Sly Stone, 2007, New York City
Photo by Frank Beacham
Sly Stone is 80 years old today.
Born Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, Stone is a musician, songwriter and record producer — most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Stewart family was a deeply religious Christian middle-class household. His parents, K.C. and Alpha Stewart, held the family together. As part of the doctrines of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), they encouraged musical expression in the household. Sylvester was the second of five children raised in Vallejo, in the northern San Francisco Bay Area.
After the family moved from Denton, Texas to Vallejo, Sylvester and his brother Freddie and their sisters Rose and Vaetta formed "The Stewart Four" as children. They performed gospel music in the Church of God in Christ and recorded a 78 rpm single, "On the Battlefield" b/w "Walking in Jesus' Name," in 1952.
All of the other Stewart children would later adopt the surname "Stone" and become members of Sly & the Family Stone.
Sylvester was identified as a musical prodigy from a young age. By age seven, Sylvester had already become proficient on the keyboards. By 11, he had mastered the guitar, bass and drums as well. While still in high school, Sylvester learned to play a number of instruments, settling primarily on the guitar. He joined a number of high school bands.
One of these was The Viscaynes, a doo-wop group in which Sylvester and his Filipino friend, Frank Arelano, were the only non-white members. The fact that the group was integrated made the Viscaynes "hip" in the eyes of their audiences, and would later inspire Sylvester's idea of the multicultural, "Family Stone."
The name Sly was a common nickname for Sylvester throughout his years in grade school. A classmate misspelled his name Slyvester and ever since the nickname followed him.
Along with James Brown and Parliament-Funkadelic, Sly and the Family Stone were pioneers of late 1960s and early '70s funk. Their fusion of R&B rhythms, infectious melodies and psychedelia created a new pop/soul/rock hybrid the impact of which has proven lasting and widespread.
The pioneering precedent of Stone's racial, sexual and stylistic mix, had a major influence in the 1980s on artists such as Prince and Rick James. Legions of artists from the 1990s forward — including Public Enemy, Fatboy Slim, Beck and LL Cool J's popular "Mama Said Knock You Out" along with many others — mined Stone’s seminal back catalog for hook-laden samples.
From the moment the group began touring following the success of Dance to the Music, The Family Stone drew praise for their explosive live show, which attracted equal parts black and white fans.
When Bob Marley first played in the U.S. in 1973 with his band, The Wailers, he opened on tour for Sly and The Family Stone. With the band's newfound fame and success came numerous problems.
Relationships within the band were deteriorating. There was friction in particular between the Stone brothers and Larry Graham. Epic requested more marketable output.
The Black Panther Party demanded that Stone make his music more militant and more reflective of the black power movement, replace Greg Errico and Jerry Martini with black instrumentalists and replace the manager, David Kapralik.
After moving to the Los Angeles area in fall 1969, Stone and his bandmates became heavy users of drugs, primarily cocaine and PCP. As the members became increasingly focused on drug use and partying (Stone carried a violin case filled with drugs wherever he went), recording slowed significantly.
Between summer 1969 and fall 1971, the band released only one single, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" / "Everybody Is a Star." The former song was one of the first recordings to employ the heavy, funky beats that would be featured in the funk music of the following decade.
It showcased bass player Larry Graham's innovative percussive playing technique of bass "slapping." Graham later said that he developed this technique in an earlier band in order to compensate for that band's lack of a drummer.
Live bookings for Sly & the Family Stone had steadily dropped since 1970, because promoters were afraid that Stone or one of the band members might miss the gig, refuse to play or pass out from drug use. These issues were regular occurrences for the band during the 1970s, and had an adverse effect on their ability to demand money for live bookings.
At many of these gigs, concertgoers rioted if the band failed to show up, or if Stone walked out before finishing his set.
Ken Roberts became the group's promoter, and later their general manager, when no other representatives would work with the band because of their erratic gig attendance record.
In January, 1975, the band booked itself at Radio City Music Hall. The famed music hall was only one-eighth occupied, and Stone and company had to scrape together money to return home. Following the Radio City engagement, the band was dissolved.
In January, 2015, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury found that Stone had not been fully paid for songwriting royalties. The civil jury said that manager Jerry Goldstein, attorney Glenn Stone and Even St. Productions owed Stone $5 million in royalties and damages.
But in a Dec. 7, 2015 ruling, Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney said that Stone had assigned his royalties to Even St. Productions in 1989 in return for 50 percent ownership in the company. He got no money from the lawsuit.