The Family Stone: All in the Family

Roaring out of Vallejo in the mid ‘60s with a look and sound that set them apart from their contemporaries, Sly and the Family Stone quickly became music superstars. The group’s star burned brightly and quickly; the classic lineup folded by the middle of the next decade. Today a founding member and one of Sly’s talented progeny are keeping the sound and spirit alive leading The Family Stone.

Saxophonist Jerry Martini’s friendship and musical association with Sly Stone goes back much earlier than the formation of Sly and the Family Stone, all the way back to the very early 1960s. At the time, Stone – then still known as Sylvester Stewart – was singing and playing in a teenage vocal group called the Viscaynes. “I played with Joe Piazza and the Continentals,” Martini says. “We used to back them up.” That’s Martini and his band mates backing Sly and his fellow Viscaynes on the regional hit, “Yellow Moon.”

A few years later when Martini was playing sax in George and Teddy and the Condors, he was enlisted by Stewart – by then a burgeoning songwriter and producer – to play on a Bobby Freeman session. That 1964 recording, “C’mon and Swim” rose to the #5 spot on Billboard’s national singles chart. “That was Sly’s first Gold record,” Martini says.

Stewart soon changed his name to Sly Stone, and put together a group called Sly and the Stoners. “That’s what they were,” Martini laughs. Without a hint of irony, he notes that members of that short-lived group “were always late for rehearsals, smoking on stage, not showing up for gigs.” At the time, apparently, Stone had little patience for such behavior, so he broke up the group and became a deejay.

Martini kept in touch with Sly, and continued to encourage him to put a proper, professional group together. “I’ll send for you when I’m ready,” Stone told Martini. By 1966, Stone formed Sly and the Family Stone. The group featured Stoners trumpeter Cynthia Robinson along with Martini and two of his band mates from Freddie and the Stone Souls: Sly’s brother Freddie and drummer Greg Errico. Adding guitarist Larry Graham, the groundbreaking group was complete.

Interracial and featuring both sexes, Sly and the Family Stone were quite unusual for the time. But it was the music that truly set the band apart. Combining rock, soul, r&b and funk, their music was like nothing else happening on the national music scene. It was even remarkable in the creatively rich, varied and fertile Bay Area.

Through the group’s heyday (roughly 1967 to 1974), Sly and the Family Stone landed seven of eight albums on the Billboard 200; five of those were Top 20. In that same period, the group saw 13 of its 14 singles make it into the r&b or pop Top 40 singles charts; often both. And three of those – “Everyday People,” “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and “Family Affair” – soared all the way to the #1 spot on both charts.

But Sly’s substance abuse and erratic behavior were only the most visible problems within the band, and by the early ‘70s the group’s lineup frayed. By early 1975 the group was over. Always a prolific songwriter – “He has three or four hundred songs,” Martini says today – Sly embarked upon a solo career, but met with little success and continued struggles.

Yet the popularity of the Family Stone’s music has endured, and so some years after the original group ended, Martini relaunched the band without Sly. Today the Family Stone features Martini plus Sly’s daughter Phunne Stone on vocals along with musicians Frank Klepacki, Jimi McKinney, Blaise Sison, Swang Stewart and Nate Wingfield. The Family Stone conjures the timeless vibe of the original group, with a rock-solid set list and warm, upbeat vibe.

Growing up as the daughter of Cynthia Robinson and Sly, Phunne wasn’t completely aware of her family’s importance in the world of music. “I knew something was up,” she says, “but it wasn’t matching with our circumstances.” Her childhood was filled with encounters with famous and acclaimed musical figures. “But I didn’t even know who I was around,” she says. Yet as she grew up, she began to notice. “I started thinking, ‘This is not the same as at my friends’ houses.’”

Phunne joined The Family Stone about a decade ago. “My favorite part of being in the group is being able to see the audience’s faces when their [favorite] song comes on,” she says. “You can see that click – that memory – and then they’re just in the moment, really enjoying it.”

Today at age 81, Martini says that The Family Stone is about more than nostalgia. “I believe that Sly is one of the greatest songwriters,” he enthuses. “So we’re going to keep the legacy going. And when Phunne takes over, she may change it. Maybe Papa will even write a song for her, bring in some new stuff.”

In fact Phunne does remain in regular contact with the famously mercurial and elusive Sly Stone. “He’s older now, and he’s lived a pretty fast life,” she says with a chuckle. “But he’s still bouncy, and he talks more shit than the law allows!”