In his heydays, he lived at 783 Bel Air Road, a four-bedroom Beverly Hills mansion that once belonged to John Phillips of ‘The Mamas & the Papas’. The Tudor-style house was tricked out in his signature, shag carpet, tiffany lamps in every room, a round water bed in the master bedroom. There were times when the likes of Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Miles Davis would drop by to party with him.
Just four years ago, he resided in a Napa Valley house so large it could only be described as a “compound,” with a vineyard and multiple cars in the driveway. But those days are gone. Today one of the greatest figures in soul-music history, Sly Stone, is homeless, his fortune gone through a lethal combination of substance abuse and financial mismanagement.
The 68 years old now sleeps inside a white camper van ironically stamped with these words - “Pleasure Way”. The van is parked on a residential street in Crenshaw, a rough Los Angeles neighbourhood. A retired couple feeds him once a day, and allows him to shower in their bathroom.
When a reporter asked him what went wrong, Sly Stone replied replied with a cranky voice thus: “I like my small camper. I just do not want to return to a fixed home. I cannot stand being in one place. I must keep moving”... Hopefully his movement will take him to a permanent site one day. But when will Blacks in America stop all these frivolous lifestyles which often lead to self-destruction?
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