Sly and the Family Stone’s Cynthia Robinson Dies at 69

Robinson also sang lead vocals with her daughter on the FAMILY STONE single, “Do Yo Dance”, which came out earlier this year.

Born in Sacramento, California, Robinson met Sly Stone while still in high school and began working with him in 1966, when the bandleader put together a group called the Stoners.

Though she went on to study music at the city college, she thought that no band would hire a female trumpeter, and did not acquire her own horn until a “beatnik” she knew told her that she could have one he had lying around if she played for a party.

Trumpeter Cynthia Robinson has passed away.

For the band, it was just “family music” – or, to Rose Stone, “truth music”. She saw a guitar in the backseat. “I said, ‘Whoa! Whose is that?’ The beatnik said, ‘If you play it at my party Friday night you can have it”. She asked, “Whose guitar is that?” and Sly said it was his.

The trumpeter was best known for her joyous melodies and inspired vocals and ad-libs on songs like “Dance to the Music” and “I Want to Take You Higher”. Sly and his friends came in-a tall fellow named Daryl, a singer named Jimmy Terrell, and Sly on guitar-and played a song.

Cynthia Robinson is survived by two daughters, Sylvette Phunne Stone and Laura Marie.

Robinson’s loyalty to Stone and the band was evident after the band broke up in 1975.

Robinson cut a distinctive figure in rock “n” roll, even among the distinctive, multiethnic clan that made up Sly and the Family Stone. The group merged with Freddie Stone’s band Freddie and the Stone Souls, and Robinson became a founding member of Sly and the Family Stone in 1967. A crucial intricate part of Sly Stone’s utopian vision of MLK’s America: Sly & The Family Stone were brothers & cousins. friends & enemies. black & white. male & female. saint & sinner. common man & superheroes. guarded & vulnerable. poets & punks. hip & square.

Fans have shown an outpouring of support for Robinson on social media, from tweets from journalists who’d interviewed her to memories shared by George Clinton.

She later reformed Family Stone with Jerry Martini and Greg Errico. “She covered a lot of ground”, he says.