Sly Stone lived out the plight of many of his hit songs, from the hopelessness of “Runnin’ Away” to the excess of “I Want to Take You Higher” and the gloom of “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” Between 1966 and 1973, the fashion-forward founder and leader of Sly & the Family Stone, whose death at age 82 was announced today, created an eclectic, cutting-edge body of hits that would profoundly influence rock, soul, funk and world music. But a free fall into serial drug addiction led first to erratic behavior and then to seclusion after 1987 that permanently sidelined him from the music business.
Mr. Stone’s flame-out was especially shocking given his remarkable talent and early promise. He was the pop group’s composer, lyricist, producer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist on 10 albums—three of which reached Billboard’s Top 10—and 18 hit singles.
Charted songs ranged from playful pop (“Hot Fun in the Summertime”) and hushed funk (“Family Affair”) to soulful (“You Can Make It If You Try”), jazzy (“Seven More Days”) and psychedelic rock (“I Want to Take You Higher”).
Rock star Sylvester “Sly” Stone of Sly and the Family Stone, April 1972. (AP Photo)
Though Mr. Stone broke musical barriers, he never won a Grammy during his years as a working recording artist. But in the 1990s and 2000s, Sly & the Family Stone’s singles “Dance to the Music” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and albums “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” and “Stand!” were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Mr. Stone received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.
His hybrid music style and acid-funk sartorial choices left an impact on a wide range of artists, including Miles Davis , Stevie Wonder , War, Frank Zappa , Parliament, Funkadelic, George Clinton , Kool & the Gang, Earth Wind & Fire, Chic, Prince, Macy Gray, Graham Central Station and Outkast. He also pioneered the long-form jam, allowing the band to slip into hypnotic, churning riffs on rock and funk songs that lasted 10 minutes or longer.
The group made its mark through relentless touring at theaters, arenas and festivals between 1966 and 1973, and their high-energy, funk-rock performance at Woodstock in 1969 between sets by Janis Joplin and The Who helped make Mr. Stone and the band superstars. But the workload and pressure to deliver albums to Epic, the band’s label, took a toll.
“Drugs came in. There were reasons,” Mr. Stone told co-writer Ben Greenman in his 2023 memoir, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” “There was a culture and there was a mindset, but there were also demands. I was trying to write, trying to play, trying to record. All of that needed to be fueled.”
In addition to Sly & the Family Stone’s rousing performance style, the band promoted an atmosphere of inclusivity, which appealed to wide audiences. The group not only included black and white musicians but also women who played instruments rather than simply danced or sang backup.
Mr. Stone’s message songs were empathetic and motivational, and they praised such themes as independence, individualism, social justice and togetherness. To avoid coming off as preachy or pedestrian, Mr. Stone’s lyrics were cloaked in wry wordplay and humor. These songs included “Family Affair,” “Everyday People,” “You Can Make It If You Try,” “Everybody Is a Star” and “Stand!”
Born Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, in 1943, Mr. Stone grew up the second of five children in Vallejo, Calif., in San Francisco’s Bay Area. His father ran a cleaning business and his mother was a homemaker.
Both parents were musical, and by age 11 Mr. Stone sang and played guitar, bass, piano and drums at home and in church. By his early teens, he was in a church group with his brother, Freddie, and sisters Rose and Loretta.
During a school spelling bee, a fellow student mistakenly transposed two letters of his first name on the blackboard—“Slyvester.” Mr. Stone decided to keep the first three letters. While working as a DJ at KSOL-AM in San Francisco in 1964, he came up with Stone for a radio name because, he said, “I was already smoking marijuana. And there was a tension in the name. Sly was strategic, slick. Stone was solid.” Jerry Martini , a friend and saxophonist, urged him to start his own band.
FILE PHOTO: Funk music pioneer Sly Stone makes his first major public appearance in almost 13 years during a tribute to “Sly & The Family Stone” at the 48th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles February 8, 2006. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo
In 1966, the two formed Sly & the Family Stone with Cynthia Robinson on trumpet, Mr. Stone’s brother, Freddie, on guitar, Greg Errico on drums and Larry Graham on bass, eventually adding Mr. Stone’s sister Rose on keyboards. They played in the Bay Area. In 1967, the band was signed by Epic Records.
When Mr. Stone moved to Los Angeles in the fall of 1969 with his girlfriend, his drug use and that of other band members increased dramatically. While the group continued to turn out lasting studio work in the early 1970s, they struggled to start concerts on time or even make it to gigs. By 1975 the band dissolved. Two marginal albums were released by Mr. Stone as a solo artist.
Following years of being hermetic, glued to the TV and assumed to be mentally unstable, he told his co-author that he finally kicked his 50-year drug addiction after four hospital stays. With sobriety came a finer realization of his cultural significance and a flood of personal regrets. Said Mr. Stone: “I should have stopped sooner.”
