Trivia / Sly and the Family Stone

• Black Sheep Hit: "Dance to the Music" was done at the insistence of Columbia Records chief Clive Davis, who pushed Sly to write a hit single. The rest of the band hated it at first, with sax man Jerry Martini calling it "glorified Motown" and "unhip". It became their Breakthrough Hit.
• Breakup Breakout: Bassist Larry Graham. After the original Family Stone broke up in 1975, he went on to a successful career, both with his own band Graham Central Station and as a solo act.
• Creator Breakdown: Sly provides a rather infamous example. His drug habits led to the Darker and Edgier There's A Riot Goin' On, him missing shows and ultimately his personal and professional decline into poverty and homelessness.
• Fountain of Expies: They've been covered or sampled many times over the years, and were a major influence on George Clinton, Prince, everyone they influenced, etc.
• He Also Did:
  • Under his birth name of Sylvester Stewart, Sly was a radio DJ in San Francisco and also a Record Producer for several Bay Area rock acts in the years before he started his own band. One of his records as a producer was the original version of Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" by Grace Slick's earlier band The Great Society (the B-Side, "Free Advice", allegedly took over 50 takes in the studio to finish, causing Sly to quit in the middle of the session).
  • Drummer Andy Newmark contributed to Pink Floyd's The Final Cut and Roxy Music's Avalon as a session musician, among others.
• Referenced by...:
  • Linda from Snatched (2017) has a Sly and the Family Stone ticket stub in her scrapbook.
  • Hank from The Half-Life of Planets considers doing a stripped-down, acoustic cover of a Sly and the Family Stone song for Beachfest.

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