Sly and the Family Stone was an American band originating from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, they were pivotal in the development of funk, soul, R&B, rock, and psychedelic music. Their core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, and included Stone's brother and singer/guitarist Freddie Stone, sister and singer/keyboardist Rose Stone, trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, drummer Greg Errico, saxophonist Jerry Martini, and bassist Larry Graham. The band was the first major American rock group to have a racially integrated, mixed-gender lineup.
Sly and the Family Stone in 1968. Left to right: Freddie Stone, Sly Stone, Rose Stone, Larry Graham, Cynthia Robinson, Jerry Martini, and Greg Errico.
The Woodstock Music and Art Festival, at which Sly and the Family Stone performed on August 17, 1969.
The band's 1975 performance at Radio City Music Hall (shown 2003) was only one-eighth filled
Sly Stone performing with the Family Stone in 2007.
Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the mid-20th century. It deemphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. It uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, and dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths.
James Brown, a pioneer of funk, in 1973
The rhythm section of a funk band—the electric bass, drums, electric guitar and keyboards--is the heartbeat of the funk sound. Pictured here is the Meters.
Bootsy Collins performing in 1996 with a star-shaped bass
The drum groove from "Cissy Strut"