Everybody had something different to add to that pot. How did a song like "Dance to the Music" come together.

Well, I'll give you a, a overview of the overall concept. Um, you really put it all in a nutshell. Everyone had something to add to the pot. The beauty of the group was, first of all Sly was a great songwriter. And uh, I say was, in the sense that I just haven't heard what he's done lately. No doubt he probably still is. Uh, but when the group was together he was a great songwriter to begin with. But then he also had the intelligence to recognize that he had some talented musicians that could contribute, uh, if they were allowed to. That to me I thought was a very smart move. So everybody was allowed to contribute what they did. For example, there was no one that played guitar like Freddie Stone. I mean, just the chords that he would use and the feeling, that man could play guitar. And a lot of guitar players have copied a lot of Freddie's licks, but you might not give the credit to Freddie because, um, he hasn't had a hit record lately, so you can say, oh, that's Freddie Stone and you relate it back to, but I hear it. Greg Errico, no one played drums like Greg Errico, like "Dance to the Music", that beat. You know, like [demonstrates]. I mean nobody was playing beats like that. But that was coming from Greg's heart, you know? And, and, and my style of bass playing contributed because it was a style of playing that no one else was, was doing that. Uh, overall, to make a long story short, everyone was allowed to be themselves to some degree, and that contributed to, to this sound that was very unique. If everything had been structured so that everybody was told everything to play, maybe the records would've still been good, but they would've been different. What we had worked, and it proved to be the hit formula as long as it was together.

So when you were doing this, you were performing live a lot. What was it like -- there was so much theatricality, and so much, you were just different.

Right. It was real different. And it was interesting that the way everyone was able to express themselves musically in a way that hadn't been heard, visually, it was the same way. What you saw visually was an expression of what was in each of our hearts. It wasn't something that was planned. In other words, Freddie, why don't you wear such and such and such, and we'd sit down and talk about it, and Graham, why don't you wear so and so, and it wasn't talked about. We'd just show up, and what you saw was what we felt like wearing, and we looked the way we looked, because each individual was really like that. The only time we got into anything that was planned is for a while we got into wearing red, black and white. And so, even at that, what we wore, it could be anything, but the colors were coordinated to be one or two or three colors. But other than that it was always, surprise.

And a lot of people were surprised, because no one ever knew what to expect from your performances.

Right, right, right. Well, the reason you never knew what to expect with performances, is that we never knew. After the beginning, our early beginnings, I can't remember very often rehearsing. Naturally, if a song comes out like a "Thank You" comes out, we know the song. So there's really nothing to rehearse. We didn't have like a bunch of steps and routines that we had to do like a singing group or something, or so there was really nothing to rehearse. So what would happen is, there was this spontaneous thing that would happen every night at the gigs, and the first time around, if we were playing "Dance to the Music", the first time around would be like the record, right? Everything would be structured, I'd do my part just when I'm supposed to come in and everything, the same solos and stuff. But that second time around, when we play it, because we'd play the whole songs again, it was all, you know, it would be continuous of course, that second time around you'd just do what you wanted to do. And that's when it would go out. It would just go out. And I never knew what I was going to play, Freddie never knew what he was going to play, so how would anybody else know. So it was always fresh and there was this energy that was happening amongst the group and it would just feed over into the audience, and, you know, the audience would just go nuts, because they were, they were experiencing some that was real, it was coming from the heart. There was nothing mechanical or pre-planned about it. Even the order of the songs, sometimes we wouldn't even know, Sly might feel like playing something different that third song. And he'd just, he would just hit the keyboards, and he could just play a chord or, or a series of notes, and we all knew, uh-oh, this is getting ready to be "You caught me smiling, again." You know, it was really, it was really just beautiful. A musical rainbow.

Speaking of this musical rainbow, was it a conscious choice for Sly to put together this integrated thing?

Well, no, because, see, the thing of it is, his sister Rose, for example, wasn't in the group in the very beginning. I wasn't supposed to be in the group in the very beginning. I mean, the group was, was planned and elements were added along the way that just made it better. But there wasn't, there was no color thing that was happening. Like the group should be all this or all that. It's what you had to contribute musically. And, and whatever you happened to be, your contribution was accepted, and as it turned out, Cynthia happened to be a woman, you know, but it was her trumpet playing that really is what would sell the record. Because initially you have to sell the record. Nobody knows who's white, who's black, who's a man, who's a woman, but they accepted the music first. Then later on when they say, when they saw us, that was just an extra-added treat.

I understand that Sly had a very canny perception of what the public wanted or what the public could hear and listen to and accept. And um, that, as you just described, at first you played the song, when you were doing live, first you played like you did it on the record, and then you could just go out. What was the difference…

Well, a lot of the songs, uh, that we cut, were like live in the studio. Even though they were structured more so than that second time around on stage, they were live. And that's like that "Dance to the Music", that, that feeling, that you're feeling, uh, something that's coming from the heart. It's actually happening there in the studio. Uh, something that we've kind of gotten away from to some degree, uh, in more modern times. But that, that's what you'd hear, so it would be a little more structured in the studio, but not too structured. It was a, it was loose enough to be able to keep that good feeling about it. And then when we went to stage now, of course, it just went out, you know.

That, technology is an interesting point that we're at in terms of how it's changed. Back during that time in the '60s, and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that most people were doing their stuff, probably perfecting it on the road or in performance, and then just going into the studio and doing it, without, with the full complement of band members. Could you tell me a little bit about that in terms of how Sly did it and then he moved on and became a one man band just about at one point, in terms of the way he produced his own records.

The way he produced his, and the way I produce mine. Well, yeah. Then, it's like, if you put too much polish on it, you know, it gets a little too stiff, a little sterile, you know. Our music then always had that raw edge on it, you know. You try to clean it up too much you lose something. Not that everything was gotten in one take, uh, but it, we just kept enough polish off of it so that you could really, uh, capture the rawness of the music, even if it was a ballad. But then later on -- that airplane, huh?

Tell me again, about the studio and not cleaning stuff up that much, how you all had that raw feeling.

One of the things that made the records really, really so happening is that we played live. And, and we didn't put too much polish on the music, because sometimes when you polish it up too much and you clean it up too much and try to take out all the mistakes and try to rehearse it too much and stuff, you lose that raw edge, you know, not that you should just go in and play anything and raggedly. But we would keep enough of that raw edge on the record so it was always exciting. And then, of course when we would go on stage, what was interesting --

We gonna work this. When we went in the studio, one thing that was really interesting about the music is that, we were able to keep this rawness about music. Sometimes if you put too much polish on it and try to clean it up too much, and it becomes a little too sterile, you kind of like lose what's coming from the heart. And uh, we didn't do that. You know, Sly as a producer, he kept that raw edge on the music. Not that we got everything on the first take, but even if we did several takes, it still was that raw edge that was kept into the music playing live, and uh, I think that had a lot to do with what you would feel when you would hear it. Of course, then we went on stage, and then, like I say, that second time around, when we would play a song it would just go out. What was interesting about that, was that, because we would get creative the second time around when we played the song, in other words played "Dance to the Music" all the way straight one time and then go, and then play it the second time around and everybody'd just ad lib, we would create things and come up with things that later on could be used in other songs. Not necessarily the, the, the whole song. In other words, we were being creative on stage. Everything was spontaneous. But those same things that we were learning could pop up later on somewhere else.

Give me an example?

Uh. Yeah. Uh, for example, uh, "Dance to the Music", we had a lot of songs that sounded like that, they kind of fed off one another, "My Lady," in fact there was one part of the show where it was, let's see, "Dance to the Music", "My Lady," that were in that groove that we played all in a role, so once the audience was like, they just stayed at through that whole succession of songs. And it was like, it was like awesome, it was awesome. So everyone was always able to, and allowed to contribute, and I think that as long as we did that, I think that that was contributing to the success of, of the group. Once we got away from that. Uh, the music changed, Sly started doing more of the things himself, which was, which was still good, and it was still, I mean, it was still, I play some of the songs to this day, some of the songs that we weren't on as a band, because they were good songs.

Like --

But I always wonder -- like songs like "Riot Goin' On", you know, some of those songs. Uh, I always wondered, what would it have been like if the band had played on those songs, you know? Because they were such good songs, he's such a good songwriter, but uh, I guess, maybe we won't get a chance to answer that question right now, but who knows? I know what I would play. [LAUGHS]

Did you play on "Just Like A Baby"?

Uh, [sings]. Yup. I played on "Just Like A Baby". "You Caught Me Smiling." Uh-huh.

There was a strong, you all could do some blues. And I know that it was ...

Everyone being able to play from the heart, to contribute, like for example on that song -- [plays]. You know, "Sex Machine." Everyone got a chance to throw down some solos on there that was just, I, I, I thought they were awesome. And it was like, it was like, it was live. It was something that wasn't written for each individual. You just got a chance to do your thing. And it was coming from the heart. And you could feel that. When you listen to the music. You could hear it, even down to Greg's solo on the end, and then Sly snuck in on the studio, and studio on him, and that whole little verbal exchange you hear at the end that was kept. All that was all spontaneous stuff. What everybody played. And it was captured, it was all captured what was coming from the heart. And so that's why really it was blues, or something that was funky or something that was slow. [plays] You know, "You Caught Me Smiling" or -- [plays] You know. You get funky, but it was all like coming from the heart. And you could feel that in the music.

Now, not only was there blues there, but there was jazz.

Yeah, we got into some jazz stuff.

Jazz was also an undercurrent. At the time, who were the jazz people that …

Well, remember I told you earlier that, uh --

When my mother and I was working together, at the time we had the organ with the bass pedals that went half way across, and I was playing the bass with my foot and the guitar and singing and stuff. I started getting into the keyboards more too because I played piano before I played guitar. So naturally I started getting into the organ keyboard itself. And I was really into organ players, like, like Jimmy, Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Jack McDuff, Richard Groove Holmes, I mean because when it came to the bass pedals, he was the king of the bass pedals. Richard Groove Holmes. He would work them pedals right? And so those were some of my jazz influences as far as keyboards are concerned. Of course, Wes Montgomery, but then a huge influence on me of course was my, my mother. And uh, because when we working clubs for, you know, from the time I was 15 to 21, you know, um, we played jazz, blues standards, everything. So I would have to say that overall she was the biggest influence on me.

I understand that in the early days when you were doing clubs ... [INAUDIBLE]

Winchester Cathedral, yeah, the club that we played at. It was -- that place was packed. You know something that stands out in my mind, uh, about that club, really is Freddie the guitar player. We, he used to sing this Otis Redding tune, [sings] "Oh, she may be weary." And he would get into "Try A Little Tenderness". He had a way of laying this song out, that I'm telling you sometimes people would cry. You would see people with tears in their eyes. I mean he sung that song. And even though the club, you're talking about the club, but it just brought to mind Freddie's performance, but other than that, the place used to be packed every night. People would come from everywhere. And one night in particular we were playing like an after hours, it was like after midnight, almost early morning. And so we came out in our pajamas in the show, in our pajamas. And the was like, they was dying, it was funny. You know, it was like, everybody should be in bed now. But it was a fun place, those were fun times.

I understand you did a mean "Tobacco Road."

[sings] "I was born in a dump, my mama died and my daddy got drunk, he left here, mm mm, that ________, in the middle of tobacco road, but it's home, yeah. The only place that I've ever known." Tobacco Road. Did I sing all the right words?

I mean Sly had this special talent for songwriting, but he was fed by so many sources.

Yeah, I thought that was good, that he allowed himself to be fed by these sources. Because sometimes a lot of producers, songwriters, they may have it all in their mind, and their head how they hear it. Which is good, I'm not knocking any of that, you know, and even later on when he started to do most of the instruments himself, there still was some jamming songs, I'm not knocking that either. But while the group was together he allowed freedom of expression. And uh, I think that was really good on his part, you know.