Sly Stone Launches New Autobiography

And it will be published this year...

Funk and soul legend Sly Stone has laid out plans for new memoir Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).

The book has been rumoured for some time, with Sly Stone leading a truly rollercoaster existence. Initially a DJ on the West Coast, he later formed Sly & The Family Stone, revolutionising funk and soul in the process. Dominating Woodstock, the band scored a series of era-defining hits before collapsing in a haze of drugs and internal rows.

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) documents all this and more, penned by Sly Stone alongside Ben Greenman (who previously wrote memoirs with George Clinton and Brian Wilson).

In a statement, Sly Stone writes: “For as long as I can remember folks have been asking me to tell my story, I wasn’t ready. I had to be in a new frame of mind to become Sylvester Stewart again to tell the true story of Sly Stone. It’s been a wild ride and hopefully my fans enjoy it too.”

The book will be published on October 17th, via White Rabbit Books in the UK and Questlove’s new publishing imprint in North America. Questlove is a long-time fan, and Sly Stone featuring prominently in recent documentary Summer Of Soul.

Sly Stone’s excesses are the stuff of myth. Rarely doing interviews in modern times, his much-delayed acceptance speech at the 1993 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction lasted only 15 seconds and ended with: “see you soon”.

Taking a new version of Sly & The Family Stone to Coachella in 2010, he was several hours late and interrupted songs to discuss – at length – his legal troubles.

Throughout it all, though, he remains a genius, a peerless figure in the evolution of American music. White Rabbit publisher Lee Brackstone says…

“I fell in love with Sly Stone as a teenager and have been obsessed with his music and the mysterious story of his life ever since. To be publishing his memoir at White Rabbit Books is the ultimate honour. It simply doesn’t get any bigger or more exciting than this: a bona fide genius, a funk visionary who re-set the dial in the late ’60s and in so doing anticipated the hip-hop revolution to come. This book delivers and then goes again.”

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