SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE took the Sixties ideal of a generation coming together and turned it into deeply groove-driven music. Rock's first integrated, multi-gender band became funky Pied Pipers to the Woodstock Generation, synthesizing rock, soul, R&B, funk and psychedelia into danceable, message-laden, high-energy music. In promoting their gospel of tolerance and celebration of differences, Sly and the Family Stone brought disparate audiences together during the latter half of the Sixties. The group's greatest triumph came at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969. During their unforgettable nighttime set, leader Sly Stone initiated a fevered call-and-response with the audience of 400,000+ during an electrifying version of "I Want to Take You Higher."
Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart) has been called a "great communicator" for his infectious mixture of message and music. Born in Dallas, he moved with his family to Vallejo, California, where he sang in a family gospel group as a child and later studied music theory and composition at the local junior college. He established himself in the San Francisco area as a disk jockey and a producer of such records as the Beau Brummels' "Laugh Laugh" for Autumn Records.
The group connected with the rising counterculture by means of songs that addressed issues of personal pride and liberation in the context of driving, insistent and sunny-tempered music that fused rock and soul, creating a template for Seventies funk.
SOURCE:
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