Per Sly and the Family Stone’s wiki
I knew they were popular but I did not realize their influence was quite that seminal. Is there some truth to this position re their impact on black music of the time or is it a wild overstatement?
Everybody Is A Star
It’s just another critics opinion. I loved Sly and the Family Stone, but I also loved Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, and certain incarnations of Funkadelic.
While the music was great, I think the integrated band in the USA was a pretty cool, cutting edge aspect of things.
I think that Sly’s (and his band’s) greatest achievement was the crossover between soul/funk and “white” rock/psychedelica. That went hand in hand with a focus on socially/politically aware lyrics, which were a rare thing in black music before he entered the scene (he was a pioneer in that regard, but not the first, see for example Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come”). Many established soul acts like the Temptations or Marvin Gaye changed their act in this vein in the late 60s, early 70s, and especially the successful soul acts of the first half of the 70s like Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield et al. were influenced by Sly’s music.
And not to forget, he was also one of the pioneers of what was later called funk, which itself was a heavy influence on dance music styles that followed.
So yes, I would say his influence on popular music was enormous.
Feh. He’s no James Reese Europe.
Yes - the band was hugely influential and it is weird to contemplate how that isn’t fully appreciated in a crossover way today. I suppose most of that has to do with Sly’s slide into whackjob-ness so long ago, and the fact that he was, frankly too weird to engage the masses as effectively as Stevie Wonder did.
But, if you use pop culture as a barometer, Sly’s stuff is woven more deeply into the fabric of our lives that we realize. Think of the commercials that use “Everyday People” or “Hot Fun in the Summertime” or other SatFS songs as the wallpaper behind their sales pitch - their stuff is up there with Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky for recycle-ability as part of our soundtrack. Also like Blitzkrieg Bop by the Ramones - everybody just knows the chant; any questions? 
And Larry Graham, for all intents and purposes, invented/popularized/whatever pop/slap bass playing - i.e., the heart and soul of funk music and the opening up of a whole new category of bass playing. He is the equivalent of Eddie Van Halen - a whole new category of guitar, the SuperStrat, coupled with a whole new approach to using the guitar as a sound-generating device (harmonic taps, triplet tapping, divebombing with a whammy bar, etc.) - well that is what has flowed out of the introduction of using your thumb to slap and fingers to pluck/pop the strings of a bass…
My $.02
Wouldn’t that logically imply that Sly’s own music wasn’t black music, since he was neither before nor after himself?
There was a really good Dutch film about Stone recently, called “Dance to the Music”. The producers of the film decided to try to track down the reclusive Sly, and in the process made a documentary of the man’s music and life. He was in some sort of awful accident many years ago that resulted in a broken neck, and the doctors apparently screwed up the fix, which left him permanently hanging his head. He doesn’t give interviews and rarely comes out of hiding, but did give an interview to this filmmaker.
The man was the birth of funk, his music was unique, and he gave new meaning to the word ‘flamboyant’.
I know you are joking, but actually, SatFS’s music was far too complex and variable to be easily categorized in labels like “black music”, which anyway is a problematic and hard to define term IMHO. The music was, well, really universal. I can’t think of another band of their times, be it a black or a white one, that did SaTFS’s unique mix of styles. The closest would be Parliament/Funkadelic, but could you imagine them doing “Que Sera, Sera”?
I’d love to see this film and looked it up on imdb. There is a US version, but I guess it’s hard to get your hands on it. Where did you see it?
He may also unconsciously be saying there are two types of black music: black music before Joel Selvin and black music after Joel Selvin. We respect most what is of our own time.
Nice point.
Sly and the Family Stone was extremely influential, but I don’t know that I would go quite that far. Then again, in addition to what other posters have said, the band also influenced fusion jazz (Miles Davis was once quoted as saying that he listened to Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder and SatFS a lot) and disco (listen to the end of “Stand”).
It was at a local film festival, so I’m no help.
What is “black music”?
In one way you’re implying that “black music” is a simple umbrella term that SatFS doesn’t fall under, but then you say this genre is too hard to define. Maybe it’s because it is a construct that lacks any reasoning?
SatFS were pioneers in funk rock and roll. Most popular black musicians before and after SatFS were involved in some aspect of rock and roll. I won’t deny there’s a different flavor to “black” rock and roll than “white” rock and roll, but why not say reference an actual genre of music (rock and roll) than something as nebulous as “race music”? Did SatFS have a influence on mainstream music? I would think that would be a more interesting question than just focusing on their role in “black” music, since everyone–not just black people–were jamming to them.
Nothing has come after him yet, since he is still alive. It’s that awkward 'tween period, I guess.