Some of us need his right now with the cold we are experiencing. Some way more than others. I live near Nashville, so we are in the 20s and 30s, but nothing compared to the northern states. I think of a few of my readers who live in Wisconsin and Michigan…I can’t imagine.
A gentle, sun-soaked groove that felt like the last afternoon before school started again. It’s a song that takes summer with it whenever you listen. Most of his radio hits were positive, like this one and Everyday People. He was huge during his heyday, but has been neglected since. He had such a span of success between 1967 – 1973. 9 singles in that span in the top 40 including 3 number ones. He also wrote most of their hits, including this one. A terrific songwriter.
This song came out in 1969, sandwiched between the more serious Everyday People and Stand!. The song primed their audience for their successful upcoming appearance at Woodstock. Some thought their set was one of the best of the festival. I was only two in 1969, but I would imagine this song was drifting out of car radios, backyard barbecues, and AM stations every summer like clockwork. You didn’t analyze it, you lived in it.
The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard 100 and #4 in Canada in 1969. In January of 2026, let’s listen to the song and think warm thoughts, and catch that warm vibe.
Sylvester Stewart passed away in June of 2025.
Hot Fun In The Summertime
End of the springAnd here she comes backHi, hi, hi, hi thereThem summer daysThose summer days
That’s when I hadMost of my fun, backHi, hi, hi, hi thereThem summer daysThose summer days
I cloud nine when I want toOut of school, yeahCounty fair in the country sunAnd everything is trueOoh, yeah, yeah
Hot fun in the summertimeHot fun in the summertimeHot fun in the summertimeHot fun in the summertime
First of the fallAnd then she goes backBye, bye, bye, bye thereThem summer daysThose summer days
Boop-boop-boop-boopWhen I want toOut of schoolCounty fair in the country sunAnd everything is coolOoh, yeah, yeah
Hot fun in the summertime (hey, hey, hey, ooh)Hot fun in the summertime (ooh, yeah)Hot fun in the summertime
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One of my favorites from that era. If you haven’t already seen it, there is an amazing documentary on the band and in particular Stewart called “Sly Lives.” It came out in January 2025, and was directed by Questlove. It’s very well done.
I haven’t seen that but I want to now! The guy seems like the unlimate man that was forgotten…what a songwriter Sly was….and a performer for that matter.
The whole band under his direction was amazing. The way he integrated black and white musicians as well as featuring females as not just singers was, for the time, revolutionary. And let’s not forget Larry Graham, the bass player who introduced us to the “slap” bass.
I just found out about the slap bass today…I’m a bass player and I cannot believe I didn’t know that. He was an amazing songwriter, performer, and arranger…just incredible.
Nothing like a little Hot Fun on a 10º morning. I’m not sure we appreciated this band for what they meant at the time. Family-based, mixed in both race and gender, women as musicians and not just backing vocalists, multiple voices trading lead lines, a white man on drums. How many stereotypes did they break down and expose?
I knew it was cold there but wow.
You are right…this band totally has been forgotten and I don’t understand why. He had some severe problems after this band but still. You are right…they broke a lot of sterotypes…
That’s a timely pick, Max! 🙂
And, wow, temperatures in the ’20s in Nashville? Is that common, even during this time of the year?
In my neck of the woods (central New Jersey), it’s currently 25, feeling like 17, which is chilly but not unusual. We got a bit of snow overnight, so I guess I’m gonna have some fun getting a bit of a workout with shoveling.
“Hot Fun in the Summertime” might be a good song to queue! 🙂
Yes it’s common in this time of year. We get down to the teens and occasionally in the single digits but that doesn’t happen every night…but a few. Right now it’s in the 40s and it feels much better.
Yes this song is always good as is most of Sly’s music.
Oh, wow, for some reason I pictured you guys have milder weather!
No…it gets cold in the winter but it doesn’t stay as cold for as long as you guys. I remember a New Years a couple years ago that it was 0 when I woke up that morning.
0?🥶 Yikes!😳
It’s bitter cold in Boston so this song is very welcome!
Yes…we are in the 40s today here so it’s much better here today. I can’t imagine what you all endure in a winter but we get paid back in the summer with humidity.
The thing about climate change is that it used to be much colder. There are people here who grew up playing pond hockey all winter and now the waters hardly ever freeze over.
We used to get more snow in the 70s but in the late 80s it stopped as much…it didn’t start back until in the teens…which surprised me. I can’t imagine a pond or river freezing over.
very good summer song and I think perhaps Sly’s best song, period. Not a bad listen in the winter too, eh?
It’s perfect…although it’s in the 40s today here so very warm for us.
A big loss when he died. I liked the second version best
Yea…I do as well. Yes it wasa a big loss…he just vanished from the headlines for years.
Nice warm thoughts as I peer out at the snow …
I would trade with you! I would love snow.
Ugh, snow; Wind whistling in through every crack, icicles forming above the porch, cold icy sidewalks growing taller with every snowfall? Sorry Keith, you can shovel that.
I’m glad here we’re in Summer. (Though lately it feels like mid-Spring at best.)
Hot Fun in the Summertime gives off this carefree vibe that perfectly captures the joy of summer.
Yes it does and I’m trying to channel that warmth now.
“sun-soaked groove,” you are right on, Max! Man, you really have us grooving in the new year, keep it going!
I’ll try! We need those warm vibes in the winter!
Great tune! Really love Sly and the Family Stone. They were all superb musicians. (The bassist, Larry Graham, invented the slapping technique.) But Sly was a one and a million talent. So many of the late 60s early 70s rockers were in awe of him. He had a terrible drug habit, though. Derailed his career.
I’ve seen somewhere where Sammy Hagar met him in a studio in the late seventies or early eighties and he was totally out of it. It’s really sad because he was very important as was his band…I didn’t know that about Graham!
Yeah…Graham is a very influential. He’s one of the innovators of Funk.
I’ll read up on him Pam…thank you.
They were the greatest. Sly was another one who just oozed music out of every pore. Love the live one with the kid in the audience singing along. OK, now I’m going to go off on a tangent. There’s a collection of music called Country Got Soul- Vol 1&2 (It’s on YouTube). It has a lot of well-known artists on it, but one guy on it that I’d never heard of is Jim Ford. I looked him up and in his Wikipedia entry it quotes Sly Stone as calling him “the baddest white man on the planet”. He wrote songs that were covered by some soul acts. The whole collection is really good. It was compiled by a musician I admire named Jeb Loy Nichols (another artist for another day). Just wondered if you had ever heard of him.
I like Tangent! I’m looking up Jim Ford right now…yes! He did write a lot of songs. I’ll have to give a listen to that. So many people from Johnny Thunder – Link Wray – and Mac Davis covered him…I like him singing his own songs as well.
Thanks for that…I’ll check him out.
Max, you are chilly. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but we lived in Memphis for a year back in 96-97. And of course, even though we were there for only a short time, it had to snow a couple of inches once. Man, that city was completely shut down. For a couple from PA, we got a good chuckle out of how the folks dealt with winter. We’ve been below freezing the last couple of days, a dusting of snow…it’s nice during the Holidays. Great tune. It was literally heard everywhere I went for several summers after its release…and to be a sure a super-talented band leader and group.
In Nashville (and around) we get way more snow than Memphis but yes…an inch of snow will shutdown Nashville and the counties around it. They don’t have the equipment at all! Whew…Memphis? I don’t go there much because some of it is really rough…especially around Graceland.
Yea I think we need a little summer time feel now. I’ve always liked this song and about every song I’ve heard from them.
Summer distilled in the grooves of a 2 minute 37 45 single. A perfect song for summer.
Sly wasn’t ignored. He had a very serious problem that was his downfall. It kept him from as far back as one can remember, before the Family Stone until his death.
yes, Larry Graham fronted his own band for a time and made some incredible music. Graham Central Station
Just to underline how incredible Sly was, he was wrapped in Coke and still made those incredible recordings.
God damned coke.
Oh yea I knew he was on drugs…but the way I meant ignored is… his music should have been played more and talked about. I know he wasn’t able to make much music because of the state he was in.
Yea he was really bad messed up for sure. I think he lived in a camper for a lot of the time.
Love the way this starts on the piano…
Yes I do as well John…he was a fantastic songwriter, performer, and arranger.
Sly & the Family were great in their heyday, this track never made it over to the UK though, which is a shame, it’s a goodie. Bizarrely, I caught them on their last UK live gig about 15 years back – it was very low-key in terms of publicity and a one-off I think, and it was memorably disastrous, which was sad, but also fascinating. Sly was in a neck-brace and appeared for a few tracks mid-set, they had obviously been dabbling with something and were around 2 hours late on stage, by which time some people had to leave to catch buses. Worse, nobody had checked the microphones were working, so the girls – doing the bulk of the work – were inaudible. Even worse, nobody stopped the show to sort it out so they remained inaudible. People were livid demanding their money back, so they were gifted tickets to Isaac Hayes the next week. I didn’t want to hang around even longer to wait for that so I gifted Sly the revenue from me at least!
Plus side, it’s a gig I will never forget!
That is incredibly sad! Yes I can see that no one would forget concert…but all for the wrong reasons.
I want to do a post one day on artists like Sly, Mellencamp, Petty, and others who like Slade, T-Rex…that just doesn’t translate to the other country…it boggles my mind! I’m looking at Sly’s UK charts right now…Dance to the Music is the only top 10 I see! A few charted but nothing big.
That would make a great post!
Hmmmm…I think you are right…may try that! Thank you.
Ive barely heard this for some reason. Its been a pretty bad couple of weeks of weather here – NZ kind of shuts down for a couple of weeks after Christmas, but the weather has been terrible.
I’m sorry to hear that about the weather. I have a question Graham… I don’t know if New Zealand is on par with the UK with American music (I don’t think so). But I noticed that Sly, Tom Petty, Mellencamp, CCR, and some others just don’t chart as well in the UK. Kinda like Slade, Status Quo, and T-Rex in reverse.
I think NZ is better about that. Well I might have answered my own question….I see that CCR had multiple top 10 hits there…along with Mellencamp.
We get a bit of both. I think we were closer to the UK in the 1960s and are closer to America now. I live in a working-class suburb, and lots of American hip hop. I can understand why NZ’s native people identify more with African Americans than with their English conolists.
Oh, yeah, that was a big crank-up-radio feel-good tune. But then lots of Sly and the Fam tunes were!
They really were! Such a talented songwriter-performer.
Now playing in my cd player the album Sly And The Family Stone Greatest Hits.
Cool! Thanks for reading!