Psychedelic, Funky, Progressive Soul Pioneer Sly Stone Dies At 82

Sly Stone, the funk pioneer who fused soul music with psychedelia, rock and gospel with his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Band Sly and the Family Stone, died June 9 at the age of 82, his family announced.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved dad, Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone,” the statement said. “After a prolonged battle with COPD and other underlying health issues, Sly passed away peacefully, surrounded by his three children, his closest friend, and his extended family. While we mourn his absence, we take solace in knowing that his extraordinary musical legacy will continue to resonate and inspire for generations to come. “

The band — a rarity then and now as it included men and women, both Black and white — burst on to the scene in the late 1960s and performed at Woodstock, became a mainstay on radio in the era and for decades after, had No. 1 hits with “Everyday People,” “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” b/w “Everybody Is A Star” and “Family Affair,” was inducted into the Rock Hall in 1993.

Stone was the subject of the documentary “Sly Lives: aka The Burden of Black Genius,” produced by Questlove, which was released last year. Stone published an autobiography in 2023 and recently completed a screenplay based on his life story.

And what a story it was. The Family Stone — appropriately named, as it was essentially the product of a merger of two earlier bands, fronted by Sly and his brother — released three albums between 1968 and 1969, spawning those hit singles and stretching what soul, R&B and rock could be. Emphasizing the low-end and complementing the guitars with organ and horns, the band influenced a generation of artists who would take funk into the mainstream.

But his insight went far beyond that. No less a jazz luminary than Miles Davis said he drew inspiration from Stone. Untold numbers of DJs and hip-hop producers have sampled his songs for their tracks.

The band began to come apart in 1971 as Stone started to focus on darker visions in his own solo work and struggled with addiction. By the early 1980s, neither the band nor Stone himself had a major label deal. In 2011, the New York Post reported Stone was homeless in the Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles.

“Please tell everybody, please, to give me a job, play my music. I’m tired of all this shit, man,” Stone told the paper.

Stone was born as Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, in 1943 and moved with his family to Northern California at six months old. There, he sang gospel in his family’s church and fell in love with — and became prodigiously talented at — music. By the time he was in high school, he played guitar, bass, drums and keyboards, and eventually he studied music at Vallejo Junior College, before landing a record production job in 1965. He was a popular disc jockey in the Bay Arena and played in bands that scored some regional successes.

But it wasn’t until he formed the Family Stone that the nation and the world would take notice of his genius.

Ultimately, the band would come to include his brother Freddie on guitar and sister Rose on keyboards. Joining the Stewarts/Stones were a virtual cross-section of American demographics: Italian-Americans on drums and sax; a Black woman on trumpet and a Black man on bass. All of them danced and virtually everyone sang or screamed or scatted.

Their recorded success was perhaps only outshone by their live shows: celebratory, loud, dancing affairs that exploded hippy minds at Yasgur’s farm. But tensions within the band — no doubt aided by spiraling drug use — led them to cancel 26 shows in 1970.

Albums went nowhere and Stone fell out of sight in the 80s and 90s, with occasional appearances in the newspaper for legal troubles and showing up on stage at the band’s Rock Hall induction.

In 2006, backed by his old band plus John Legend and members of Aerosmith, Stone returned at the Grammys and the next year, a version of the band toured Europe. They played Coachella in 2010, when Stone gave a blistering speech about Jerry Goldstein, who’d been his manager for nearly two decades. That prompted a slander suit by Goldstein and a countersuit by Stone, whi said Goldstein had withheld royalties. A jury awarded Stone $5 million in 2015.

After that 2011 Post story and the jury award four years later, Stone began to make more frequent appearances in public.