The music legend who invented his own kind of funky hybrid of rock ’n‘ roll and R&B with his ’60s group Sly and the Family Stone has just penned a memoir, „Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).“
There is no one quite like Sly Stone. He invented his own funky, mixed-up hybrid of rock ’n‘ roll and R&B, and with his band, Sly and the Family Stone, he became one of the most influential musicians of the late 1960s.
Funk legend and longtime friend George Clinton said, „It was like seeing the Black version of The Beatles. He had the sensibility of the street, the church, and then, like, the qualities of a Motown, you know, Smokey Robinson – he was all of that in one person.“
The songs – „Everyday People,“ „Dance to the Music,“ “ Hot Fun in the Summertime“ – are American classics. But the guy behind them is something of a mystery.
Watching the band in the 2021 documentary „Summer of Soul,“ it still feels like something new. Ahmir Questlove Thompson, who won an Oscar for that film, is now publishing Stone’s memoir, with a title taken from his classic 1969 song: „Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again).“
Sanneh said, „When he puts together this band, Sly and the Family Stone, it seems like he really has a vision. Jerry Martini, the saxophone player, said he knew exactly what he was doing. Boys, girls, Black, white.“
„Sly knew which buttons to push to not only make his musicians better, but also how we would receive it,“ said Thompson, „knowing that we’d never seen a band before in which, you know, the women just aren’t background singing foils that play the tambourine. Like, Cynthia Robinson could destroy anybody playing trumpet. So, to have a band that has women playing instruments as serious as men do? To have a white guy as the drummer? If you’re the drummer in a Black band, you better be good, you know what I mean?“
Sly Stone grew up Sylvester Stewart in San Francisco, and worked as a DJ before founding the band in 1966.
