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New York Times
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How the Bay Area Shaped Sly Stone
Several cities played outsized roles in the life of Sly Stone, the musical innovator who died on Monday at 82. There was Denton, the northern Texas town where he was born; Los Angeles, where he spent his later years; and even New York City, where he played several memorable concerts, including a Madison Square Garden date in 1974 at which he got married onstage. But no place was more central to Stone's formation and rise than the Bay Area. His family moved there shortly after he was born, and it's where he got his professional start and rose to stardom amid the multiracial psychedelic ferment of the 1960s. Here are five Bay Area spots important in his life. Stone's first encounter with music came as a child in Vallejo, Calif., north of Oakland. His father was a deacon at a local congregation affiliated with the Pentecostal sect the Church of God in Christ, and when he was 8 years old, Stone, whose given name was Sylvester Stewart, and three siblings recorded a gospel track. Stone appeared in several bands in high school. And then for a stint in college, he studied music theory and composition — and picked up the trumpet, to boot — at Vallejo Junior College, today known as Sonoma Community College. He was best known for funk and psychedelic rock, but Stone's eclecticism can be heard in the slow, firmly 1950s-style doo-wop music of the Viscaynes, one of his earliest groups. In an instance of foreshadowing, the Viscaynes, like the Family Stone, were multiracial at a time when that was exceedingly uncommon. ('To me, it was a white group with one Black guy,' Stone wrote in his memoir.) The Viscaynes recorded in downtown San Francisco underneath the Geary Theater, now known as the Toni Rembe Theater, and associated with the nonprofit company American Conservatory Theater. Stone attended broadcasting school in San Francisco and was then a D.J. at two local AM stations: KSOL, based out of San Mateo, and then KDIA, in Oakland. Both were aimed at Black listeners; KSOL, Stone wrote, had even changed its call sign to remind listeners that it played soul. But Stone again broke the mold, playing not just soul and R&B, but the Beatles and Bob Dylan. 'Some KSOL listeners didn't think a R&B station should be playing white acts,' he later wrote. 'But that didn't make sense to me. Music didn't have a color. All I could see was notes, styles and ideas.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sly Stone: influential funk pioneer who embodied the contradictions at the heart of American life
There's immense variety in popular music careers, even beyond the extremes of one-hit wonders and the long-haulers touring stadiums into their dotage. There are those who embody a specific era, burning briefly and brightly, and those whose legacy spans decades. Straddling both of those, and occupying a distinctive space in popular music history, is Sylvester Stewart, better known as Sly Stone, who died at the age of 82 on Monday June 9. A pioneer of funk whose sound spread far beyond the genre, his band Sly and the Family Stone synthesised disparate strands of American popular music into a unique melange, tracking the musical and social shifts as the 1960s wore into the 1970s. Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here. A musical prodigy and multi-instrumentalist from a young age, Stone was born in Texas in 1943 and raised in California, in a religious Pentecostal family. He had put out his first single aged 13 – a locally released gospel song with three of his siblings, who would later join him in Sly and the Family Stone. A record producer and DJ by his early twenties, he imbibed the music of British acts like The Beatles and Rolling Stones, and applied his eclectic tastes and musical versatility to producing local psychedelic and garage rock acts in the emergent San Francisco scene. By the time commercial popular culture had flowered into a more exploratory 'counterculture' in 1967's Summer of Love, the ebb and flow of personnel across local bands had coalesced into a line-up including the Stone siblings – Sly, Freddie, and their sister Vaetta, with their other sister Rose joining in 1968. Pioneering socially, as well as aesthetically, Sly and the Family Stone had diversity at its core – a mixed sex, multi-racial and musically varied band. This was notable for a mainstream act in an America still emerging from the depths of segregation, and riven with strife over the struggle for civil rights. While their first album in 1967 A Whole New Thing enjoyed comparatively little traction, 1968's Dance to the Music presaged a run of hits. Their sonic collision of sounds from across the commercial and social divide – psychedelic rock, soul, gospel and pop – struck a chord with audiences simultaneously looking forward with hope to changing times, and mindful of the injustice that was still prevalent. Singles like Everyday People, Stand, and I Want to Take You Higher, melded a party atmosphere with social statements. They were calls for action, but also for unity: celebratory, but pushing the musical envelope. While the band wore its innovations lightly at first, their reach was long. Bassist Larry Graham was a pioneer of the percussive slap bass that became a staple of funk and fusion. And their overall sound brought a looser, pop feel to the funk groove, in comparison to the almost militaristic tightness of that other funk pioneer, James Brown. Where Brown's leadership of his group was overt, exemplified by his staccato musical directions in the songs, and the call and response structure, Stone's band had more of an ensemble feel. Musical lines and solos were overlaid upon one another, often interweaving – more textured rather than in lock-step. It was a sound that would reach an almost chaotic apogée with George Clinton's Funkadelic later in the 1970s. The party couldn't last. As the optimism of the 1960s gave way to division in the 1970s, Stone's music took a darker turn, even if the funk remained central. The album There's A Riot Going On (1971), and its lead single It's Family Affair contained lyrics depicting social ills more explicitly. The music – mostly recorded by Sly himself – was sparser, the vocals more melancholic. The unity of the band itself was also fracturing, under pressure from Stone's growing cocaine dependency. The album Fresh (1973) featured classics like In Time and If You Want Me To Stay, but they were running out of commercial road by 1974's Small Talk, and broke up soon after. Periodic comebacks were punctuated by a troubled personal life, including, at its nadir, reports of Stone living out of a van in Los Angeles, and arrests for drug possession. By the time he achieved a degree of stability, his star may have faded, but his legacy was secure. Stone embodied the contradictions of American popular music – arguably even America itself: brash and light-hearted on the one hand, with a streak of darkness and self-destructiveness on the other. The handclaps and joyous shouts harked back to his gospel roots, but his embrace of electric instruments aligned soul with rock and pop. He was a funk artist who played at the archetypal hippie festival, Woodstock, and a social commentator whose party sounds were shot through with urgency. He paved the way for the likes of Prince and Outkast, but also informed jazz and fusion. Jazz pioneer Miles Davis acknowledged Stone's influence on his own turn towards electric and funk sounds in the late 1960s and early 1970s on landmark albums like Bitches Brew. Sly Stone's joyful provocations may not have lasted at the commercial centre, but his mark was indelible. His struggles were both personal and social, but his sense of groove, and of a collective voice, demonstrated the value of aligning traditions with new ideas – a musical America that was fractious, but still a family affair. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council
BBC News
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Sly Stone: A funky life
Sly Stone, a funk-rock star who led the group Sly and the Family Stone, has died at the age of 82, his family statement.A statement said he had suffered a "prolongued battle" with the lung disease COPD. Stone, whose real name was Sylvester Stewart, grew up singing gospel with his siblings, and went on to play the Woodstock music festival in 1969. On the way, Stone was a San Francisco radio DJ, before he and his band hit the big time with hits including It's a Family Affair and If You Want Me to Stay. Stone was a giant of funk music, known for blending psychedelia, funk, rock and soul, his big style and even bigger hair. Here is a selection of images from his life.
Edmonton Journal
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Edmonton Journal
Sly Stone, groundbreaking '60s funk rock musician, dies at 82
Article content By the end of the decade, Sly and the Family Stone had broken up and Sly was releasing solo records with such unmet promises as 'Heard You Missed Me, Well I'm Back' and 'Back On the Right Track.' Most of the news he made over the following decades was of drug busts, financial troubles and mishaps on stage. Sly and the Family Stone was inducted into the Rock & Roll of Fame in 1993 and honored in 2006 at the Grammy Awards, but Sly released just one album after the early '80s, 'I'm Back! Family & Friends,' much of it updated recordings of his old hits. He was born Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, and raised in Vallejo, California, the second of five children in a close, religious family. Sylvester became 'Sly' by accident, when a teacher mistakenly spelled his name 'Slyvester.' He loved performing so much that his mother alleged he would cry if the congregation in church didn't respond when he sang before it. He was so gifted and ambitious that by age 4 he had sung on stage at a Sam Cooke show and by age 11 had mastered several instruments and recorded a gospel song with his siblings. He was so committed to the races working together that in his teens and early 20s he was playing in local bands that included Black and white members and was becoming known around the Bay Area as a deejay equally willing to play the Beatles and rhythm and blues acts. 'A Whole New Thing' came out in 1967, soon followed by the single 'Dance to the Music,' in which each member was granted a moment of introduction as the song rightly proclaimed a 'brand new beat.' In December 1968, the group appeared on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' and performed a medley that included 'Dance to the Music' and 'Everyday People.' Before the set began, Sly turned to the audience and recited a brief passage from his song 'Are You Ready': 'Don't hate the Black, don't hate the white, if you get bitten, just hate the bite.'
The Independent
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Sly Stone, revolutionary funk rock musician, dies at 82
Sly Stone, the revolutionary musician and dynamic showman whose Sly and the Family Stone transformed popular music in the 1960s and '70s and beyond with such hits as 'Everyday People,' 'Stand!' and 'Family Affair,' died Monday at age 82. Stone, born Sylvester Stewart, had been in poor health in recent years. His publicist Carleen Donovan said Stone died in Los Angeles surrounded by family after contending with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other ailments. Formed in 1966-67, Sly and the Family Stone was the first major group to include Black and white men and women, and well embodied a time when anything seemed possible — riots and assassinations, communes and love-ins. The singers screeched, chanted, crooned and hollered. The music was a blowout of frantic horns, rapid-fire guitar and locomotive rhythms, a melting pot of jazz, psychedelic rock, doo-wop, soul and the early grooves of funk. Stone's group began as a Bay Area sextet featuring Sly on keyboards, Larry Graham on bass; Sly's brother, Freddie, on guitar; sister Rose on vocals; Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini horns and Greg Errico on drums. They debuted with the album 'A Whole New Thing' and earned the title with their breakthrough single, 'Dance to the Music.' It hit the top 10 in April 1968, the week the Rev. Martin Luther King was murdered, and helped launch an era when the polish of Motown and the understatement of Stax suddenly seemed of another time. Led by Sly Stone, with his leather jumpsuits and goggle shades, mile-wide grin and mile-high Afro, the band dazzled in 1969 at the Woodstock festival and set a new pace on the radio. 'Everyday People,' 'I Wanna Take You Higher' and other songs were anthems of community, non-conformity and a brash and hopeful spirit, built around such catchphrases as 'different strokes for different folks.' The group released five top 10 singles, three of them hitting No. 1, and three million-selling albums: 'Stand!', 'There's a Riot Goin' On' and 'Greatest Hits.' Sly's influence has endured for decades. The top funk artist of the 1970s, Parliament-Funkadelic creator George Clinton, was a Stone disciple. Prince, Rick James and the Black-Eyed Peas were among the many performers from the 1980s and after influenced by Sly, and countless rap artists have sampled his riffs, from the Beastie Boys to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. A 2005 tribute record included Maroon 5, John Legend and the Roots. A dream dies, a career burns away By the early '70s, Stone himself was beginning a descent from which he never recovered, driven by the pressures of fame and the added burden of Black fame. His record company was anxious for more hits, while the Black Panthers were pressing him to drop the white members from his group. After moving from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in 1970, he became increasingly hooked on cocaine and erratic in his behavior. On 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),' Stone had warned: 'Dying young is hard to take/selling out is harder.' Late in 1971, he released 'There's a Riot Going On,' one of the grimmest, most uncompromising records ever to top the album charts. The sound was dense and murky (Sly was among the first musicians to use drum machines), the mood reflective ('Family Affair'), fearful ('Runnin' Away') and despairing: 'Time, they say, is the answer — but I don't believe it,' Sly sings on 'Time.' The fast, funky pace of the original 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)' was slowed, stretched and retitled 'Thank You For Talkin' to Me, Africa.' By the end of the decade, Sly and the Family Stone had broken up and Sly was releasing solo records with such unmet promises as 'Heard You Missed Me, Well I'm Back' and 'Back On the Right Track.' Most of the news he made over the following decades was of drug busts, financial troubles and mishaps on stage. Sly and the Family Stone was inducted into the Rock & Roll of Fame in 1993 and honored in 2006 at the Grammy Awards, but Sly released just one album after the early '80s, 'I'm Back! Family & Friends,' much of it updated recordings of his old hits. A born musician, a born uniter He was born Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, and raised in Vallejo, California, the second of five children in a close, religious family. Sylvester became 'Sly' by accident, when a teacher mistakenly spelled his name 'Slyvester.' He loved performing so much that his mother alleged he would cry if the congregation in church didn't respond when he sang before it. He was so gifted and ambitious that by age 4 he had sung on stage at a Sam Cooke show and by age 11 had mastered several instruments and recorded a gospel song with his siblings. He was so committed to the races working together that in his teens and early 20s he was playing in local bands that included Black and white members and was becoming known around the Bay Area as a deejay equally willing to play the Beatles and rhythm and blues acts. 'A Whole New Thing' came out in 1967, soon followed by the single 'Dance to the Music,' in which each member was granted a moment of introduction as the song rightly proclaimed a 'brand new beat.' In December 1968, the group appeared on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' and performed a medley that included 'Dance to the Music' and 'Everyday People.' Before the set began, Sly turned to the audience and recited a brief passage from his song 'Are You Ready': 'Don't hate the Black, don't hate the white, if you get bitten, just hate the bite.'
