Foster Sylvers, the bassist and child-star vocalist who helped The Sylvers ride “Boogie Fever” to the top of the charts in 1976, died on Saturday, May 30, 2026, in hospice care. He was 64.

His older brother, Leon Sylvers III, confirmed the death the following day, saying "he died in hospice following a battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.” The family has indicated that sister Pat Sylvers will share additional details in the coming days. An earlier account relayed by Leon Sylvers III to a separate outlet attributed the death to prostate cancer that had metastasized to other parts of his body.

He was 11 years old when America first learned his name.

A Memphis Kid on Soul Train

Born Feb. 25, 1962, in Memphis, Tennessee, Foster Sylvers arrived on the national stage in 1973 with a self-titled debut album on Pride Records and a single called “Misdemeanor,” written and produced by his older brother Leon. The song hit No. 7 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100, putting the kid in front of cameras on American Bandstand and Soul Train — the two shows that mattered most if you were a Black artist trying to break through that decade. His youthful voice, precocious stage presence and genuine musical talent made him an immediate curiosity in an industry that had seen few child stars successfully navigate R&B and funk. A follow-up album, “Foster Sylvers,” came in 1974 on MGM Records.

Then he joined his siblings.

The Sylvers had started years earlier as The Little Angels, a gospel-influenced group with Olympia, Leon, Charmaine and James out front, performing at venues across Memphis and later Los Angeles after the family relocated to California. By the time Foster came aboard in 1975, the group had evolved into a full-fledged funk and soul powerhouse, hitting its commercial stride with the album “Showcase,” which featured the single “Misdemeanor” — a different song from Foster’s solo hit. Their next album, released later that year, was titled “Something Special.”

Then came 1976. “Boogie Fever” — Foster on bass, sharing co-lead vocals with his brother Edmund — topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Hot Soul Singles chart in May of that year. It was the family’s defining moment, a disco-funk earworm that sold more than two million copies and earned a gold record certification. “Hot Line” followed that same year, peaking at No. 5 on the R&B chart. The group released a string of albums including “Something Special,” “New Horizons” and “Forever Yours” before disbanding in 1985 after nine studio albums and more than a decade of national touring.

Bass Lines for Hire

What people sometimes forget about Foster Sylvers is that the child star kept working long after the spotlight moved on. Based in Los Angeles, California, he became a respected session bassist and multi-instrumentalist whose credits include work with Dynasty and Evelyn “Champagne” King. He co-wrote and performed on “Shake Down,” an R&B hit in 1984 that reached the lower rungs of the Billboard charts but remained in rotation at Black radio stations for months.

In 1989 he formed Hy-Tech, releasing material under the name Foster Sylvers and Hy-Tech through EMI America and A&M Records. The project blended electronic production with live instrumentation, reflecting the shift in R&B toward programmed drums and synthesizers. He kept writing, producing and showing up to studio dates into the 2000s, contributing bass lines and background vocals to projects that rarely carried his name in liner notes but benefited from decades of experience.

More than four decades of work. Fifty years, if you count from “Misdemeanor.”

A Conviction That Never Went Away

In 1994, Foster Sylvers was convicted of a sex offense for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. He served prison time and was required to register as a sex offender in California for the rest of his life. The conviction has resurfaced in coverage of his death, as it did during his life — a permanent fixture on a public record otherwise built out of records, charts and stages.

The family has not tried to scrub it.

Tributes and a Third Brother Gone

His daughter, Erin Sylvers, posted a photograph of her father on social media over the weekend. “Rest well, Daddy. I love you so much,” she said.

Kevin H. Donan, a Hollywood record store owner who had known Foster since the late 1970s, said the two met when Foster came west as a teenager. “Foster Sylvers and I met at the Sylvers family Bel-Air home when I first arrived in 1978 from Flint, Michigan,” Donan said, recalling early demo sessions with members of the family before any of those records reached store shelves. Musician Lawrence “LAW” Worrell offered his own remembrance, saying he had watched Foster fight the cancer in their last visits together but preferred to remember the years they spent working side by side in the studio.

The Sylvers family has now buried three brothers. Edmund Sylvers, Foster’s co-lead vocalist on “Boogie Fever,” died of lung cancer in 2004 at age 47. Christopher Sylvers, the youngest sibling, died in 1985 at age 18 from hepatitis-related complications. The widely circulated 1975 group photo — James, Foster, Edmund, Ricky and Angie — now shows three faces of the dead.