‘He Would Be in the Top 10’: Ben Fong-Torres on Writing Sly Stone’s Rolling Stone Cover Story

Ben Fong-Torres was one of Rolling Stone’s first star writers, interviewing iconic subjects like Bob Dylan, Ike and Tina Turner, Linda Ronstadt, Marvin Gaye, and more. His first cover story was in May 1969, on Joni Mitchell. “For whatever reason, my byline was dropped,” he says. “I can’t exactly say that that was my first cover story since my name wasn’t on the cover.” But his byline appeared on his next cover: Sly and the Family Stone, in March 1970. “They’re tied for first place,” he says of the two stories. 

Fong-Torres followed Stone around Los Angeles, capturing the star at the height of his powers, violet leather jacket and fur-fringed boots and all. With the news of Stone’s death on June 9 at the age of 82, Fong-Torres hopped on the phone with Rolling Stone to discuss his cover story — all 8,065 words, which he still has the original copy of. “It looked voluminous when I was glancing at it,” he jokes. 

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I was freelancing with Rolling Stone for about a year, from April ’68 until May of ’69. Right around the time that the Joni Mitchell piece ran, is when I joined as an editor at Rolling Stone. It was really the early days. We’re talking just after the Summer of Love, and it’s very loose. Everybody was new to putting a magazine together, doing layout and editing.

In terms of assigning the story, I think what happened was that the editors had decided it was time to feature Sly as a subject of a substantial profile. I am sure that I raised my hand and took it, because I had been an admirer of his, dating back beyond the local club circuit and beyond his recording work to his days as a DJ on a couple of R&B stations in town — KSOL first, and then KDIA, the larger station of the two, in the Oakland area.

I just enjoyed his work there, then learned about his work with Tom Donahue, the radio guy who co-created a record label called Autumn and met Sly at one of [his] smaller gigs. But no matter where Sly played, he and the Family Stone were impressive. They gelled very quickly and played clubs around the Bay Area. Tom met Sly and recognized his talent, and told him he was starting a record label. “Do you want to maybe help out?”

As a teenager, Sly became the staff producer for Autumn Records and worked with a couple of bands who I knew of, like the Beau Brummels and also Bobby Freeman, whose hits date back to the late Fifties. He wound up working with a couple of the signings that would later become famous, like Grace Slick with Great Society before she joined the Airplane. I just knew the Sly story pretty well, dug his music, and probably raised my hand and said, “Okay, I’m going to chase after him in Los Angeles.” That’s how, as far as I can recall, anyway, the assignment came together. It was my first long piece in Rolling Stone, following Jann’s dictate for details. Accuracy, and details, he said, make a good profile. That’s what I was trying for.

Of course, we’re talking 50 years ago. The guy was still around and available. Especially in the early years of stardom, Sly was such an amiable guy. I could just see him in school being a good student, even if he was bored. But the music engaged him. Even if he was getting involved in what might be called R&B and soul music, which would be a natural thing for a kid, he was in the choir at junior college and dedicated himself to expanding his world of music, and not just stay with pop or rock or R&B. He just always seemed to be an affable guy, and family was important to him. He didn’t name the band Family Stone for no reason. It was good to hang out with him in those years.

I don’t have the cassettes of him. Back in those days, we sometimes erased cassettes to record new interviews. But if memory serves — which it doesn’t do so well these days — he was an agreeable guy and cooperative, appreciative of the attention that he was getting from Rolling Stone. I don’t think we were exactly early on the bandwagon in 1970, considering that he began recording in ’67 as Sly and the Family Stone. It took a while. Of course, he had done Woodstock by then, and was on national television. He was a known commodity. Here we come now to the game.

Yet, he was totally cooperative and opened up both in conversation and in letting me have access to what he was up to. He was doing a variety of things in Los Angeles, ranging from an appearance on a national music TV show, The Music Scene, and auditioning musicians for a new band that he was putting together for a label of his own. Wow. By early 1970, he’s already got plans to have his own label. He was moving very fast.

I took note of how he and his Family Stone differed from what had been going on in the various musical scenes that I had seen up to that point. They were flashy, but not in a uniform way, the way so many R&B groups of the day dressed or costumed for stage and for television. They made statements, but individually. Yet, the unity was there in the music. He had a couple of different multi-instrumentalists and made use of their talents, both vocal and in terms of playing instruments.

It was striking, too, that he was the first multiracial ensemble. Yes, the Chambers Brothers had a drummer who was a white person, but this was more striking. The music was always joyous — “Everyday People.” I can’t exactly say that he was doing protest music, but he was getting across a message of unity and community. He was still danceable. That was one of the tricks that he had: no matter what, bottom line was to get them out on the floor and get them raving, and he did.

I don’t recall him being tough [to interview] at all. This was a time when superstardom or fortunes could strike people in many different ways. Some are able to go with it, because they’ve been anticipating it. They’re appreciating it. They go for the ride and are as positive and cooperative as they can be. Others have ups and downs. Failure follows success. Adulation follows success. Good fortunes follow success. Good fortunes and getting cheated out of those fortunes follow success. Everybody responds in a different way.

It’s just too bad that, so quickly, Sly became more of an erratic figure, let’s say, and was not as reliable or dependable, whereas just a couple of years before he had been the undisputed leader of this band and clan. Now, he was maybe the least responsible of them, showing up late or not at all and getting into drugs and just having problems that he had not had before.

I wasn’t chasing after him at that stage. There were other reporters, I think, who had to try to get a hold of him to find out what’s going on with him when he was missing dates and stuff. Rolling Stone did try to cover that part of his career, also.

It wasn’t as if being on the cover of Rolling Stone was as big a deal as it would become later on in that decade, but in retrospect, I can see now that that was a big moment, for Sly and the Family Stone as well as for me. It’s one of the ones I’m the most proud of. As Sly would have liked it, he would be in the top 10. 

I didn’t know him in more recent years. It’s just ironic that I had been in touch with Questlove, because we had met when he was doing Summer of Soul. We got in touch. He told me that as a teenager, before he was allowed to read adult magazines, his dad would bring home trade magazines and Rolling Stone. His dad was a leader of a doo-wop group, Lee Andrews. Ahmir said he read a lot of my stories as a kid, and used to paste Rolling Stone covers onto the walls of his bedroom. That was remarkable. I tried to help out with the Sly documentary, by providing whatever I had. As Questlove titled it, Sly Lives! There you are.