The New York Post has a fascinating article on musical great Sly Stone’s sad slide from seminal funk superstar to a broke man living in his van in Los Angeles.
Stone, 68, the flashy mastermind behind such hits as “Everyday People” and “Dance to the Music,” has suffered from financial mismanagement (he sold his valuable music-publishing rights to Michael Jackson for just a million in 1984), drug use, and mental illness over the past few decades.
Throughout the article, which was co-written by Willem Alkema, the director of the the Sly & the Family Stone documentary, “Dance to the Music,” Stone claims the FBI is after him and his enemies have hired hit men (why they are is not explained). He sleeps in a white camper van with the words “Pleasure Way” emblazoned down its side in the rough Crenshaw neighborhood of LA.
“I like my small camper,” he tells the Post. “I just do not want to return to a fixed home. I cannot stand being in one place. I must keep moving.” A retired coupled in the neighborhood let him shower at their house and give him one meal a day.
Funk musician Bootsy Collins linked to the story on his Twitter feed, saying: “This is not good news yall, about a friend and music legend of our time, but I thought you should know.”
