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SLY & THE FAMILY STONE’S CAREER CELEBRATED WITH DELUXE 4-CD BOX SET, HIGHER!

Features 17 previously unreleased tracks; box set offers the chance to experience the songs you know and love but often in alternate versions, including mono singles, demos, instrumental tracks, live concert and television recordings, and more

Available everywhere August 27, 2013, through Epic/Legacy

The music of Sly & The Family Stone is celebrated with a new 4-CD box set, Sly & The Family Stone’s Higher!, available everywhere August 27th through Epic/Legacy, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. Released in celebration of Sly Stone’s 70th birthday, Higher! is the first career-spanning anthology to celebrate the musician whose funk has influenced everyone from Miles Davis and Michael Jackson to Public Enemy and the Roots. Housed in a colorful slipcase with a lavishly-illustrated 104-page book, the box set will feature 77 tracks, 17 of them previously unreleased.

Spotlighted throughout the first three CDs of Higher! are rare mono single masters of every classic Sly & The Family Stone signature hit like they’ve never been heard before in the digital era. Paying homage to the golden age of transistor radios are mono versions of “Dance To the Music,” “Everyday People,” “Stand!,” “I Want To Take You Higher,” “Hot Fun In the Summertime,” “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Again),” and many others, more than 30 mono single masters and mono album cuts that were a call-out to get up and dance, dance, dance. Decades after the chart debut of Sly & The Family Stone with the game-changing “Dance To The Music,” fans and newcomers will have the opportunity to dig into this far-reaching anthology, covering the recording career of Sylvester Stewart starting in 1964, and the band he masterminded from 1966 to 1977 on Epic Records.

Higher! pays tribute to the unique style of Sly & The Family Stone with its innovative ten-inch square package design, which houses the CDs in its interior pockets. The middle compartment contains a painstakingly detailed 104-page book featuring a liner notes essay, a beautifully-illustrated timeline of Sly’s career, track-by-track annotations, rare and uncirculated photography, 45 rpm label and picture sleeve repros, eye-popping vintage concert posters and ticket stubs from Sly & The Family Stone shows, and more.

Sly & The Family Stone laid down a template that not only inspired an era of youthful rebellion and independence as the ’60s turned into the ’70s, but also had (and continues to have) a potent effect on the course of modern music in general. Sly’s DNA is traceable to every cell of the musical stratosphere.

“Sly Stone’s music is relevant because he was able to take from all the influencing genres before him and along side him, and combine it like gumbo,” said Public Enemy frontman Chuck D. “Then inside the band, having women, having it mixed race and ethnic background − I mean, come on now. You really couldn’t point and say ‘well, this is the reason why it’s funky,’ it’s all this together like gumbo that’s making this happen. And Sly & The Family Stone was the epitome of a group playing the music, saying the lyrics, and also backing with the words.”

Sly & The Family Stone have been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and the Grammy Hall Of Fame, and have received the R&B Foundation Pioneer Award, among many other recognitions of their importance and enduring influence.

Higher! is a tribute to the far-reaching horizons of Sly & The Family Stone. Their repertoire, every composition penned by Sylvester Stewart aka Sly Stone, kept the Pop and R&B charts jumping for seven glorious years from 1968 to 1975. There are the three career-defining RIAA gold Billboard #1 Pop/#1 R&B hits, “Everyday People,” “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Again)” and “Family Affair.” Their signature Top 40 hits began with “Dance To the Music” and went on to include “Stand!,” “I Want To Take You Higher,” “Hot Fun In the Summertime,” “Runnin’ Away,” “If You Want Me To Stay,” “Time For Livin’,” and more. Their top-charted RIAA gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums include Stand! (1969), Greatest Hits (1970), There’s A Riot Goin’ On (1971), and Fresh (1973), every one a must-have.

In addition to those durable numbers (all of which are in mono up through 1969’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”), Higher! opens CD One with seven pre-Epic Records tracks. These include five rare solo sides by ‘Sly Stewart’ during his time as A&R-producer-songwriter-staff musician circa 1964-’65 at San Francisco’s Autumn Records. These include both sides of the rare (and widely bootlegged in the U.S. and Europe) Loadstone Records single of January 1967 by Sly & The Family Stone, which helped win the band their Epic Records deal. One of these sides is a cover of Otis Redding’s “I Can’t Turn You Loose.” The Epic story begins with the mono single master of “Higher” in May 1967 (Disc One, track 8).

Of the many impossibly rare and fascinating inclusions on Higher! special attention is paid to the four tracks that close CD Three. They were recorded live at the Isle of Wight Festival in the UK, early Sunday morning, August 30, 1970, one year after Sly’s memorable wee hours performance at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. Two of the Isle of Wight numbers, “Stand!” and “You Can Make It If You Try,” were subsequently issued on the Columbia three-LP release from 1971, The First Great Rock Festivals Of The Seventies. (The big multi-artist package coupled Isle of Wight performances with others at the first Atlantic Pop Festival of July 1970.) The two other numbers by Sly & The Family Stone at Isle of Wight, namely “Dance To The Music” and the medley of “Music Lover / I Want To Take You Higher / Music Lover” (a variation on their medley from the Woodstock soundtrack album), are both previously unissued until now.

Higher! serves as a new model for the most diligent and imaginative efforts that can go into a vintage collection of this nature. The box set was produced by Legacy Recordings veteran and Sundazed Records owner Bob Irwin, with Project A&R by Rob Santos at Legacy. All music was mastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in New York.

Three major elements are central to the 104-page book. There is the authoritative liner notes essay written by Jeff Kaliss, author of I Want To Take You Higher: The Life And Times Of Sly & The Family Stone, the group’s only authorized biography. The booklet also contains a comprehensive, lavishly-illustrated timeline compiled by Dutch authorities Edwin & Arno Konings. Nearly 100 entries span from March 15, 1943 (“Sylvester Stewart is born in Denton, Texas. Six months later, the family moves to Vallejo, California”) to a final update in late-2012. The Koningses have also contributed track-by-track annotations for all 77 cuts in Higher! The notes contain excerpts from Thank You, the Koningses’ own forthcoming biography of Sly & The Family Stone. (Go to www.slystonebook.com). The extensive memorabilia that accompanies the text and photographs in the book is provided by Neal Austinson, Archivist and Road Manager for Sly & The Family Stone.

Every track-by-track annotation contains at least one revelation, as told to the writers by original Sly & The Family Stone band members Greg Errico, Larry Graham, Jerry Martini, Cynthia Robinson, and Sly Stone himself, as well as such figures as Rachel Donahue (widow of Tom Donahue), managers Rich Romanello (1967) and David Kapralik (1967-1972), Epic A&R man Stephen Paley, bassist Rustee Allen (who succeeded Graham in 1973), all three drummers who succeeded Errico post-1971 (Gerry Gibson, Andy Newmark, Bill Lordan), various background vocalists, saxophonists, bassists, and so on. All their collective statements and observations, as transcribed by the Koningses, add to the value of Higher! as a valuable memoir in and of itself.

“Refracted in these treasures,” Kaliss says of the kaleidoscopic delights on Higher! “are colors you may be unused to seeing in Sly: old R&B, jazz, nursery rhymes, gospel, and even country, fused and transformed by a precious visionary and his fellow musical alchemists.”

In addition to Jeff Kaliss, and Edwin & Arno Konings, other essential reading includes: Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History by Joel Selvin (HarperCollins, 1998); and There’s A Riot Going On by Miles Marshall Lewis (Bloomsbury “33 1/3” series, 2006).

Higher! by Sly & The Family Stone
(Epic/Legacy 88697 53665 2)

Disc One (1964-1967):
1. I Just Learned How To Swim by Sly Stewart (Autumn Records single, 1964)
2. Scat Swim by Sly Stewart (Autumn single, 1964)
3. Buttermilk (Part 1) by Sly (Autumn single, 1965)
4. Dance All Night by Sly and Freddie (1965, originally unissued)
5. Temptation Walk by Sly (Autumn single, 1965)
6. I Ain’t Got Nobody (For Real) (Loadstone single, 1967)
7. I Can’t Turn You Loose (Loadstone single, 1967)
8. Higher (mono Epic single master, promo only, 1967)
9. Underdog (mono Epic single master, 1967)
10. Bad Risk (mono Epic single master, 1967)
11. Let Me Hear It From You (mono Epic single master, 1967)
12. Advice (A)
13. If This Room Could Talk (A)
14. I Cannot Make It (A)
15. Trip To Your Heart (A)
16. I Hate To Love Her (A)
17. Silent Communications (1967, previously unissued)
18. I Get High On You (version one, 1967, previously unissued)
19. I Remember (1967, previously unissued)
20. My Woman’s Head (instrumental demo, 1967, previously unissued)

Disc Two (1967-1968):
1. What’s That Got To Do With Me (1967, previously unissued)
2. Fortune And Fame (1967, previously unissued)
3. What Would I Do (1967, originally unissued, B)
4. Only One Way Out Of This Mess (1967, originally unissued, B)
5. I Know What You Came To Say (1967, previously unissued)
6. Dance To The Music (mono Epic single master, 1967)
7. Ride The Rhythm (C)
8. Color Me True (C)
9. Are You Ready (C)
10. Don’t Burn Baby (C)
11. We Love All (D)
12. Danse A La Musique by The French Fries (mono Epic single, 1968)
13. Small Fries by The French Fries (mono Epic single, 1968)
14. Chicken (mono Epic single master, 1968)
15. Into My Own Thing (E)
16. Life (mono Epic single master, 1968)
17. Love City (1968, previously unissued mono mix)
18. M’Lady (mono Epic single master, 1968)
19. Dynamite! featuring Johnny Robinson on vocals (1968, previously unissued)
20. Undercat (instrumental, 1967, previously unissued)

Disc Three (1968-1970):
1. Everyday People (mono Epic single master, 1968)
2. Sing A Simple Song (mono Epic single master, 1968)
3. I Get High On You (version two, 1968, previously unissued)
4. Wonderful World Of Color (instrumental, 1968, previously unissued)
5. Pressure (originally unissued, F)
6. I Want To Take You Higher (mono Epic single master, 1969)
7. Seven More Days (originally unissued, F)
8. Feathers (instrumental, 1968, previously unissued)
9. Somebody’s Watching You (G)
10. Sex Machine (G)
11. Hot Fun In The Summertime (mono Epic single master, 1969)
12. Everybody Is A Star (mono Epic single master, 1969)
13. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (mono Epic single master, 1969)
14. Stand! (LIVE at the Isle of Wight Festival, August 30, 1970, H)
15. You Can Make It If You Try (LIVE, same as track 14, H)
16. Dance To The Music (LIVE, same as track 14, previously unissued)
17. MEDLEY: Music Lover / I Want To Take You Higher / Music Lover (LIVE, same as track 14, previously unissued)

Disc Four (1971-1977):
1. Luv N’ Haight (Epic single master, 1971)
2. Family Affair (I)
3. Brave & Strong (Epic single master, 1971)
4. Runnin’ Away (Epic single master, 1971)
5. (You Caught Me) Smilin’ (Epic single master, 1971)
6. Spaced Cowboy (I)
7. You’re The One featuring Little Sister (LIVE on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, September 1973, previously unissued)
8. In Time (J)
9. If You Want Me To Stay (Epic single master, 1973)
10. Frisky (Epic single master, 1973)
11. Skin I’m In (J)
12. If It Were Left Up To Me (Epic single master, 1973)
13. Time For Livin’ (Epic single master, 1974)
14. Can’t Strain My Brain (Epic single master, 1974)
15. Loose Booty (K)
16. Le Lo Li (Epic single master, 1975)
17. Crossword Puzzle (Epic single master, 1975)
18. Family Again (Epic single, 1976)
19. Hoboken by Sly Stone (originally unissued, 1975-1977)
20. High by Sly Stone (1975, previously unissued)

Epic Records album index:
A – from A Whole New Thing (originally released November 1967, as Epic LN 24324, mono)
B – from A Whole New Thing (Expanded Edition) (originally released April 2007, as Epic/ Legacy 82796 90277 2)
C – from Dance To The Music (originally released April 1968, as Epic BN 26371)
D – from Dance To The Music (Expanded Edition) (originally released April 2007, as Epic/Legacy 82796 90274 2)
E – from Life (originally released November 1968, as Epic BN 26397)
F – from Life (Expanded Edition) (originally rel. April 2007, as Epic/Legacy 82876 83945 2)
G – from Stand! (originally released April 1969, as Epic BN 26456)
H – from The First Great Rock Festivals Of The Seventies (originally released August 1971, as Columbia C 30807)
I – from There’s A Riot Goin’ On (originally released October 1971, as Epic KE 30986)
J – from Fresh (originally released June 1973, as Epic KE 32134)
K – from Small Talk (originally released July 1974, as Epic PE 32930)

SlyStoneMusic.com
LegacyRecordings.com

Sly Stone is featured on the new Funkadelic single, “The Naz,” which will be available for download on Saturday, April 20th. The single will feature Sly “on vocals telling the story of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Sly uses his trademark radio rap that he used to kick as a DJ on San Francisco’s radio station KSOL-AM. ‘He just laid it down and we built the entire song around it,'” said George Clinton in a statement. You can read more and get the single at GeorgeClinton.com.

Check out our TWO-PART Sly & The Family Stone Legacy Archives exclusive video! We went into the Sony Archives and found some amazing slides of Sly & The Family Stone, and we also walk you through the process of converting the negative images into a digital file.

PART 1

PART 2

LEGACY RECORDINGS ANNOUNCES TITLES FOR RECORD STORE DAY 2013 (SATURDAY, APRIL 20)

Legacy’s RSD 2013 Collectibles Include Releases From Aerosmith, Cypress Hill, Miles Davis, Dust, Jimi Hendrix, Taj Mahal, Mad Season, Shuggie Otis, Willie Nelson, Sly & the Family Stone and the 20th Anniversary Edition of the No Alternative Compilation

Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, is proud to announce the label’s all-star line-up of 7″ and 12″ vinyl titles for Record Store Day 2013, celebrated at independent record stores worldwide on Saturday, April 20, 2013.

For RSD 2013, Legacy is offering limited edition and collectible releases from classic artists including Aerosmith, Cypress Hill, Miles Davis, Dust, Jimi Hendrix, Taj Mahal, Mad Season, Shuggie Otis, Willie Nelson and Sly & the Family Stone. Legacy will also be releasing, as a double 12″ vinyl set, the 20th anniversary edition of the groundbreaking No Alternative compilation.

Now in its sixth year, Record Store Day is an annual day-long celebration of record store culture taking place on the third Saturday in April. This past January, RSD announced the appointment of Jack White to the post of Record Store Day 2013 Ambassador.

Legacy Recordings releases for Record Store Day 2013 include:

AEROSMITH – Three 12″ LPs featuring original tracklists on 180-gram audiophile vinyl

Aerosmith – 12″ 180-gram audiophile vinyl LP in an individually numbered jacket – 40 years after its original release in January 1973, this RSD edition of Aerosmith’s classic double platinum debut album is newly remastered from the original source tapes and features the signature tracks, “Dream On,” “Mama Kin” and “Walkin’ The Dog.”

Get Your Wings – 12″ 180-gram audiophile vinyl LP in an individually numbered jacket – Newly remastered from the original source tapes, the RSD edition of Aerosmith’s triple platinum selling second album, the band’s first with producer Jack Douglas, includes the classic “Same Old Song and Dance,” “Seasons of Wither” and “Train Kept A-Rollin’.”

Toys In The Attic – 12″ 180-gram audiophile vinyl LP in an individually numbered jacket – Newly remastered from the original source tapes, the RSD edition of Aerosmith’s third album reaffirms the record’s stature in the pantheon of rock. The band’s most commercially successful album–certified 8x platinum–Toys In The Attic introduced both “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion” to the eternal rock canon.

CYPRESS HILL

Black Sunday – 2 12″ 180-gram high quality heavyweight vinyl LPs in an individually numbered gatefold jacket – The RSD and 20th Anniversary edition of the iconoclastic crossover blockbuster album includes the anthems that made Cypress Hill an indelible signpost on the pop culture landscape including “Insane In The Brain,” “Hits From The Bong” and “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That.”

MILES DAVIS – Three 12″ LPs presented in Mono, featuring original tracklists on 180-gram audiophile vinyl

Round About Midnight – Widely acknowledged by jazz critics and aficionados as a landmark in ‘hard bop’ and one of the greatest jazz albums ever, Miles’ 1956 Columbia Records debut showcased his first legendary quintet featuring John Coltrane.

Milestones – A powerhouse sextet recording featuring John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, this 1958 masterpiece captured Davis’ first modal jazz experiments in pieces like “Straight, No Chaser” and the immortal title track.

Someday My Prince Will Come – Davis’ 1961 successor to Sketches of Spain is an combination of new originals–including tributes to his then-wife, Frances (“Pfrancing”); his producer, Teo Macero (“Teo”); and Columbia Records then-president Goddard Lieberson (“Drad Dog”)–alongside pop standards including the title track from the 1937 film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

DUST

Dust/Hard Attack – Two Albums/One Package – A 2 12″ LP In an Individually Numbered Gatefold Jacket
The hard rock trio formed in Brooklyn, New York, Dust–arguably one of America’s first heavy metal bands–was the launching pad for the careers of bassist Kenny Aaronson (Bob Dylan, Hall & Oates, Rick Derringer, the New York Dolls); drummer Marc Bell (who played with Richard Hell & the Voidoids before becoming Marky Ramone in 1978); and guitarist Richie Wise (who shifted gears, focusing on his producer skills, helmed the first two Kiss albums and several platinum and gold records. Dust recorded two albums–the 1971 self-titled debut and 1972’s follow-up Hard Attack–before disbanding. These two records have become highly-sought after collector’s items. More than forty years since their original pressings, Dust and Hard Attack have been remastered from their original analog tapes for this RSD edition, overseen by original Dust members Marc and Kenny.

JIMI HENDRIX

“Hey Joe” b/w “Stone Free” – 45 RPM 7″ vinyl single – individually numbered
These original 1966 mono mixes were first created for the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut single in the UK and have never been since that time.

TAJ MAHAL

The Hidden Treasures of Taj Mahal – 1969-1973 – Two 12″ 180-gram vinyl LPs in an individually numbered gatefold jacket – Amazing studio demos chronicling the early years of the American bluesman Taj Mahal.

The Natch’l Blues – 12″ 180-gram vinyl in an individually numbered jacket – Taj Mahal’s breathtaking second album, originally released in 1968, showcased a band featuring Al Kooper and Jesse Ed Davis while introducing a generation to deep blues classics like “Corinna,” “She Caught the Katy (and Left Me a Mule to Ride),” and “The Cuckoo.”

MAD SEASON

Above – Expanded Edition 12″ 180-gram 2 LP gatefold
The only album to be completed by the Seattle-based supergroup Mad Season, Above has achieved mythic status among hard rock aficionados. This expanded double 12″ vinyl edition includes the original album in its entirety as well as three songs from the band’s unfinished second album with newly recorded vocals by Mark Lanegan, a previously unreleased instrumental, “Interlude,” and a remixed version of Mad Season’s cover of John Lennon’s “I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier.”

SHUGGIE OTIS

Introducing Shuggie Otis – 12″ 180-gram audiophile vinyl in an individually numbered jacket – includes free MP3 download card
This new compilation brings together ten of the most indelible tracks from the artist Questlove called “…the unsung hero of blues and funk. His music is so potent that it only blossomed 30 years after it was first released.” Includes seminal tracks from the artist’s core catalog: Here Comes Shuggie Otis (1969), Freedom Flight (1971) and Inspiration Information (1974).

VARIOUS ARTISTS – NO ALTERNATIVE – 2 12″ 180-gram vinyl LPs in an individually numbered jacket

Originally released in 1993 as part of the Red Hot Organization’s AIDS Benefit Series, the No Alternative compilation provided a definitive showcase of the bands and artists who would define the contours of alt-rock in the 1990s and beyond. Artists on the album, released on vinyl for the first time as part of RSD 2013, include Matthew Sweet, Buffalo Tom, Soul Asylum, Urge Overkill, American Music Club, Goo Goo Dolls, Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins, Bob Mould, Sarah McLachlan, Soundgarden, Straitjacket Fits, Barbara Manning, The Verlaines, Uncle Tupelo, Beastie Boys, The Breeders, Sonic Youth, Jonathan Richman, and Patti Smith.

WILLIE NELSON – 7″ Green Colored Vinyl in an individually numbered sleeve “Roll Me Up And Smoke Me When I Die”

Released in celebration of the 4/20 record store date and Willie’s 80th birthday (April 30), the A side of this RSD 2013 exclusive, limited, numbered 7” green vinyl edition features features the all-star version of the “Roll Me Up And Smoke Me When I Die” (taken from Willie’s 2012 Heroes album) with guest vocals by Snoop Dogg, Jamey Johnson and Kris Kristofferson with a previously unreleased Willie solo version on the B Side.

SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE – 10″ Vinyl “I Want To Take You Higher”

Side One of this 10″ vinyl release features a previously unreleased live medley of “Music Lover/I Want To Take You Higher/Music Love” and the mono single master of “Higher.”

Side Two of I Want To Take You Higher is a previously unissued TV medley of “Sing A Simple Song/Hot Fun In The Summertime/I Want To Take You Higher.”

SOURCE Legacy Recordings

March 15: Today we send out very happy 70th birthday greetings to Legacy Recordings’ Artist Of The Month, Sly Stone. Producer, arranger, composer, bandleader, performer and more, Sly is one of the most important and beloved figures in the history of rock & roll, and he and his band the Family Stone spent the decade of 1967-1976 making some of the greatest records ever for Epic. Here’s one of our favorite shots of Sly from the Sony Music library, capturing the artist during a 1970 recording session.

Calling all designers! Check out our new design contest at Creative Allies and create funky, bright poster art for Sly & The Family Stone! Details here: http://ow.ly/ikWJf

SLY & THE FAMILY STONE HONORED AS LEGACY RECORDINGS’ ARTIST OF THE MONTH FOR MARCH 2013

SLY STONE’S 70th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED ON MARCH 15th; BEGINS YEAR-LONG CELEBRATION OF SLY & THE FAMILY STONE

MULTI-DISC CAREER RETROSPECTIVE BOX SET ARRIVES LATER THIS YEAR

On the occasion of Sly Stone’s 70th birthday on March 15th, his life and the music of Sly & the Family Stone will be commemorated as the Artist of the Month for March 2013, by Legacy Recordings, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. Legacy’s celebration of Sly & the Family Stone will continue throughout the year.

The Artist of the Month program was launched by Legacy this year, with a commemoration of Janis Joplin in January, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of her birth on January 19, 1943; and a commemoration of Nina Simone in February, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of her birth on February 21, 1933.

In every case, the Artist of the Month program provides fresh perspectives on musical legends whose sounds continue to affect people’s lives. The program enables new fans and deep aficionados the opportunity to focus on an essential figure in pop music history, whose principal catalog is a cornerstone of the Sony Music archives.

As a tribute to the far-reaching horizons of Sly & the Family Stone, the first hit-making interracial, mixed-gender band, a deluxe retrospective multi-disc box set is in production for release later this year on Epic/Legacy. Full details of the box will be announced in the months ahead, but it has been revealed that nearly one-fourth of the contents will be previously unissued material.

A visionary musician, composer and bandleader whose work transformed the 1960s and ’70s in ways that are still influencing generations of musicians in America and around the world, Sly Stone brought the funk into the mainstream by pushing aside every preconceived boundary of pop music. Sly & the Family Stone’s repertoire of hits kept the Pop and R&B charts jumping for seven glorious years from 1968 to 1975, starting with their three career-defining RIAA gold Billboard #1 Pop/ #1 R&B hits, “Everyday People,” “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Again)” and “Family Affair,” and their string of Top 40 hits that began with “Dance To the Music” and included “Life,” “Stand!,” “I Want To Take You Higher,” “Hot Fun In the Summer-time,” “Runnin’ Away,” “If You Want Me To Stay,” “Time For Livin’,” and more. Their top-charted RIAA gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums include Stand! (1969), Greatest Hits (1970), There’s A Riot Goin’ On (1971), and Fresh (1973), every one a classic.

Sly & the Family Stone laid down a template that was (and continues to be) picked up by a diverse population of artists. From Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, to the halls of Motown and George Clinton’s P-Funk, from Michael Jackson and Curtis Mayfield, down the line to Bob Marley, the Isley Brothers, Prince, Public Enemy, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Arrested Development, the Black Eyed Peas, the Roots, OutKast, and on and on, Sly’s DNA is traceable to every cell of the musical stratosphere. To his credit, Sly and the Family Stone have been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and the Grammy Hall Of Fame, and have received the R&B Foundation Pioneer Award, among many other recognitions of their importance and enduring influence.

Born in Denton, Texas on March 15, 1943, Sylvester Stewart moved with his family to Vallejo, California, a northwest suburb of San Francisco in the 1950s. Identified quite early as a musical prodigy, young Sylvester was adept at keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums by age eleven. He became known as ‘Sly’ in early grade school, after a friend misspelled ‘Sylvester.’ Sly played and recorded with several high school bands (usually with younger brother Freddie) and studied composition and theory at Vallejo Junior College. He was a wildly popular fast-talking disc jockey at R&B radio station KSOL in 1964 (and later KDIA), when legendary fellow DJ Tom Donahue hired him as a producer for his San Francisco-based label, Autumn Records. There Sly had a hand in successes with first generation Bay Area rock bands the Beau Brummels, the Charlatans, the Great Society, and the Mojo Men, and produced Bobby Freeman’s 1964 #5 Pop hit, “C’mon And Swim.”

By 1966, Sly was leading a band called Sly And the Stoners, featuring African-American trumpeter Cynthia Robinson. His brother’s band, Freddie And the Stone Souls, featured white drummer Gregg Errico. White saxophonist Jerry Martini urged Sly and Freddie to combine the best of both bands, leading to the birth of Sly & the Family Stone in March 1967. Freddie took over on guitar, as Sly quickly mastered the organ. Their sister Rose joined on keyboards and vocals, and bassist/vocalist Larry Graham completed the lineup. After a gig at the Winchester Cathedral club in Redwood City was witnessed by a CBS Records exec, Sly & the Family Stone were quickly signed to Epic Records.

Their debut LP, A Whole New Thing was released at the very end of 1967, but pushed too many boundaries to find a place at AM or FM radio. Advised to simplify his approach, Sly presented Epic with the tapes of the next album, named for its first single, “Dance To The Music,” a solid Top 10 hit on both the Pop and R&B charts. Sly & the Family Stone were almost there. The third LP arrived in late 1968, Life, but it barely dented the charts, overshadowed by the events of that fateful year: the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the escalation of the war in Southeast Asia, and the election of Richard Nixon.

All the pieces finally came together for Sly & the Family Stone in early 1969, as “Everyday People” finally gave them the RIAA gold Billboard #1 Pop/ #1 R&B hit they were destined for all along. Over the next five years, there was not a moment that Sly & the Family Stone were not being played on AM and FM radio, and appearing everywhere from Woodstock to Yankee Stadium to the grand stages of Europe, and on every television show from squaresville to ultra-hip.

Ultimately, the highs and lows of it all took their toll and the group disbanded in 1975, going their separate ways. But in the four decades that followed, the legend of Sly & the Family Stone has survived and thrived. As Legacy’s Artist of the Month for March 2013, the spotlight continues to shine on Sly & the Family Stone.

www.slystonemusic.com

legacyrecordings.com

In an interview with NPR, Clive Davis discusses working with Sly Stone:

“My dealings with Sly were to really encourage him. He was so energetic. He was so hardworking. In those days, the Columbia studios were union scale and union-affiliated and they were not open Saturday and Sunday. Sly wanted to open Saturday and Sunday for work, so he would call me over the weekend. We bonded.”

Read more at NPR.org.

Listen to Sly and the Family Stone – “Everyday People” in Clive Davis’ – The Soundtrack Of My Life playlist on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/track/1orD9IAKp9MotxkDEhl6Mr

February was a lucky month for Sly Stone, since the number one song in the USA 44 years ago this week was “Everyday People,” while the number one song in the USA 43 years ago was “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” These two Sly & The Family Stone classics were both featured on the 1970 Epic release Greatest Hits, a frozen concentrate of awesome in vinyl form.

Recently, Sony’s senior mastering engineer Vic Anesini and producer Rob Santos were hunkered down at Battery Studios in New York to remaster a career-spanning boxed set of Sly and the Family Stone—including a previously unreleased recording of a 1970 concert at the Isle of Wight off the coast of England.

“For this project, we pulled about 12 cartons of original one-inch, eight-track analog tape masters from Sony’s vaults,” Mr. Anesini said. “Today I’m going to import just the new concert material into our computer at a high digital resolution, then I’m going to use the Pro Tools software program to refine imperfections caused by mike placements at the time.”

Read more at The Wall Street Journal.

It’s a good deal: Jerry Martini never gets tired of playing songs by Sly and the Family Stone, and people never get tired of hearing them.

He attributes the material’s longevity to the fact that band founder Sly Stone wrote “absolutely brilliant lyrics” with a message, and that the music really is about everyday people and families: “There’s no swearing,” he says.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner.