Dance To The Music! Remembering Sly Stone...
Sly Stone And The Grunt
It seems timely with the news today (June 10, 2025) of the passing of funk-n-soul pioneer to reflect on my first (and only encounter) with one Sly Stone!
Ir’s May 1968, Soul City record shop, 17 Monmouth St., London: “May I speak to Dave?” asks a short man with a moustache who walks into the shop I co-own with partners Dave Godin and Robert Blackmore, on a midweek afternoon. Since my name is David and there’s also ‘Dave’ (as in Godin), I’m not sure which of us he wants to speak with. It is in fact Dave Godin who then emerges from our tiny back office….
“Hi, my name is Dave Kapralik,” smiles the man with the New York accent. “I work with Epic Records and I’ve been receiving your letters regarding putting out some of our repertoire on your label.”
It turns out that Mr. Kapralik is an executive at Epic Records who is aware of the licensing requests we’re making for our newly-birthed Soul City Records label to release in-demand tracks ike Major Lance’s “The Beat” and Billy Butler’s “The Right Track” which are popular among the growing crowd of soul fans who frequent clubs in the North of England and The Midlands as well as recordings by The Staple Singers and Erma Franklin.
The procedure - known as ‘third party licensing’ - involves asking for particular tracks for us to release on our little label via CBS Records in London who pass on the requests to US Epic and Columbia executives.
It seems Mr. Kapralik is at Soul City to discuss his primary focus: “I manage Sly & The Family Stone,” he tells us, “and I want to know if you guys would be interested in promoting their music in Britain.” It seems CBS Records in London hasn’t quite known what to with the multi-ethnic funk, rock’n’soul band and “Dance To The Music,” a Top 10 pop & R&B hit in the US has gotten no ‘love’ in the UK.
Dave Godin sets up a proper meeting with Dave Kapralik to discuss how we can help get Sly & company off the ground in Britain. Kapralik is aware that our little Soul City team has been successful in gaining a Top 40 UK charted hit with Gene Chandler’s “Nothing Can Stop Me” and he likes our ‘downhome’ approach!
Duly hired, Dave and I head off to the BBC to present “Dance To The Music” to the ‘pluggers’ who, if they like it, will ensure it gets played on Radio One.
We succeed and on July 17, 1968, Sly & The Family Stone have their first British chart entry at #47, the same week that former Ikette and then-resident UK soul singer P.P. Arnold enters the Top 50 with “Angel Of The Morning” and the likes of Simon & Garfunkel, The Nice, The Small Faces and Dusty Springfield all have new releases that hit the very diverse British pop charts at the same time.
By mid-August, “Dance To The Music” reaches No. 7 in the UK top 10! Job done.
Sly & co. (Larry Graham, Rose Stone, Freddie Stone, Cynthia Robinson, Greg Errico and Jerry Martini) – later cited as ‘the first major American rock group to have a racially integrated, male and female lineup’ – are the epitome of the San Francisco ‘flower’ children in terms of appearance and manner, blending rock, R&B and funk into a fusion often referred to as ‘psychedelic soul.’
Their music is not quite what most of our Soul City customers are drawn towards but Dave, Robert and I are quite happy to do what we can to bring visibility to the group
As columnist Richard Green of the New Musical Express notes at the time, “For months now, advance copies of the record [“Dance To The Music”] have been getting lots of plays in the clubs and copies have been changing hands for as much as fifteen shillings each.” [Note: fifteen shillings in 1968 was a LOT of money for collectors to pay for a record in Britain!].
Certainly, Dave Kapralik’s hunch that our Soul City can deliver is proving to be right and plans are made for a September 1968 promo visit by the band. With Barbara Baccus who is Dave’s partner in artist management (and works specifically with the duo Peaches & Herb, quite a long way musically from Sly and co.!), Kapralik and the band arrive in London…
There is drama. In our back office at Soul City, Barbara has received a call that Dave K. and Sly have gotten into a personal fracas. The result is that a television has been thrown out of the window of the Bayswater hotel they’re staying in! The police have been called and Barbara is trying to do ‘damage’ control! True story.
Damage control done, CBS Records is hosting a reception for the group at a posh West End nightclub. Finally, Dave, Robert and I as well as my sister Sylvia (who is now working at Soul City) are going to meet Mr. Stewart (aka Mr. Stone).
The memory is forever seared into my consciousness. As I walk up the couple of steps to where Sly, Larry, Cynthia, Rose, Greg, Freddie and Jerry are granting the media, CBS peeps and others an audience, Dave Kapralik steps forward and says more of less the following words by way of introduction: “Sly, this is David, he’s one of the Soul City team who’s been promoting the record in Britain…”
I say ‘hello’…and Sly Stone GRUNTS! Yes, grunts. While I can’t say with certainty, I can say that he was ‘likely’ expressing his stage name with a ‘d’ added! No one told us at the time how he got to be ‘Stone’ but in that moment, I think I comprehend…
I never did get to meet Mr. Stone again, although I did see him and the The Family Stone wowed the crowd at the first Isle Of Wight Festival on August 30, 1970 at 7am on a chilly Sunday morning in the company of my friend and then-flatmate Patricia.
Check out the audio….
I witnessed the group in action in front of an enthusiastic London audience at The Lyceum in October 1970 where we heard hits like “Hot Fun In The Summertime,” “Everyday People,” “I Want To Take You Higher” and of course, “Dance To The Music.”
You can read all about it in my review right here…
Back In The Day, Pt. 1...Sly & The Family Stone, Live In London!
Continuing to celebrate my 60 years as a soulful scribe - and increasingly using my Substack platform to do so - I find myself in a state of surprise at just how much I’ve written over these six decades.
While I never got to interview Mr. Stone, I am aware of the impact he had on contemporary music and his place as a funk’n’soul pioneer is undeniable/
Oh… just one PS re: ‘the grunt.’ I had one other encounter with a legendary artist whose response when we were introduced was also a grunt as he stared into space… but I’ll save that for another Substack post!
Stay forever ultra-groovy!
© 2025, David Nathan/Blue Butterfly Entertainment Ltd. (UK), all rights reserved
Great post and amazing that you were part of Sly's UK history! I wrote his obit in the Guardian.