Born Sylvester Stewart in Texas in 1943, Stone started making music with his siblings as a child: The Stewart Four (Sylvester, his sisters Rose and Vaetta, and his brother Freddie) made their first single, “On the Battlefield,” in 1952. He moved to California with his family as a kid, and later became a familiar voice in the Bay Area’s music scene. As a staff producer at Autumn Records, he put together hits like Bobby Freeman’s “C’mon and Swim”; he also produced “Somebody to Love” by Grace Slick’s pre-Jefferson Airplane band, the Great Society. He was also a DJ on KSOL and KDIA, and later noted that “in radio, I found out about a lot of things I don’t like. Like, I think there shoudn’t be ‘Black radio.’ Just radio. Everybody be a part of everything.”
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Sly Stone, Family Stone Architect Who Fused Funk, Rock, and Soul, Dead at 82
Sly Stone, the wildly inventive musician and head of Sly & the Family Stone who fused rock, funk and soul, has died at age 82.