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Artist

Sly and the Family Stone

Alternative rock

Alternative rockFunkHouse

Sly and the Family Stone is a Alternative rock and Funk act. Their catalogue also touches House, Rhythm and blues and Rock. Their sound grew out of The Great Society, Savoy Brown, Canned Heat, Gypsy and Exuma. Those roots explain a lot about how Sly and the Family Stone arrange songs and choose their tones. They run in the same orbit as Graham Central Station, Isaac Hayes, Shuggie Otis, The J.B.'s and Eddie Hazel, sharing audiences, venues and reference points rather than a straight line of influence. Their influence carried into The Five Stairsteps, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lenny Kravitz, Seal and Norman Whitfield, where the same ideas turn up rearranged for a later generation. Altogether the chart holds 98 connections around Sly and the Family Stone, reaching back through The Great Society and forward to The Five Stairsteps. Follow any of those threads to keep travelling the influence between bands and genres on Starverb.