The family that plays together, stays together …. until the drugs, guns, and paranoia arrive, and then it’s everyone for themselves.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Sly & The Family Stone! It’s a world that embodied the 60’s dream and then crashed like a hippie house of cards when the seamy side of the 70’s ate away at the foundation.

But even as the band dissolved, what a beautiful, funky monument of music remained.

Sylvester Stewart and his siblings, Freddie and Rose, grew up in California playing music both together and apart in gospel and doo-wop groups during the 1950’s and 60’s. By 1964, Sylvester had transformed into Sly Stone, a radio DJ who gained attention for occasionally playing British rock music at the R&B station he worked for. At the same time, he co-founded Autumn Records in San Francisco and produced major hits for folk-rockers The Beau Brummels and R&B singer Bobby Freeman.

Sly’s own efforts at making solo singles unfortunately proved underwhelming. So he got the Family together.

Along with his brother and sister, he also added horns, backing vocalists, and one of the funkiest bass players around. As it happened, the saxophonist and the drummer were both white, making Sly & The Family Stone the first multi-racial, mixed-gender band (while not unheard of in jazz combos and studio session groups, multi-racial, high-profile rock and soul bands were quite unique at the time).

The band spent 1967 getting off the ground, had a pretty good year in 1968, and peaked in 1969 with a #1 hit, a #2 that just missed, a headlining concert at the Harlem Cultural Festival, and a few weeks later an iconic, middle-of-the night performance at the Woodstock Festival where Sly — with long white fringe a-flyin’ — implored half a million kids to go higher (higher!). But once you’ve peaked, there’s only one direction left.

Sly got himself mixed up with lots of drugs (like Al Pacino in Scarface lots) and the wrong crowd of people, and spent 1970 holed up in the studio or at home, recording the band’s new album primarily by himself, with only a couple of disreputable bodyguards for company. Granted, it turned out to be a revolutionary and highly influential album, but still, the friction within the band (as well as Sly’s failure to show up for concerts, a trait he took to legendary status over the ensuing decades) could not be smoothed out. One by one, the members left the group, even his siblings, until by the mid-70’s, it was just Sly Stone, alone.

But the magic’s in the music. It’s all in the groove and the grooves (of the records, that is).

So all you squares go home! And so on and so on and scooby-dooby-dooby. Here’s the least you need to know:

Stand! (1968) Sly and the band help to invent psychedelic soul.

Greatest Hits (1969) Nobody mixed pop and social commentary like Sly. One of the foundational records for the funk to come.

There’s A Riot Goin’ On (1971) A dark, murky, claustrophobic record. A reflection of life in America — weird and uncertain, beautiful and unsettling. Riots on the streets, riots in our heads.