Obituary: Well-known rock or R&B or funk singer/songwriter Sly Stone, 82, has died. He and his group Sly and the Family Stone had numerous hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The best known of the hits was "Everyday People."
He was highly influential back then, but the usual, drug abuse, took a heavy toll on him.
According to his family statement, he had battled a variety of health issues in recent years, including COPD.
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Sly was born Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, in 1943. The family soon moved to California, where Sly began singing in the church choir from the age of 4, alongside his siblings. His nickname Sly came about when a classmate misspelled his name, and once he changed his stage surname from Stewart to Stone, his siblings Freddie and Rose, both of whom joined him in Sly and the Family Stone, did the same.
Sly began performing in bands in high school, then went on to study music theory at Solano Community College. By the mid '60s, he had left school to work as a DJ for San Francisco’s KSOL, which became known as KSOUL because of its focus on the soul genre. He also worked with many emerging acts.
By 1966, Sly had his band, Sly and the Stoners, and Freddie had his, Freddie and the Stone Souls. They decided to join forces. “The band had a concept — white and Black together, male and female both, and women not just singing but playing instruments,” Stone wrote in his 2023 memoir Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). “That was a big deal back then, and it was a big deal on purpose.”
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He battled substance abuse for years and I believe at one point he was even living out of his van.
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