Who's That? #2: Cynthia Robinson -- by Garbo

I must begin today's post with a video showing with the space boots that Cynthia Robinson wears in this music video. We see her dancing starting about 20 seconds in.

As you have figured out, if you didn't know before, Cynthia Robinson (1946-2015) was the trumpet player in Sly and the Family Stone. She's also famous for shouting "Dance to the music!!!" at the beginning on the song of that name. Check out this live performance.

Cynthia started her life as a flute player, and then at Sacramento High School, the band director asked her to switch to another "girl instrument," the clarinet. Cynthia made the switch, but was unhappy. She asked a bandmate if she could try out his trumpet, and while the first notes she first played were off-key, Robinson told an interviewer later that she'd known she could learn to play trumpet over time.

Along the way, she was discouraged by teachers and classmates, but she kept on playing on a school instrument and then (this being the early 1960s, she met a beatnik who offered to trade her a used trumpet he had in return for Cynthia playing at a party he wanted to give. Cynthia took home the beatnik's trumpet, which apparently hadn't been cleaned in a long time, sanitized the instrument, and played for the party, making this first horn her own.

As this audio from a live performance proves, Cynthia was right about her inherent talent. Also, it's worth checking out the link just for the photo collage showing the various sizes of Cynthia's awesome Afro.

Cynthia met Sylvester Stewart at Scaramento High School, where he'd transferred. She played for a few of the bands he put together. After high school, Cynthia found that Sylvester Stewart had become Sly Stone, a DJ at radio station KSOL. Stone invited Cynthia, along with her cousin Larry, to become part of the newly-formed Family Stone and the hits came fast, one after the other.

Here's a clip from an interview with Cynthia on the history of the band:

During a Sly and the Family Stone appearance on TV, an awkward Mike Douglas asks each band number for their name and the city they're from, and Douglas teases Cynthia a little bit because he heard her city but not her name.

A clip from another interview with Cynthia, about the meaning of the lyrics in the Family Stone repertoire:

Another member of the Family Stone was Cynthia's cousin, bassist Larry Graham. Graham left Sly's band to form Graham Central Station, with whom Cynthia played at times. Here is a screenshot from a video of the 1997 version of Graham Central Station playing a gig in Aruba. YouTube video below the screenshot.

Around the same time as the video above (1997-1999), Cynthia was part of Prince's touring group the NPG (New Power Generation) and played on a reboot version of "Everyday People." Cynthia also played with George Clinton. In the video below, Clinton inducts members of Sly and the Family Stone into the Rock Roll H of Fame:

Cynthia had two daughters, the elder being Laura Marie, pictured with Cynthia below. Cynthia not only had six grandchildren, but also four great-grandchildren.

Cynthia's younger daughter, Sylvyette Phunne Robinson, has taken her father's stage name and appears as Phunne Stone in the music video "Do Yo Dance" as part of an updated Family Stone. "Do Yo Danc" includes contemporary, heartwarming footage of Cynthia: