#22 - Sly and the Family Stone

My One Honorary '11' 

Sly and the Family Stone is the one act on my Mighty 55 to be given an honorary '11' on a scale of 1-to-10.  That's because they redirected popular music like no other.

Not just the first band with both white and black members to make it big, but the first to do that with both male and female musicians, too.  

But we're only getting started.  They're sound was transcendent, mixing together the 'Stone' family's gospel upbringing (thundering organ, emotive singing) with the San Francisco scene's psychedelia, and the turn away from Motown's scripted presentation to what would become funk and later, hip-hop.

Can you remember when you first heard the impromptu vocals calling out that funny line "All the squares go home!" in Dance To The Music?  You can perhaps imagine half-a-dozen acts ripping off their suit-and-tie costumes at that point and saying to themselves, that's where it's at.

And the above skim represents just highlights.

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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

11/9/5/6 = 31 out of a perfect 40

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On "Hot Fun In The Summertime", the band not only wove together words and music to great effect, but also included timing.  The single was released in August of 1969, just as they were being hailed as one of the most powerful acts at Woodstock.  Yes, they were hot alright.

Notable match-up: Of the five 'Stone' siblings in the band, the youngest, along with her friends, filled the role that women band members of that time usually occupied: back-up singers.  One of those singers married our own #24, Leon Russell.