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Sly Stone, Sly and the Family Stone Frontman, Dead at 82

We should also point out that he was a radio DJ at KSOL in San Francisco before having success as a musician.

He became friends with another DJ, Tom Donohue. Tom owned a record label, and Sly produced the first album by the Beau Brummels. They had two Top 10 hits: Laugh, Laugh and Just a Little.
 

RIP to a legend and his band. Note he was a former host on KSOL Radio in San Francisco before he went nationwide with his band.

The musical icon had been battling lung disease, according to a statement provided by his family.

"While we mourn his absence, we take solace in knowing that his extraordinary musical legacy will continue to resonate and inspire for generations to come," they wrote.

Born Sylvester Stewart, he was the second of five children. As an adolescent, Stone and his family moved from Denton, Texas to Vallejo, California. The family was heavily involved in the Church of God In Christ.


As a young man, Stone was a successful disc jockey for KSOL, an R&B radio station in San Mateo, California. His playlists included popular records by white artists such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

During this time Stone also worked as a record producer for Autumn Records, producing San Francisco-area bands. One of the Stone-produced singles was Bobby Freeman's "C'mon and Swim," which reached No. 5 on the U.S. pop chart in 1964.

Stone and his brother Freddie merged their own bands together in 1966 to form Sly & the Family Stone. In it, women - notably – were not just vocalists but also played instruments, a rarity for the era. And it included both Black and white musicians. Within a few years, the group was turning out hits such as "Everyday People," "Family Affair," and "Dance to the Music."
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Stone was one of the All Time greats. True icon and visionary. He fully integrated Men, Women, Blacks, Whites into one musical supergroup. Many have tried to copy his style but without the substance. There were very few like him.

I'd recommend checking out "Underdog" on his first album.
One of his many gems. RIP...
 
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Should The True Oldies Channel (92.3 HD3) do an honor of Sly Stone from Sly & the Family Stone songs like Everyday People, Family Affair, Thank You, Dance to the Music, Stand! and much more importantly for now.
 
Sly Stone was part of a group called the Viscaynes in the early 1960's before he went to KSOL and got national attention for Sly Stone and the Family Stone. His original band was mainly known in Northern California when he started in 1961.


The music and career of Sly Stone and his group The Family Stone is well known. What’s less explored is his earliest work, recordings made when he was still Sly Stewart, a teenager in Vallejo, California. Those original singles are now impossibly rare, though various tunes have surfaced on compilations over the years. But now two new releases – on different labels, unrelated to one another – are compiling music from that early chapter of Stone’s history.


From ORG Music comes The Viscaynes & Friends, a ten-track vinyl LP featuring the seven best (and best-known) sides from Stone’s first pop group, alongside three related tracks. And a CD release, Sly Before the Family Stone features 19 cuts. Some of those feature The Viscaynes as well, and there’s no overlap with the ORG record; Sly Stone completists will want both. And they’ll want to know the back story of the Viscaynes; for that it’s best to turn to Charles “Chuck” Gebhardt, one of the group’s singers.


A coterie of music-minded students at Vallejo High School in the San Francisco Bay area got together in 1961 as a group. Billing themselves as the Viscounts (pronounced VIE-counts) they worked up arrangements of popular vocal group tunes. Vocalist Chuck Gebhardt and his brother Vern were among the members of the group. He admits that when the Viscounts began, they had “not a lot” of musical training or expertise. “Just a lot of singing in back rooms, living rooms, bathrooms … a lot of it at my house on Highland Street in Vallejo,” he says. “Wherever we could do it, really.”
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When the standards station in my area changed to oldies, I had to listen to music that I hadn't really enjoyed before, if I wanted to listen to a station in the car. "Everyday People" and "Dance to the Music" are among the many songs I developed a taste for as a result.
 
TheBigA said:
We should also point out that he was a radio DJ at KSOL in San Francisco before having success as a musician.

He became friends with another DJ, Tom Donohue. Tom owned a record label, and Sly produced the first album by the Beau Brummels. They had two Top 10 hits: Laugh, Laugh and Just a Little.
Click to expand...
A lot of people don't know that he produced those two songs by the Beau Brummels, because he is usually associated with funk/soul music. That's always a good trivia question!
 
Sly recorded all of his hits in San Francisco. First at a place called Pacific High, and later at The Record Plant in Sausalito. The amazing thing is he wrote all of the songs, produced them himself, and recorded them within a short period of time: 5 years. Very prolific.
 


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