'Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius' review: Questlove's affectionate tribute to groundbreaking star

WHAT IT’S ABOUT Once upon a time, there were two kinds of music: Black and white. Or so it seemed until Sly and the Family Stone, a San Francisco band with a mixed-race, mixed-gender lineup, arrived in the late 1960s. Blending rock, funk and soul to glorious effect, they scored a series of Top Ten hits, including “Dance to the Music,” “Everyday People” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” The band’s charismatic Black frontman, Sly Stone, epitomized the era’s love-all spirit but also its self-destructive tendencies as he spiraled into drug use and erratic behavior. A new documentary from Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson pays tribute to this pop-music icon while trying to answer a nagging question: What went wrong?

MY SAY If you know Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart) only as a casualty of the ‘60s, this documentary is here to paint you a fuller picture. Oscar-winning director Thompson (“Summer of Soul”) follows Stone’s career from rock-loving radio DJ to budding record producer (for The Beau Brummels and others) to leader of a band that would play the Woodstock festival, preach a gospel of unity and — much later, in 1993 — enter the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Thompson speaks to the band’s major players, including the late singer-trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, and to a parade of music-industry veterans (Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Andre 3000), all of whom describe Stone as a musical genius -- but not, initially, a mad or tortured one. In archival interviews (Stone did not speak for the film), the frontman comes across as personable, modest, even a bit serious. In retrospect, his flamboyant outfits -- leather pants, dish-sized sunglasses, crocheted hats – look like cover for a sensitive soul.

Thompson repeatedly asks: “What is Black genius?” It’s a slightly sideways question that results in some blank looks, but the filmmaker’s point is this: The bar for Black artists is so high that only a genius can clear it. What’s more, as the singer D’Angelo points out, a Black artist is often elevated (or relegated) to the role of Black spokesman. “Everybody else’s success,” he says, “rides on your success.”

Maybe that pressure played a part in Stone’s sudden decline. As the years progressed, the band’s live shows grew sloppy and Stone developed a no-show reputation. Longtime members dropped away, leaving the singer to go hunting for drugs with fellow addict George Clinton, of Funkadelic. (“Let me put it this way,” Clinton says. “We were crackheads.”) Stone’s later albums, admittedly underwhelming, met with snarky reviews that ranged from vaguely to egregiously racist. The footage of Stone from this era – high as a kite on Dick Cavett’s show, then hollowly preaching the evils of drugs to Mike Douglas – can be heartbreaking.

With “Sly Lives!” Thompson might be trying to coax the traumatized singer back into the spotlight. He lines up folks to praise the man (“pioneer,” “innovator,” “uniter”) and marshals Sly’s grown children to testify that their once-wacky dad has gone normcore. Sly, now 81, likes cars and Westerns according to his daughter Novena, who adds with a laugh: “He’s kind of just like a standard old Black man.”

You can practically hear Thompson calling to his hero: You can come out now! The world is a friendly place! Or as Larry Graham Jr., the band’s longtime bassist, puts it: “We all have nothing but love for Sly.”

BOTTOM LINE An affectionate tribute to a groundbreaking star.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com