Comment: Sly Stone: influential funk pioneer Published on: 10 June 2025 Writing for The Conversation, Dr Adam Behr looks at the legacy of Sly Stone. , There鈥檚 immense variety in popular music careers, even beyond the extremes of one-hit wonders and the long-haulers touring stadiums into their dotage. There are those who embody a specific era, burning briefly and brightly, and those whose legacy spans decades. Straddling both of those, and occupying a distinctive space in popular music history, is Sylvester Stewart, better known as , who died at the age of 82 on Monday June 9. A pioneer of funk whose sound spread far beyond the genre, his band Sly and the Family Stone synthesised disparate strands of American popular music into a unique melange, tracking the musical and social shifts as the 1960s wore into the 1970s. Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. . A musical prodigy and multi-instrumentalist from a young age, Stone was born in Texas in 1943 and raised in California, in a religious Pentecostal family. He had put out his first single aged 13 鈥� a with three of his siblings, who would later join him in Sly and the Family Stone. A record producer and DJ by his early twenties, he imbibed the music of British acts like The Beatles and Rolling Stones, and applied his eclectic tastes and musical versatility to producing local psychedelic and garage rock acts in the emergent San Francisco scene. By the time commercial popular culture had flowered into a more exploratory 鈥渃ounterculture鈥� in , the ebb and flow of personnel across local bands had coalesced into a line-up including the Stone siblings 鈥� Sly, Freddie, and their sister Vaetta, with their other sister Rose joining in 1968. Pioneering socially, as well as aesthetically, Sly and the Family Stone had diversity at its core 鈥� a mixed sex, multi-racial and musically varied band. This was notable for a mainstream act in an America still emerging from the depths of segregation, and riven with strife over the struggle for civil rights. While their first album in 1967 A Whole New Thing enjoyed comparatively little traction, 1968鈥榮 Dance to the Music presaged a run of hits. Their sonic collision of sounds from across the commercial and social divide 鈥� psychedelic rock, soul, gospel and pop 鈥� struck a chord with audiences simultaneously looking forward with hope to changing times, and mindful of the injustice that was still prevalent. Singles like Everyday People, Stand, and I Want to Take You Higher, melded a party atmosphere with social statements. They were calls for action, but also for unity: celebratory, but pushing the musical envelope. While the band wore its innovations lightly at first, their reach was long. Bassist Larry Graham was a pioneer of the that became a staple of funk and fusion. And their overall sound brought a looser, pop feel to the funk groove, in comparison to the almost militaristic tightness of that other funk pioneer, . Where Brown鈥檚 leadership of his group was overt, exemplified by his staccato musical directions in the songs, and the call and response structure, Stone鈥檚 band had more of an ensemble feel. Musical lines and solos were overlaid upon one another, often interweaving 鈥� more textured rather than in lock-step. It was a sound that would reach an almost chaotic apog茅e with later in the 1970s. The party couldn鈥檛 last. As the optimism of the 1960s gave way to division in the 1970s, Stone鈥檚 music took a darker turn, even if the funk remained central. The album There鈥檚 A Riot Going On (1971), and its lead single contained lyrics depicting social ills more explicitly. The music 鈥� mostly recorded by Sly himself 鈥� was sparser, the vocals more melancholic. The unity of the band itself was also fracturing, under pressure from Stone鈥檚 growing cocaine dependency. The album Fresh (1973) featured classics like and , but they were running out of commercial road by 1974鈥檚 Small Talk, and broke up soon after. Periodic comebacks were punctuated by a troubled personal life, including, at its nadir, of Stone living out of a van in Los Angeles, and . By the time he achieved a degree of stability, his star may have faded, but his legacy was secure. Stone embodied the contradictions of American popular music 鈥� arguably even America itself: brash and light-hearted on the one hand, with a streak of darkness and self-destructiveness on the other. The handclaps and joyous shouts harked back to his gospel roots, but his embrace of electric instruments aligned soul with rock and pop. He was a funk artist who played at the archetypal hippie festival, Woodstock, and a social commentator whose party sounds were shot through with urgency. He paved the way for the likes of Prince and Outkast, but also informed jazz and fusion. Jazz pioneer Miles Davis Stone鈥檚 influence on his own turn towards electric and funk sounds in the late 1960s and early 1970s on landmark albums like . Sly Stone鈥檚 joyful provocations may not have lasted at the commercial centre, but his mark was indelible. His struggles were both personal and social, but his sense of groove, and of a collective voice, demonstrated the value of aligning traditions with new ideas 鈥� a musical America that was fractious, but still a family affair. , Senior Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . Share: Latest News 缅北禁地 expert highlights climate crisis in a new film A leading 缅北禁地 climate scientist is featured in a new film about how the climate and nature breakdown will affect the UK. published on: 14 April 2026 Neolithic tombs reveal ancient kinship ties Male individuals buried in Neolithic chambered tombs in northern Scotland were often related to each other through the paternal line and some were interred in the same or nearby tombs, research shows. published on: 14 April 2026 We are our Memories New exhibition by Fine Art graduate Trish Hudson-Moses, 22 April 鈥� 4 May 2026 published on: 10 April 2026 Facts and figures
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