Sly Stone invented modern music, then disappeared in a cloud of crack smoke (here are his best five songs to listen to now)
Sly Stone has died, aged 82. You could say that the music world has lost a giant talent, were it not for the sad truth that Sly was lost to the world, and to his own talent, a long, long time ago. Certainly, he was a giant once, and the fabulous music he made in his pomp is still very much alive and percolating through pop culture.
A prodigiously gifted multi-instrumentalist musician, singer, songwriter, producer and bandleader, Sylvester Stewart aka Sly Stone was an innovator who pushed modern music into new territory and shifted the dial of pop culture.
The six albums he made with the original lineup of his inspirational, multiracial, mixed-gender ensemble Sly and the Family Stone – from their groundbreaking funk-pop debut A Whole New Thing, in 1967, to the stoned masterpiece There's A Riot Goin' On, in 1971 – remain one of the high watermarks of the rock and pop era.
It was a scorching hot streak on which a precocious young genius established new blueprints for progressive dance music that have been imitated, exploited, reworked, adapted, played with and built upon ever since. Stone became arguably the most popular and critically acclaimed black American superstar of his moment. And then, at the height of his fame and influence, he crashed and burned in a paranoid, talent-sapping cloud of cocaine, angel dust and crack.
If Stone has not been as universally celebrated as his talent warrants, it is because he became almost as well known for his rampant drug abuse as for his music, which declined precipitously in quality as his drug use increased.
For a few fantastic years in the late 1960s and early 70s, Sly was a chart-topping wizard whose bold blends influenced Miles Davis's shift towards jazz funk, inspired the psychedelic experiments of Parliament and Funkadelic and pushed even such established Motown stars as The Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder into new realms of socially conscious soul.
But Stone fell from grace in public, becoming notorious for not turning up to concerts, giving TV interviews while intoxicated, his colourful fashion sense creeping towards self-parody as his records strained to keep up with pop trends he had once led from the front. By the 1980s, he was in and out of jail, with an extensive rap sheet for drug offences. For a period in the 2000s, things had become so bad that Stone was reported to be homeless, living out of a camper van in a rundown area of Los Angeles.
It is not a pretty tale, no matter how he tried to gloss over it in his evasive 2023 memoir Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). But lest we are tempted to turn Stone's life into another sad parable about the price of fame and fortune, there is something we should remember: the music. Because Stone's hot streak is still glowing fiercely, decades after its damaged creator lit the fuse.
Sylvester Stewart was raised singing and playing in church choirs and gospel groups, in a musical family (two of whom joined him in the Family Stone) where his status as a prodigy had been recognised by the time he was four. In his early 20s. he became an influential San Francisco radio DJ, session musician, songwriter and record producer, working with black and white artists in genres spanning soul, pop and rock (including a young Grace Slick, for whom he produced the first version of her signature song Somebody To Love with her original band, The Great Society).
By the time he formed The Family Stone in 1966, he already had a vision of a multiracial group whose sound could span all the genres he loved. 'I was searching for a different type of music,' he once explained. 'I dug (Bob) Dylan, (Ray) Charles, Aretha Franklin, The Staples Singers and the Beatles. It was all music, and it should all be together.'
Sometimes playing keyboards, sometimes guitar, always directing and encouraging his supremely gifted six-piece band, Stone made records that crossed over from segregated black stations to mainstream pop radio, with sounds that established thrillingly limber and funky rhythms (Larry Graham's pioneering slap bass was a feature), melodies that shifted from unison chants to blissful harmonies, and lyrics that expressed socially progressive ideas responding to the imperatives of a hippy generation concerned about war, peace and civil rights.
If you have been listening to pop in our times, you surely know some of Sly Stones' songs: the incredible 1967 banger Dance to the Music; the glorious 1968 anthem of racial unity Everyday People; and the bruised soul stew of 1971's Family Affair, made when paranoia, disillusion and darkening political times were casting a shadow over Stone's innate optimism. The drugs that he had begun consuming in vast quantities certainly didn't help. 1969's Stand! album might by Sly and the Family Stone's most inspirational explosion of progressive psychedelic funk but its rawer, dirtier, darker follow up is the one that has remained in the ether.
Constantly high (it has been claimed he was on drugs for the entire two and a half years it took to make), Stone retreated to a studio in his mansion in the plush LA suburb of Bel Air and recorded There's a Riot Goin' On mostly by himself, only bringing in band members as he saw fit. When, in 1971, drummer Greg Errico became the first of the once tight-knit Family to quit (beginning a gradual exodus), Stone started using a primitive machine called a Rhythm Box instead, finding ways to trick its simplistic presets into producing odd, offbeat patterns.
A raw, strange work of bleak but soulful disillusionment with the American dream, it caught the mood of the times and went to number one on the US Billboard charts. In his book 1971, British music journalist David Hepworth has argued that it has become the most influential record of that seminal year, noting 'there's a whole world of moody, hypnotic, rhythm-box based music which would be inconceivable without its example. In fact, the whole category known by the contemporary shorthand 'urban' can be traced back to what Sly did in the decidedly suburban surroundings of Bel Air.'
Like much of Sly's distinctive work it has been heavily sampled by hip-hop artists. You can hear his music in hits by such major rap stars as Kendrick Lamar, Jay Z, The Jungle Brothers, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Cypress Hill, The Roots and Missy Elliot, alongside such unlikely bedfellows as Lenny Kravitz, Primal Scream, Madonna and Janet Jackson (whose signature 1989 hit rhythm nation is built from a Sly Stone guitar riff).
Of all the artists to carry his legacy, Prince was the most obviously indebted to him, another gifted multi-instrumentalist wizard, leading multiracial, mixed-genre bands.
An excellent recent documentary, Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) by Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson offers sympathetic insights into the turbulence that marked Stone's creative life.
Available on Disney+, it concludes with footage showing an old, smiling Stone with his adult children and grandchildren. It seems he finally got clean in his late seventies, after multiple serious health scares, and it is touching to hear his children take such obvious pride in finally getting to spend quality time with a father who had been barely present in their lives.
The truth is, whatever his flaws and his demons, Sly Stone had a huge impact on countless lives. In one moment that leaps out from the film, a 1970's TV interviewer dares to suggest that Stone had fulfilled a particular American musical cliché, 'you get to the top and then you blow it.' Stone beams the biggest, warmest smile you could ever hope to see and tells her 'I didn't blow nothing.' In the great scheme of things, when Stone has gone but his music lingers on, who's to say he's wrong?
Sly Stone: Five essential songs
1. I Wanna Take You Higher (1969)
I'm not sure there have been many songs funkier than this punchy, horn driven chant, with Sly on harmonica, Freddie Stone on bluesy guitar, and the band sharing vocal duties as they insist on taking us ever higher and higher. 'Boom shacka lacka lacka!'
2. It's a Family Affair (1971)
The first drum machine driven hit, low slung and bubbling, with a slack voiced Sly growling his way through a lyric suggesting disillusion with the complexities of family relations, whilst his sister Rose's counterpoint vocals reaches out like a salve.
3. Everyday People (1968)
A pulsing rhythm underpins pianist Rose Stone and trumpeter Cynthia Robertson's almost nursery rhyme chant about diversity and equality ('different strokes for different folks'), whilst Sly tops it off with his soulful cries of 'I-I-I am everyday people.' Soulful pop with an uplifting message.
4. Dance to the Music (1968)
His first hit, and still one of the great dancefloor fillers, an insistent chant over a modified Motown beat, with the whole band taking solos at Sly's urging, whilst he pushes them on with his splashy Hammond organ and wailing vocal instructions.
5. Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (1969)
Larry Graham's slap bass and Sly's slick guitar riff drive a song that's almost a megamix, quoting other Family Stone hits as it pushes relentlessly onwards. As on many of their most uplifting tracks, the whole band share lead vocals.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
25 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Top surfing dogs catch waves at Huntington Beach
A photographer takes a shot of Marlee, a Pembroke Welsh corgi, as she barrels through a wave while competing in the annual Incredible Dog Challenge Western Regional competition on Friday. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Petey, a West Highland terrier, barrels his way past lifeguards while taking a wave. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Rosie, a two-and-a-half-year-old Labrador from Santa Cruz, California, takes off on a wave ahead of Charlie, a 10-year-old Lab from San Diego. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP James Will carries his dog Faith, a 13-year-old partially blind and deaf American pit bull terrier, after competing Friday in the Incredible Dog Challenge Western Regional competition. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Jeffrey Nieboer, top right, watches as his Labrador retriever Charlie take off on a wave. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Scott Owen watches as his dog Bailey, a four-year-old Dalmatian from Temecula, California, catches a wave. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Petey, a West Highland terrier, takes off on a wave. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Doug Critchett cheers on his corgi Marlee as she competes on Friday at Huntington Beach. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Carson poses with his coach Jill Nakano, left, and his surfboard. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Charlie, a Labrador retriever, pulls his surfboard after competing in the Incredible Dog Challenge Western Regional competition. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Carson, an 11-year-old terrier, catches a wave. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP Petey, a West Highland terrier, poses for a photo on his surfboard after taking first place for small dogs at the 28th Annual Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge Western Regionals competition. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Aston Merrygold gets emotional as sons interview him for Disney's Elio
got emotional on the press tour of Disney 's Elio after a surprise interview with his sons, Grayson Jax and Macaulay Shay. The JLS singer was surprised by Disney who had organised for his boys to interview him about his debut role as voice actor. Aston can be seen voicing the character 'Aston' in Disney's Elio, in cinemas June 20, alongside Zoe Saldaña, Yonas Kibreab, Brad Garrett, Jameela Jamil, Shirley Henderson and Remi Edgerly. His character works with Aunt Olga played by Zoe Saldaña at Montez Air Force Base, where they find themselves hearing rumours of life outside Earth.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Celebrity nudity has gone too far
Am I the only one bored of nipples? From red carpets to album covers, baring it all seems to be all the rage. Over the years hems have gotten shorter, fabrics sheerer and underwear swapped for stick-on patches. At this point, what would really shock on a red carpet is long sleeves and a covered ankle. Sex sells – a story as old as time. So perhaps it's unsurprising how much nudity and sexuality is on display from movie stars and pop singers. But the response to what kind of nakedness is appropriate is interesting. Just a matter of years ago, female sexual nudity was not just condemned by priests and prudes but by feminist preachers, too. Magazines may have stopped publishing Page 3 girls, but now they're covered in semi-nude celebrities, while social media is awash with them. Last week, Sabrina Carpenter covered Rolling Stone naked, long hair covering her modesty, in tandem with a controversial cover for her forthcoming album Man's Best Friend which appears to show her on all fours at a man's feet, like a dog, with his hand pulling her hair. Meanwhile Liz Hurley celebrated her 60th birthday by posting pictures 'in her birthday suit' – as Gwyneth Paltrow did when turning 50. Kanye West's wife, Australian fashion designer Bianca Censori, attended the 2025 Grammys wearing a completely see-through mini dress without any underwear at all. This year the Cannes Film Festival went as far as to ban the 'naked dress' from the red carpet for 'decency reasons', in reaction to the number of celebrities attending the festival in little more than a g-string and some taffeta, with their breasts fully exposed. Women such as Rose MacGowan have called this kind of dressing an act of 'empowerment', while Carpenter supporters have praised her for 'subverting the male gaze' by reflecting it so brazenly. But are these powerful feminist statements or have we lost all sense of public decency? What's more, when it comes to celebrity nudity, the double standards are glaring. Who doesn't remember the picture of Kim Kardashian's bottom balancing a glass of champagne for a Paper Magazine cover that reportedly 'broke the internet'? What was so shocking about that episode wasn't that we were gazing at yet another picture of one of the Kardashians' backsides, but the fact that Labour MP and queen of the feminist morality police, Harriet Harman, praised it on breakfast television. In an interview with Good Morning Britain, Harman said the Kardashian women possess 'a kind of bravery and a pioneering… spirit to them'. But what about all those years of arguing that sexualised women should be banned from the shelves of corner shops and that the pornification of women was a disgrace worthy of legal action? In her argument, Harman seemed to suggest that Page 3 girls, in their working-class ignorance, had no idea what they were doing or why they were doing it. But the Kardashians, one of the world's richest celebrity families, 'are in control of their own agenda'. The middle-class war on working-class women's bodies was yet again evidenced in 2018, when 'walk-on girls' Charlotte Wood and Daniella Allfree were axed by darts bosses after pressure to end the 'sexist' practice of glamorous women at events. In a now infamous episode of This Morning, feminist writer Sally Howard told Allfree and Wood that they were 'demeaning' to women, and should be prevented from glamour modelling for the feminist cause. Perhaps the flak she got for her condescending nonsense hurt enough to make her think twice, but a cursory google shows that Howard has yet to comment on any of the other public appearances of sexualised women. The message is clear: some boobs are 'demeaning', and some are 'empowering'. These days, the darts girls look demure in comparison to what goes on. Tight dresses and high heels were about as racy as they got – in comparison to female celebrities today who seem to be allergic to bras and knickers. The fashion world might have been unsettled when organisers at the Cannes film festival banned the 'naked' dress, but perhaps punters were simply sick of seeing Bella Hadid's nipples? A celebration of female sexuality is one thing – Marilyn Monroe was a beautiful woman who knew how to dress to impress. But there is something a little bleak about seeing image after image of half-starved models with their nether regions on show. Despite it all screaming sex, none of it seems very sexy. Perhaps the best example of this de-sexing of nudity is Censori. Her nude stunts – seemingly controlled by an increasingly unhinged West – aren't shocking because she is in her birthday suit, but because she looks so pained while doing it. There is no fun or celebration to this sexualisation. In fact, some have raised suspicions about how consensual it all is. But while Censori might be the extreme end of the nudity wars, she represents the hollowing out of sex in the public eye. All these barely-there women seem bored with their own nudity. The problem with this 'nudity as empowerment' narrative is that it gets murky very quickly. The other week, Sydney Sweeney went viral for her Dr Squatch soap, which, the male grooming brand claimed, contained droplets of Sweeney's actual used bathwater. The savvy campaign capitalised, with winking irony, their Sweeney ad from the previous year, which saw the star lying in a foaming bath tub, telling 'dirty little boys' to clean up. The comments section was full of, among other things, men requesting Sweeney's bathwater, while many women criticised her for encouraging male objectification. The week the new ad dropped, Sweeney spoke to the Sunday Times about sometimes struggling to be taken seriously in the boardroom and behind-the-scenes of her production company – particularly by other women. 'A woman's body is beyond empowering and beautiful and sexy and all the things,' she said. 'And I think that one day I will be able to have control of the narrative of my body. I'll take the power.' Is it really so anti-feminist to suggest she would have more luck being taken seriously in the boardroom if she didn't sell her used bathwater to horny young men? I've never been a fan of telling women to cover up. While I might dislike most of her politics, I rallied to Angela Rayner's defence when the Right went into meltdown over her legs being on show during Prime Minister's Questions. Telling women what to wear is never a good idea – from conservatives with their knickers in a twist to finger-wagging feminists. But we should ask ourselves, are we having a good time with all this nudity? Sabrina Carpenter's album cover might be a two-fingered salute to decorum, but is it radical if we had already lost it years ago? If there are no more nipples left to free, perhaps it might be more shocking to start tucking them away.
