Sylvester Stewart, better known as Sly Stone, who has died aged 82, was an American singer, writer and producer who played a key role in the development of soul and popular music in the Sixties and Seventies.

With his group Sly and the Family Stone, comprised of both black and white and male and female musicians, Stone forged a pioneering hybrid of soul and rock, spiced with social commentary, which would prove critical in the development of Seventies funk music. Over a four-year period between 1968 and 1972, Stone enjoyed a string of Top 20 successes with songs such as Dance to the Music, Everyday People and Family Affair. But drug abuse, bankruptcy and a fondness for armaments would prove fatal to Stone’s career, and by the 1990s he had all but vanished from the music scene altogether a

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