Legendary funk and soul musician Sly Stone has died at the age of 82 surrounded by his family after a long battle with health issues.
Stone is best known for fronting the funk band Sly and the Family Stone who had a slew of hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He later had a solo career but largely disappeared from the music scene for decades.
His combination of funk, soul, rock and psychedelia and doo-wop influenced generations of artists and his songs were widely covered and sampled.
Sylvester Stewart formed Sly and the Family Stone in 1966. The band included his brother Freddie and sister Rose alongside Cynthia Robinson, Greg Errico, Jerry Martini and Larry Graham. The band was the first major American rock group to have a racially integrated, mixed gender line up.
Between 1967 and 1969 they released four landmark albums and had back to back hits with songs including Dance to the Music, M’Lady, Life, Stand, I Want to Take You Higher, Sing a Simple Song, Hot Fun in the Summertime, Everybody is a Star, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) and Everyday People.
They played the legendary mud-soaked Woodstock concert in 1969 taking to the stage at 3:30am in the middle of a downpouring of rain.
As the 1970s arrived they moved into making more political and funk sounding works and while having less commercial success released songs including Family Affair and If You Want Me to Stay. Soon drug use began to affect the band and many of the original members departed, Stone continued on with a rotating line up of musicians, but by the 1980s had disappeared from the music scene.
In 1993 when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the band’s members were in attendance except for the leader Sly Stone, but as they took to the podium to accept the award he suddenly appeared and made sone brief remarks. In 2006 there was a tribute to the band at the Grammy Awards and Sly Stone made a brief appearance alongside Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler.
In 2019 after being hospitalised regularly for issues relating to his drug use, Stone finally got clean. He wrote his memoir, contributed to several documentaries about his life and work, and returned to touring playing large festivals including Glastonbury in 2015 where they shared the stage with George Clinton, Parliament and Funkadelic.
Their work was often covered by other artists, Madonna included Family Affair in her acclaimed Blonde Ambition World Tour mashing it up with her song Keeping It Together as her show’s closing encore. For her Girlie Show Tour she mixed up Everybody is a Star with her own debut release Everybody.
Janet Jackson’s mega-selling Rhythm Nation heavily samples Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), the Red Hot Chili Peppers covered I Want to Take You Higher, and Arrested Development burst onto the scene with People Everyday, a reworking of Everyday People.
Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, Ice Cube, Dr Dre, 2 Pac, Snoop Dogg, KRS-One, De La Soul, Alanis Morrisette, TLC, MC Solaar, Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, The Notorious B.I.G., Prince, Cypress Hill, Happy Mondays, Betty Boo, Naughty by Nature, Kris Kross, Skee-Lo are just a few of the artists who have sampled the band.
Barry White, Glady Knight, Aretha Franklin, Iggy Pop, Paul Weller, Steve Winwood, The Brothers Johnson, Keb Mo, H.E.R., The Jackson 5, Edwin Starr, Duran Duran, Tina Turner, Al Jarreau, Pointer Sisters, Fishbone, Chaka Khan and The Beach Boys all covered Sly and the Family Stone tunes.
Sly and the Family Stone’s work is also cited as a major inspiration for artists like Herbie Handcock who has acknowledged the band led to him creating his Headhunters album, while jazz legend Miles Davis created his On The Corner album after being inspired by artists like James Brown and Sly Stone.
