SOMEBODY’S WATCHING YOU!
A filmmaker’s epic pursuit of Sly Stone. “fame attracts wonderful people. fame also attracts guns and dogs…”
In August 2005, Michael Rubenstone, an aspiring filmmaker, received a call from Sly Stone’s sister, Vaetta Stewart. “Vaetta – Vet – was in a Sly & The Family Stone tribute band, Phunk Phamily Affair,” explains Rubenstone. “She called me out of the blue one day and said, ‘I need you to book us a gig in LA.’ She said, ‘Trust me. It’s going to be worth it.’”
Rubenstone had been working on a documentary about Vet’s elder brother. It was proving to be a frustrating experience. Stone had barely been seen in public since 1993, when he and the Family Stone were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and Rubenstone’s own attempts to locate him had been met with obstruction and obfuscation. Suddenly, Vet’s phone call made contact with the elusive musician a very real possibility.
“Sly lives in LA, so maybe the prospect of seeing his sister and his niece Lisa and Cynthia [Robinson] playing his music could draw him out,” says Rubenstone. “I felt like this was my best shot to get him. And sure enough, he pulls in driving a custom Harley three-wheel trike.”
The scene takes place at Hollywood’s Knitting Factory club and is one of several agonising near-misses and tantalising brief encounters that play out in Rubenstone’s documentary, On The Sly: In Search Of The Family Stone. The film is partly a shaggy dog yarn about Rubenstone’s decade-long quest to find the reclusive musician, but it also functions as a straight-up documentary on the Family Stone. For this, Rubenstone has assembled an impressive pool of contributors including erstwhile bandmates Cynthia Robinson, Jerry Martini and Greg Ericco, along with industry associates, school friends, contemporaries including Bobby Womack and even Stone’s ex-music teacher, David Froehlich – then in his eighties.
Rubenstone, a jobbing actor, began filming in 2004, shooting the bulk of the film over the next three years. “A lot of people were resistant at first,” he explains, “but eventually people began to open themselves up. Everybody had his or her own very specific memory of Sly. I met a guy at a basketball game who said, ‘I know this guy who played keyboard with him in Seattle. You should go meet him.’ That was Gordon DeWitty, the blind keyboardist. Turns out he did not play with Sly – he was more of a groupie – but he understood Sly better than I did.”
Eventually – “after about a year and change,” reckons Rubenstone – the filmmaker connected with Vet, who in turn introduced him to her elder brother Freddie, the band’s former guitarist, now a pastor in the family’s hometown of Vallejo, California. The hunt for Stone himself, however, was problematic from the very beginning. During his first few weeks of shooting, Rubenstone received a tip-off directing him to an address in napa Valley, California. At the property, Rubenstone was given the brush-off; in the film it seems harmless enough, but foreshadows several subsequent incidents where Rubenstone is hustled, including one astonishing shakedown in a parking lot. Rubenstone interviewed 25 people for his film, many of who advised caution when dealing with Stone and his entourage. “It’s