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<\/p>\nRoaring out of Vallejo in the mid \u201860s with a look and sound that set them apart from their contemporaries, Sly and the Family Stone quickly became music superstars. The group\u2019s star burned brightly and quickly; the classic lineup folded by the middle of the next decade. Today a founding member and one of Sly\u2019s talented progeny are keeping the sound and spirit alive leading The Family Stone.<\/p>\n
Saxophonist Jerry Martini\u2019s 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 \u2013 then still known as Sylvester Stewart \u2013 was singing and playing in a teenage vocal group called the Viscaynes. \u201cI played with Joe Piazza and the Continentals,\u201d Martini says. \u201cWe used to back them up.\u201d That\u2019s Martini and his band mates backing Sly and his fellow Viscaynes on the regional hit, \u201cYellow Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A few years later when Martini was playing sax in George and Teddy and the Condors, he was enlisted by Stewart \u2013 by then a burgeoning songwriter and producer \u2013 to play on a Bobby Freeman session. That 1964 recording, \u201cC\u2019mon and Swim\u201d rose to the #5 spot on Billboard<\/i>\u2019s national singles chart. \u201cThat was Sly\u2019s first Gold record,\u201d Martini says.<\/p>\n
Stewart soon changed his name to Sly Stone, and put together a group called Sly and the Stoners. \u201cThat\u2019s what they were,\u201d Martini laughs. Without a hint of irony, he notes that members of that short-lived group \u201cwere always late for rehearsals, smoking on stage, not showing up for gigs.\u201d At the time, apparently, Stone had little patience for such behavior, so he broke up the group and became a deejay.<\/p>\n
Martini kept in touch with Sly, and continued to encourage him to put a proper, professional group together. \u201cI\u2019ll send for you when I\u2019m ready,\u201d 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\u2019s brother Freddie and drummer Greg Errico. Adding guitarist Larry Graham, the groundbreaking group was complete.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Through the group\u2019s heyday (roughly 1967 to 1974), Sly and the Family Stone landed seven of eight albums on the Billboard<\/i> 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 \u2013 \u201cEveryday People,\u201d \u201cThank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)\u201d and \u201cFamily Affair\u201d \u2013 soared all the way to the #1 spot on both charts.<\/p>\n
But Sly\u2019s substance abuse and erratic behavior were only the most visible problems within the band, and by the early \u201870s the group\u2019s lineup frayed. By early 1975 the group was over. Always a prolific songwriter \u2013 \u201cHe has three or four hundred songs,\u201d Martini says today \u2013 Sly embarked upon a solo career, but met with little success and continued struggles.<\/p>\n
Yet the popularity of the Family Stone\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Growing up as the daughter of Cynthia Robinson and Sly, Phunne wasn\u2019t completely aware of her family\u2019s importance in the world of music. \u201cI knew something was up,\u201d she says, \u201cbut it wasn\u2019t matching with our circumstances.\u201d Her childhood was filled with encounters with famous and acclaimed musical figures. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t even know who I was around,\u201d she says. Yet as she grew up, she began to notice. \u201cI started thinking, \u2018This is not the same as at my friends\u2019 houses.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Phunne joined The Family Stone about a decade ago. \u201cMy favorite part of being in the group is being able to see the audience\u2019s faces when their [favorite] song comes on,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can see that click \u2013 that memory \u2013 and then they\u2019re just in the moment, really enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today at age 81, Martini says that The Family Stone is about more than nostalgia. \u201cI believe that Sly is one of the greatest songwriters,\u201d he enthuses. \u201cSo we\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact Phunne does remain in regular contact with the famously mercurial and elusive Sly Stone. \u201cHe\u2019s older now, and he\u2019s lived a pretty fast life,\u201d she says with a chuckle. \u201cBut he\u2019s still bouncy, and he talks more shit than the law allows!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roaring out of Vallejo in the mid \u201860s with a look and sound that set them apart from their contemporaries, Sly and the Family Stone quickly became music superstars. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,41,62,69],"tags":[1981,5488],"class_list":["post-27970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funk","category-interview","category-rawk","category-soul","tag-sly-stone","tag-the-family-stone","cat-31-id","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27972,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27970\/revisions\/27972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}