Cynthia Robinson
Cynthia Robinson (January 12, 1944 – November 23, 2015) was an American musician, best known for being a founding member of Sly and the Family Stone, for which she was the trumpeter and a vocalist.[2] Her voice and presence were featured in the hits "Dance to the Music" and "I Want to Take You Higher." Questlove of the hip hop band the Roots has called Robinson the original "hypeman."[3]
Cynthia Robinson
January 12, 1944[1]
Sacramento, California, U.S.
November 23, 2015 (aged 71)
Carmichael, California, U.S.
Musician
1966–2015
Early life[edit]
Robinson grew up in Sacramento, California. She lived in Oak Park, a neighborhood in Sacramento. She played flute in elementary school, but there were no flutes available at her high school, and she was told to play the clarinet. Unhappy, she asked a fellow student, whom she had heard playing the trumpet in a practice room, if she could give his instrument a try.
“Everything I blew was off key, but I knew it could sound good if you worked on it, and that’s what I wanted to do,” she told the online magazine Rookie in 2013.[4]
She attended Sacramento High School where she played trumpet in the school band. Robinson was taunted by the boys in her band class for being a black girl playing a "white boy's instrument". Robinson even recalled teachers suggesting she take up a different activity and save the trumpet for the boys, but Robinson was in love with the trumpet.
Her first trumpet belonged to a beatnik, who told her she could have it if she played at one of his parties. “It smelled bad, it had all kinds of green crud inside the tubing, so I took it home, cleaned it, soaked it in hot water, cleaned it all out, and it was mine,” she told Rookie.[4]
Later career[edit]
She was the only member of the original Family Stone to continue working with Sly Stone after the band fell apart in 1975. She also played in the funk band Graham Central Station with Family Stone bandmate and cousin Larry Graham, starting in the 1990s.[5] She also worked with George Clinton and Prince.[4]