High And Sly

- Matt Allen

Photographer Neal Preston was driving east along the Santa Monica freeway one day in 1979 when Sly Stone, riding shotgun, pulled out a crack pipe and butane torch and got busy. After a cat-and-mouse week of missed meetings, the duo were finally heading towards a photo shoot; Preston on assignment for People magazine, “human crapshoot” Stone dressed incongruously in army fatigues.

“I didn’t think the LAPD would have taken too kindly to the bonfire of cocaine,” says Preston. “But you roll with the punches.”