Cunning stoneThe driver of Sly and the family stoneA multi -upright American band whose lively mix of rock, soul and psychedelia embodied the idealism of the 60s and contributed to popular funk music, died at the age of 82, his family reported Monday.
Stone died after a long fight against Chronic obstructive lung disease And other health problems, according to a family statement.
“Although we regret his absence, he comforts us to know that his extraordinary musical legacy will continue to resonate and inspire the coming generations,” says the message.
Stone was perhaps better known for his performance in 1969 at the Historical Festival of Music Van Wood -stopThe Hippie Culture Presentation Party.
His group was stuck in the lists of American musical successes in the late 60s and 70s, with successes such as such as such as Dance to the music” I want to take you higher” Family” Daily people” If you want me to stay And Hot pleasure in the summer.
But later he crossed difficult moments and became addicted to cocaine, without achieving a successful return.
Insurance and Voluble Stone played a fundamental role in the introduction of Funk, an Afrokcentric musical style promoted by Groove And synchronized rhythms, with a wider audience.
James Brown He had forged the funk elements before Stone founded his band in 1966, but his style attracted new listeners. He was festive, eclectic, psychedelic and rooted in the counterculture of the late 60s.
‘They had the clarity of Motownbut the volume of Jimi Hendrix or The WHO“Wrote George ClintonLeader of parliament-funkadelic, contemporary of Steen and another pioneering figure of the funk.
When Sly and the Locelorstone played, it seemed that the band “personally spoke to you,” said Clinton.
Stone turned his Californian band, including his brother Freddie All his sister RoseIn an integration symbol. It included black and black musicians, while women, including the deceased trumpet player Cynthia Robinson, They occupy an excellent place.
That was unusual in a music industry that is often separated by racing and gender.
Stone, with its Afro -hairstyle and its vest, fringes and adapted leather wardrobe, lived the life of a superstar. At the same time, he made his bandmates shine by promoting a cooperation and flowing approach that the hippie ethics of the 60s personified.
“I wanted everyone to get the chance to sweat,” he told the magazine Rolling stone In 1970.
From DJ to singer
Born as Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, he moved like a child with his family north of California, where his father led a cleaning company.
Taken over the artistic name of Sly Stone and worked for a while as Disc jockey Radio and record producer for a small stamp before the tire is formed.
The success of the band came in 1968, when the main song of his second album, Dance to the musicwent into the top 10.
A year later, Sly and the family stone acted for dawn on Woodstock. Stone woke up a multitude of 400,000 people at the music festival and led them with a call and response number style.
Stone’s music lost joy after the idealistic sixties, as a result of the polarization of the country afterwards Opposition to the war and racial tensions in Vietnam Those disruptions on university campuses and in the African -American neighborhoods of the major American cities caused.
In 1971 Launch Sly and The Family Stone There is a riotThat the only number 1 album was from the band.
The critics said that the gloomy tone and the sharpened voice of the album indicated the growing influence of cocaine in stone. But some described him as a masterpiece, a praise for the sixties.
In the early 1970s, Stone became irregular and Concerts were lost. Some members left the band.
But the singer was still a star that was large enough in 1974 to attract a multitude of 21,000 people to his wedding with the actress and the model Kathy Silva In Madison Square Garden in New York. Silva asked a divorce less than a year later.
Sly and the Family Stone album releases in the late ’70s and early 1980s were a failure, because Stone collected arrests as a result of possession of drugs. But music helped shape disk music and years later hip -hop artists kept alive the legacy of the band by often using their musical hooks.
The band was recorded in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and Stone was honored at the Grammy Awards 2006. He came up with a blonde top, but committed the audience to leave in the middle of the song.
In 2011, after starting what would be a legal battle of years to claim royalties that he thought had been stolen, was Stone arrested for cocaine property. That year the media reported that Stone lived in a caravan parked in a street in the south of Los Angeles.
Stone had a son, Sylvester, with Silva. He had two daughters, ninth Carmel and Sylvette “Phunne” Stone, whose mother was his band Cynthia Robinson.
