Happy birthday today to one of music’s true eccentrics and geniuses, Sly Stone, who with his Family Stone, concocted a blend of genres like R&B, funk, light rock and roll, pop, and even psychedelia into one seamless quilt of songs and sounds that are still passionately loved, remembered, and influential to this day, the master songwriter/songcrafter and ultimate showman.

With songs like “Everyday People,” “Dance to the Music,” “Thank You Fallentinme Be Mice Elf (Agin),” “Stand” “Family Affair,” “If You Want Me To Stay,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Everybody is a Star,” “I Want To Take You Higher,” and plenty more, spanning albums through the mid 1960s to the early 1970s, when the band experienced a dizzying carnival ride of success before excess made it spin out of control, largely due to its leader, Sly and the Family Stone ushered in a multi-racial, kind of party-esque musical atmosphere that everyone was allowed to metaphorically imbibe on, a rainbow that everyone was able to surf on, an idyllic ocean filled with waves of notes and good vibes.