On July 15, 2025, Living Color‘s Vernon Reid will pay tribute to Sly Stone at City Winery in New York City with a wine and music pairing commemorating the music of Sly and the Family Stone. Sly & the Vine: A Funkadelic Tasting Experience with Vernon Reid of Living Colour is a one-night-only immersive experience that will blend live music, storytelling, and curated wine pairings.
Paying tribute to Stone, who died June 9, 2025, at age 82, the evening will include eight iconic songs carefully paired with eight City Winery wines, “to evoke the feeling, rhythm, and cultural impact of the track,” according to a descriptor.
“Reid will guide the audience through the music and moments that shaped Sly Stone’s legacy, sharing personal reflections and musical insights in an intimate, immersive setting.”
Stone was diagnosed with COPD in 2019 after years of being hospitalized for breathing issues. “They told me that if I kept smoking, I would ruin my lungs or I might die,” Stone told The Guardian. “I have trouble with my lungs, trouble with my voice, trouble with my hearing, and trouble with the rest of my body, too.”
Along with the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Stone also battled a drug addiction for years before becoming sober in 2019, which was documented in his 2023 memoir Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). Several months before his death, his life and music were also chronicled in the Questlove-directed documentary Sly Lives!
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The songwriter behind iconic hits like “Everyday People,” “Dance to the Music,” “I Want To Take You Higher,” “Stand!,” “Family Affair,” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” among others, Stone remained an immense influence throughout Reid’s career.
“I would make the argument that there isn’t a band of greater import,” said Reid. “In terms of impact and the kind of shift they created, there isn’t a greater American band. Everything was different after they appeared. Their influence is obvious and very, very subtle. Their influence in terms of the way they made their music, the things they said in their music, the hope that they engendered, the evolution of ‘rock star’ as a difficult personality—all the things, good and indifferent, Sly and the Family Stone are the alpha and omega of it.”
Bands during the 1960s were “creating the times that they were responding to,” says Reid, and Stone was at the forefront.
“That’s the thing that’s so wild about bands of that era,” he added. “They were responding to something that they were also making happen. … He came at a pivotal time, and he said things to America and Americans and to the world that they needed to hear. They may not have liked “Don’t Call Me N—-r, Whitey,” but he went there. That’s the other side of ‘Everyday People,’ demanding respect on his own terms. It’s very powerful. He didn’t flinch. He wasn’t accommodating. He did what he did, dig it or don’t dig it.
Get tickets for Sly and the Vine: A Funkadelic Tasting Experience with Vernon Reid of Living Colour here.
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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