes! And the tombstone doth read, "Grilled hothouse tomato...under generous slice of ripe cheese!"

But I guess I'm just a nasty woman.