Sly Stone, Funk Pioneer, Passes Away at Age 82

Sly Stone, a visionary musician and pioneer of the crossover between funk, psychedelic pop, and rock who provided an interracial soundtrack to a changing America, passed away this Monday at the age of 82. He died “after a prolonged battle with chronic lung disease and other underlying health issues,” according to a family statement. “He passed peacefully, surrounded by his three children, his best friend, and family.” The location of his passing has not been disclosed, but in recent years, the musician lived in Los Angeles.

He earned his place in the immortality of black music during the seven years when his band, Sly and the Family Stone, produced a lasting series of albums, peaking with Life (1968), Stand (1969), and There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971). The latter, with its iconic cover featuring the American flag, marked both the political zenith of his career and the beginning of his decline.

It is truly difficult to overstate the influence of that extraordinary music. His rebellious songs prompted trumpeter Miles Davis to take a further step in the electric revolution of his music, recording On the Corner (1973), while Herbie Hancock titled one of the tracks on his jazz fusion masterpiece Headhunters Sly. It is also hard to consider the careers of other African American musicians without the ease with which Stone introduced extravagance into his proposal; from Prince to Outkast, and from Rick James to Erykah Badu.

After that brief flare, Stone, a vertex of the original funk triangle alongside James Brown and another eccentric visionary, George Clinton (Parliament and Funkadelic), slipped into the depths of cocaine and tranquilizer addiction. Overwhelmed by fame and the responsibility of being treated as a visionary, he undermined his own career. He gradually disappeared from public life. He was arrested for crack possession, and his attempts to return to the stage did not transcend the disappointing efforts to monetize his past glories.

In 2011, the tabloid New York Post found him living in a van in a Los Angeles suburb. At that time, he asked the reporter: “Please, tell everyone to give me work and to play my music. I’m tired of this shit.”

In recent years, Stone enjoyed a well-deserved revival. First, there was his appearance in the Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul (2001), in which drummer and scholar of black music Ahmir Questlove Thompson rescued the lost tapes from a glorious festival in Harlem in 1969. The performance of Sly & the Family Stone was one of the highlights of the film, and it served for a new generation of viewers to discover the experience of his live performance.

Last year, Questlove released a documentary centered on him. Sly Lives!: The Legacy of a Genius is available on Disney+.

In 2023, Stone published his memoirs, still untranslated into Spanish. He titled them, in a nod to one of his most famous songs, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir. The statement from his family regarding his death revealed that he was in the process of working on a film script based on that book.

Sylvester Stewart was born in 1943 in Denton, Texas, but his family soon moved to Vallejo, near San Francisco, a city forever linked with his music from the late sixties and seventies. His early steps are reminiscent of many other African American musicians of the time: the flirtation with gospel in the family setting, the formation of a doo-wop group (The Viscaynes), and his first moderate success as a teenager with the song Long Time Gone. He was a DJ for a music radio station that could be heard in the Bay Area, and he studied trumpet, composition, and theory at Vallejo Junior College.

His first job in the industry was as a producer for Autumn Records, a label where he recorded his own songs, as well as working for others, like soul singer Bobby Freeman or rock bands The Beau Brummels and The Mojo Men.

In 1966, he founded the band with which he would achieve fame. Sly and the Family Stone was, as one of his most memorable songs stated, “a family affair.” His brother Freddie played guitar, and his sister Rose played piano. There were five other performers, but the only star was Sly. A talented multi-instrumentalist, he tackled everything else: keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums. He was also the composer, arranger, and producer of the band’s entire work.

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