Sly & The Family Stone

A band called a family

Sylvester Stewart, known as Sly Stone, was a disc jockey at the R&B station KSOL and a producer at Autumn Records, where he made Bobby Freeman's national hit "C'mon and Swim". His own band, Sly & the Stoners, included the trumpeter Cynthia Robinson. His brother Freddie led a band with the drummer Greg Errico. At the suggestion of the saxophonist Jerry Martini the two groups merged. Freddie took over guitar, Sly played organ, Larry Graham played bass, and their sister Rose Stone joined on keyboards and vocals. A trio called Little Sister, with Vet Stone, Mary McCreary and Elva Mouton, sang backing vocals. Harry Weinger wrote when they entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 that they were "rock's first integrated band".

Epic signed them. Their first album, A Whole New Thing (1967), won praise from musicians such as Mose Allison and Tony Bennett but sold poorly. Clive Davis, the CBS executive, pushed for something more commercial, and Sly wrote a simpler record. Dance to the Music reached number 8 on the Hot 100, the band's first charting single. Martini later called it "glorified Motown beats". The album Dance to the Music followed in April 1968, and Life in September, which was not a commercial success but was called a creative leap forward by the Guardian.

Stand! and Woodstock

Everyday People, released in late 1968, became their first number one and popularized the phrase "different strokes for different folks". It opened side two of Stand!, released in 1969 on Epic and recorded largely at Pacific High in San Francisco. The album reached number 13 on the Billboard 200 and went on to sell more than three million copies. The Library of Congress calls its key songs "foundational statements" of late-1960s music. I Want to Take You Higher and the title track Stand! both came from it.

The band played the Harlem Cultural Festival that year, a concert series later filmed for the documentary Summer of Soul, and took the stage at Woodstock in the early hours of 17 August 1969. The single "Hot Fun in the Summertime" reached number 2. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) came out in December 1969 and topped the Hot 100 in February 1970. It ran through their earlier hits in its third verse, with Larry Graham's slap bass heard throughout.

Riot

Between summer 1969 and fall 1971 the band released only one single, and Errico left in early 1971. There's a Riot Goin' On was recorded in 1970 and 1971, and Sly worked on it largely by himself at the Record Plant in Sausalito and at his home studio. The other members said most of it was his own overdubbing, with a drum machine in places. Billy Preston, Ike Turner and Bobby Womack played on some tracks. The sound is murky and dense, and critics split at first: the Los Angeles Times's Robert Hilburn found little worth his attention, while Rolling Stone's Vince Aletti came to respect its honesty. It went to number one on the Billboard 200, and Pitchfork later placed it fourth on its list of the best albums of the 1970s.

Its lead single, Family Affair, was also a number one, and the Guardian called it possibly the bleakest US number one single ever. Graham left in 1972 and formed Graham Central Station. Fresh (1973) was the last Family Stone album to reach the US Top 10, with a lighter touch on the same drum-machine groove. After a booking at Radio City Music Hall in January 1975 the band dissolved. Sly kept recording under the name, including Back on the Right Track (1979), and toured with George Clinton and Funkadelic.

Legacy

The group went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, inducted by George Clinton, and Sly appeared just as the band took the podium to accept. At the 2006 Grammy tribute he joined the Family Stone for "I Want to Take You Higher" and left the stage three minutes into the performance. The Guardian argued in 2016 that their hits foreshadow hip-hop's bricolage, and the official biography lists Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Prince, Public Enemy, OutKast and the Roots among those who carry their influence. Sly's memoir, written with Ben Greenman, appeared in 2023.