Funk legend Sly Stone disappeared from the limelight for more than 20 years. Musicians and the media tried to find the recluse but failed. In 2005 Willem Alkema started searching for Sly. Sly didn't want to be found or filmed, but Willem didn't give up and finally followed Sly in his first steps on stage in decades.
In the summer of 1992 two filmmakers, Jeroen Berkvens and Walter Stokman, travelled through the United States of America. They were searching for tracks of the famous soulsinger Sly Stone.
The Harlem Cultural Festival of that year, which would come to be known as “Black Woodstock,” had, on its surface, little in common with the upstate hootenanny. Held in Harlem at Mount Morris (what is now Marcus Garvey) Park, it was a self-consciously urban affair, a concert series rather than a one-off, and already in its third year.
This is part of a series from German TV WDR which is taking out of the vaults some historical films, notably from a program called "Swing In". This performance is from the September 1970 European Tour.
One man's search for the prolific funk legend, Sly Stone.
An intimate look at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival held in Bethel, NY in 1969, from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, blistering concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers; negative and positive aspects are shown, from drug use by performers to naked fans sliding in the mud, from the collapse of the fences by the unexpected hordes to the surreal arrival of National Guard helicopters with food and medical assistance for the impromptu city of 500,000.
An aspiring songwriter from a small steel town, Betty Mabry Davis arrived on the scene to break boundaries for women with her daring personality, iconic fashion style and outrageous funk. She befriended Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, wrote songs for the Chambers Brothers and The Commodores and married Miles Davis, turning him from jazz to funk and then went on to ignite stages in the 70s with her sassy sexed up mix of hard rock and bluesy funk, inspiring artists from Prince to Erykah Badu to Karen 0 and Peaches. Then she vanished…
Ike White was a musical prodigy who recorded a funk and soul classic album inside a Californian prison in 1974. Then he disappeared. 30 years later, director Dan Vernon tracked him down, only to find a trail of wives, lives and false identities that leave as many questions as answers.
The Closing Of Winterland documents the Grateful Dead's landmark New Year's Eve 1978 concert that marked the end of the famed San Francisco Bay Area venue Winterland Aena. The Dead celebrated the closing as an approximately five-hour-long party (complete with breakfast with the audience at dawn) and invited some guests including guitarist John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service and Ken Kesey as well as actor Dan Aykroyd who provided the midnight countdown.
An examination of the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone – the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic Sly Stone – that captures the band's reign while shedding light on the burden that comes with success for Black artists in America.