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Back in 1967, when funky trumpeter Cynthia Robinson joined forces with musical visionary Sly Stone, most “girls” in band units wore pretty dresses and harmonized in the background. “I never thought for one second I’d be able to play with a real band,” Robinson recalls via telephone from her home in the Bay Area. “When I was in high school, I went through a lot of bad treatment and was called a lot of names by boys, because I wanted to play. Sly was different.”

Forty-seven later, Cynthia Robinson, who still tours the world playing with the Family Stone, remembers her back in the day life on the road with the musicians she calls, the greatest band in the world.”

Read more at Ebony.

Enter for a chance to win a Sly & The Family Stone – Live At The Fillmore East October 4th & 5th 1968 CD, black vinyl and poster, plus 7 studio albums!

In the fall of 1968, Sly and the Family Stone was a confident band worried about its future. Pressured by Epic Records earlier that year to record “Dance to the Music,” a commercial second album, the band pushed back in September with “Life,” which was truer to its freewheeling roots.

To promote the album, Sly and the Family Stone were booked into New York’s Fillmore East on Oct. 4-5. … The band was eager to show Epic that its feel-good, jam-session treatments of gospel-tinged funk-rock originals could whip up any audience. Judging by Sly & The Family Stone – Live At The Fillmore East October 4th & 5th 1968 (Sony Legacy), a four-CD set due July 17, they succeeded.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal.

Hear a medley of Sly & The Family Stone’s “Turn Me Loose” and Otis Redding’s “I Can’t Turn You Loose” off the upcoming Live At The Fillmore East October 4th & 5th 1968 exclusively at Billboard.