Sly Stone and Sylvester Stewart are the same person. Both contain works, resulting in duplicates.
Question: Should Sylvester Stewart’s works be converted to Sly Stone and then credited as Sylvester Stewart?
I’d look at them release by release.
As Sylvester Stewart (real name) most consistently performed with the one name of Sly Stone (stage name), I believe everything should be merged to Sly Stone and use aliases for the places where credits are to his Real Name. That also helps avoid the split you are seeing now where credits can inconsistently flip-flop between two “artists” who are really the same man.
If someone has a lot of different stage names, then it makes more sense to keep things split as multiple artists in the database. I don’t think that makes sense here.
Generally I try and keep a Work credit to the original way the credit appeared on the first album and\or single that Recording appeared on. (Artist intent) I try and avoid using later reissued compilations as career retrospective compilations tend to change what the artist originally used as a credit.
Look at his original 1970s releases. What does he actually use himself?
Example: Release “High on You” by Sly Stone - Cover art - MusicBrainz 1975 release and it is credited to his real name S Stewart.
The more old 1970s releases I click on, the more I see credited to “Sylvester Stewart”. Which is very consistent as to the way he credits his work.
I only see ten tracks credited to Sly Stone, and most of those are with The Mojo Men. Found his name on a Mojo Men single and writing credit is Stewart ( Release “She's My Baby / Fire in My Heart” by The Mojo Men - Cover art - MusicBrainz ) So he is clearly consistent and the few tracks credited to Sly Stone are probably from a reissued compilation. (I then looked through all the other singles on Discogs… writing credits “Sylvester Stewart” and producer credits as “Sly Stone”)
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I agree with merging the artists.
Got bored. Looked at all ten of the times that a Work was credited to “Sly Stone”. Tracked earliest release in each case either on MB or Discogs.
Only time I found it actually credited to “Sly Stone” was one Commodores track. Only leaves a few unknown Mojo Men tracks, but as on the singles I did find it was always “Stewart” or “Sylvester Stewart” then I think we could safely guess and correct those too.
Thank you all, have a nice day