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Naked Car Thief Imposter Caught By Dog On Video

15 Feb

Really? A naked car thief steals a Hummer limo? Really?

The moment a naked man was tackled to the ground by a German Shepard police dog after he allegedly stole a limo in Irvine, California was caught on video. Around 8 p.m. police and the California Highway Patrol used cars and a helicopter to track the giant 4×4 on a late night car chase through nearby Whittier through residential streets.

‘He came to a stop, he’s bailed,’ an officer is heard saying as he watches the man from the helicopter. Then, in shock, he adds: ‘He’s naked!’ Waving his arms, the alleged thief sprinted through a residential area but was promptly captured by a police dog, who tackled him to the ground until two officers restrained him and took him away.

Irvine police spokeswoman Lieutenant Julia Engen said, “We alerted nearby authorities and turned the pursuit over to the California Highway Patrol when the vehicle went into the area of Whittier. We cannot tell you why he was not wearing clothes. All we know is that he was wearing them at the scene of the original crime so he must have taken them off along the way.’ The chase ended at 9.45 p.m. when the driver was taken into custody near Valley View Avenue and Alondra Boulevard in Los Angeles County.

Lt. Engen added the man could still be in custody at Orange County jail. Hopefully he has been treated for scratches and dog bites in various unexposed areas on his body.

Just to set to rest any speculation, especially since it took place on December 13, of last year, no it was not me, nor any of my band mates, on one last rampage. To the best of my knowledge all of us were accounted for. This is obviously a stunt from one more, in a long line of imposters, trying to gain notoriety at our expense.

 
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Larry Lamb of Las Vegas Died in 2006

28 Jan

[Note] This is mainly of interest to the guys who were in Stark Naked and the Car Thieves in 1968 through 1970, when Larry spent a lot of time following the band. He was certainly an interesting character in those years when the Lamb family was at the peak of its power in Las Vegas and Nevada. It’s sad to fine that another one of the colorful characters that illustrated our Las Vegas band days is gone.

Mar. 31, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Larry Lamb, who was 66, died at home in Las Vegas, two weeks after falling off a ladder in his garage, said Jan Smith, Larry Lamb’s longtime companion. The exact cause of his death was not known.

Larry Lamb was the youngest of 11 brothers in one of Nevada’s oldest families. The grandfather was one of five original settlers of the Pahranagat Valley, said his son, David Thompson.

Larry Lamb was the brother of Sheriff Ralph Lamb and two other brothers who were also in politics: the late Floyd Lamb, a former state senator, and Darwin Lamb, a former Clark County commissioner. Ralph Lamb was the first sheriff of the consolidated Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, from 1961 to 1978. The Lambs’ fame was mixed with notoriety. Floyd Lamb, a state senator who represented Las Vegas for 30 years, was convicted of accepting bribes in the FBI’s 1983 “Operation Yobo,” which netted another senator and two commissioners.

Larry Lamb was no stranger to trouble. In 1980, he shot and killed a man at a Christmas tree lot. Charges were dismissed, leading to criticism that Lamb was getting a pass because of his family’s connections.

The murder charge was reinstated, but Larry Lamb was acquitted by a jury. He said he acted in self-defense, claiming the dead man, Lee “Crowbar” McCambridge, was threatening him with a hand saw.

“Where the hell was I going to go?” Larry Lamb testified in the case. “I didn’t want to get hit with no saw.”

The large family of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints members was close, said Thompson, a Las Vegas police officer. “It didn’t matter if you were running for president or getting out of jail; they’d stand behind you.”

Smith said Larry Lamb could be rowdy, but it was a character trait that was a piece of a self-styled cowboy of the old school.

“Easy? No. Fun? Yes. Loyal? Yes,” is how Smith summed up the man she’d known for nearly 50 years.

“He was colorful. He was never dull. He was a risk taker,” she said. “He was the old America that hadn’t gone all corporate.”

A prankster, Larry Lamb once filled the fountains in front of Caesars Palace with soap bubbles.

He was a bar owner and restaurateur who hosted his brothers’ political victory parties at his Las Vegas bar, the Cockatoo.

“He backed all his brothers, whether it was taking signs out, handing out literature or answering phones,” Smith said, saying he proudly pasted three stickers on a new car: “Ralph Lamb for Sheriff,” “Floyd Lamb for Senate” and “Darwin Lamb for County Commission.”

Larry Lamb is survived by Smith; sons Darwin and David Thompson; brothers Ralph and Darwin Lamb; sisters Wanda Lamb Peccole and Erma McIntosh; and three grandchildren.

 
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Posted in Current, Las Vegas, Stark Naked and the Car Thieves, The Sixties

 

Yvonne D’Angers – Off Broadway Topless Dancer – 1966

26 Jan

Off-Broadway-1966-Y'vonne-D.-AngersI just can’t help it. I am putting up another topless dancer picture. I have spent the last couple of days doing research for a final chapter on our experiences in the  incredible atmosphere of North Beach in San Francisco in 1966.

Originally the old Barbary Coast to the various and often scurrilous sea-farers of the 1800′s it became a major Italian neighborhood in the City, featuring outstanding Italian food and imposing Catholic churches. While known as the “Paris of the West”, in the forties and fifties it spawned the beat generation centered around the City Lights bookstore in North Beach.

As the Beatniks faded away two cultural revolutions began to rise in the cauldron that is San Francisco. One of them was, of course, the rise of the Hippies in the Haight brought on in part by the student population of nearby San Francisco State College. In roughly 1963-4, the mainly Russian neighborhood began to change to the “Drop out, drop in” culture that would reign for a few short years. It was the hotbed for musical expression of the philosophy of the young or as it’s motto states: “Sex, Drugs, & Rock ‘n Roll”.

Meanwhile, over in North Beach in mid-1964, Carol Doda galvanized the world coming down in a bikini bottom on a piano at the Condor Club. This, of course, was the cultural stream we entered in late 1965 and it was without question a terrific time to be young and in music. Where the Hippie culture was re-defining music, we were reveling in the music of the era we loved. And we were surrounded by some of the best performers and musicians of our time.

But I was reminded in my Internet travels of this stunning lady, another iconic topless dancer of the era, Yvonne D’Angers, who performed at the Off Broadway. She was an Iranian-born blond bombshell who came to be known in the press as “The Persian Lamb”. She was a star witness in the 1965 trial over legality of topless waitresses but was much more famous for chaining herself to the Golden Gate bridge to protest her threatened deportation.

At least a part of the significance to North Beach to the City is trumpeted in a brazen newspaper ad: “Two of San Francisco’s three most famous landmarks … belong to Yvonne D’Angers, now appearing topless in North Beach at Off Broadway.” They fail to mention what that third one was.

 
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Posted in Current, San Francisco, Stark Naked and the Car Thieves, The Galaxie, The Sixties

 

Great San Franciscan Characters: #1 Carol Doda

14 Jan
THIS ARTICLE IS REPRINTED FROM THE BLOG BELOW. I am reprinting it because Carol Doda was the flash point for the North Beach Renaissance in the mid-sixties. So we have to thank her for starting that trend because it led to Dave Rapkin of the Galaxie Club on Broadway and Kearney to offer us a year contract there. Hopefully, our club was similar to others there; come for the exposed mammary glands stay for the music and entertainment.  As I remember it there was great entertainment all over that area. From Broadway where Ramsey Lewis, Bobby Freeman, Chubby Checker, and Joey Dee and the Starliters played as well as the nearby Hungry I and Purple Onion who featured at one time or another Barbara Streisand, Woody Allen,  and Mort Sahl, who later played with us at Caesar’s Palace.  Not to mention the Smother’s Brothers and The Kingston Trio and a host of other acts. The ‘naughty but nice’ atmosphere helped lend San Francisco a European city sophistication and attract celebrities and top level audiences. So thanks for getting everybody’s attention Carol; and thanks for remembering it, Tony!

 

January 17, 2011 by A Golden Gate State of Mind

Rather than start this series with a politician, business or military leader, important and influential in the city’s development though many have been, I thought I would focus on someone who epitomises the colourful, free spirited and boundary stretching personality of the city.

Carol Ann Doda was born of soon to be divorced parents on 29 August 1937 in Solano County, California, growing up in Napa.  She dropped out of school and become a cocktail waitress and lounge entertainer at aged 14.

Described by the Internet Movie Database as a “lovely, busty and curvaceous blonde bombshell” she achieved fame, or notoriety depending upon your point of view, on 19 June 1964 at the Condor Club at the corner of Broadway and Columbus in North Beach, by dancing in a topless swimsuit, the first recognised entertainer of the era to do so, and spawning similar exhibitionism across the nation’s clubs.  Such was her popularity that delegates from the 1964 Republican National Convention flocked to see her and she was given a film role as Sally Silicone in Head, created by Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson, and featuring The Monkees.  She appeared in another six films.

Wikipedia describes her act, which she performed twelve times nightly, thus: (it) “began with a grand piano lowered from the ceiling by hydraulic motors;  Doda would be atop the piano dancing.  She descended from a hole in the ceiling.  She go-go danced the Swim to a rock and roll combo headed by Bobby Freeman as her piano settled on the stage.  From the waist up Doda emulated aquatic movements like the Australian crawl.  She also did the Twist, the Frug and the Watusi”.

She later enhanced her bust size from 34B to 44DD through  a total of 44 silicone injections, earning her breasts the nicknames of “the new Twin Peaks of San Francisco”.  She had them insured for $1.5 million with Lloyd’s of London.

Doda created a further seismic impact in the entertainment industry on 3 September 1969 by dancing completely naked at the Condor, though she was obliged to put the bottom part of her costume back on again in 1972 after a rule was passed prohibiting nude dancing in establishments that served alcohol.

After appearing for more than a decade on KGSC-TV she returned to dancing at the Condor three times a night in 1982, “in a gold gown, traditional elbow-length gloves, and a diaphanous-wraparound.  Her clothing was removed until she wore only a G-string and the wraparound.  In the final portion she was attired in only the wraparound.  Her small body looked slimmer without clothes which was emphasised by the dwarfing effect of her breasts”.

Retiring from stripping later in the decade she formed her own rock band, the Lucky Stiffs. She now runs the highly respectable “Carol Doda’s Champagne and Lace Lingerie Boutique” in Cow Hollow.  Well into the new millenium, however, she was performing – with her clothes on – at a variety of North Beach clubs, including Amante’s and Enrico’s Supper Club, singing club standards like “All of Me”.

Despite the notoriety she earned by being the first dancer to break the topless / bottomless taboos in the U.S., her act was rarely regarded as sleazy.  As she herself said: “I always just wanted to give people a good time, have fun.  Nothing really dirty – just fun”.

And finally she has been truly immortalised in having a hamburger named after her at Bill’s Place on Clement at 24th in the Outer Richmond!

 
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Posted in Current, San Francisco, Stark Naked and the Car Thieves, The Galaxie, The Sixties

 

Pleasant Hill to Hayward, California via Crow Canyon Road

04 Dec

Back when our band, then called The Checkmates, came to California, most of us lived inland around Pleasant Hill and Walnut Creek because the first club we worked in was in Pittsburg, CA a few miles further north and east. When we started working at the Town Club in Hayward in late spring of 1965 we had to make that trek each night back and forth from work.

Google maps, Pleasant Hill to Hayward, CA via Crow Canyon Road 1965

The hard part was the weekends. Not only did we have to play Friday and Saturday, 9pm to 2am like the other nights, we also had to be back Saturday and Sunday mornings, 4 hours later when the bar opened and liquor could be served to play a 4 hour jam session. Not enough time to get home and back so we found ways to stay up all night, at afterhours clubs like Soul City or even sleeping in the back seat of a car for a few hours. Later, to make more money we even became the house band at Soul City, which meant we were expected to play for 12 straight hours before we could drive from the East Bay back inland to our apartments.

Back then there wasn’t a freeway that ran through the mountains so we had to traverse twisty Crow Canyon Road when we were often so exhausted we would hallucinate. I remember staring out the window from the passenger side (not driving fortunately) and seeing mailboxes we were passing and losing all sense of motion and thinking they were rabbits. Going through the canyons was definitely like being down the rabbit hole. We did it for six months and in the end we had a much tighter band and a new name.

What I find particularly interesting is that in Google Maps, choosing directions between Pleasant Hill and Hayward, there is a ’3D’ button. When pressed it actually switches to satellite view and animates traveling along the route, up and down and around along Crow Canyon to where it comes out on the backside of the mountains near San Ramon before heading north through Walnut Creek and into Pleasant Hill. Maybe I’m easily amused but I love taking that trip because it reminds me of those days. Many years ago it inspired me to write a short story, ‘The House on Crow Canyon Road’. Unfortunately through years of moving I seemed to have misplaced it. I hope in one of those motivated moments when I decide to really straighten out the garage that I’ll find it again.

 
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Posted in music, Stark Naked and the Car Thieves, The Checkmates, The Sixties

 

Four Great Fender Guitar/Amp Combinations

30 Nov

A Stratocaster and a Twin Reverb-Amp—one of the all-time great Fender guitar/amp combinations

Fender has been noted worldwide for well more than half a century as one of the few manufacturers that is equally acclaimed for its guitars and amplifiers. Down through its long history, a handful of Fender guitars and amps have been paired together in what proved to be classic combinations.

Although Fender has evolved with the times over that long history, those classic combinations are without exception still present in modern-day versions of their time-honored predecessors. Here then are four great Fender guitar/amp combinations, including modern counterparts that await you today at your nearest Fender dealer …

1. Telecaster®/’65 Twin Reverb®

This is the sound of country. The real-deal clear, trebly twang of a Telecaster plugged into a 1965 Twin reverb amp has defined the sound of pure country music for more than four decades now. As author Dave Hunter notes in his Guitar Rigs: Classic Guitar & Amp Combinations, “it’s the instrument that put the twang into country, and for plenty of guitarists, this first-ever mass production solidbody guitar is the only tonal tool that needs to live in the toolbox.”

Vintage guitars and amps can be a tad expensive these days, but not to worry—that classic country combination is still readily available in modern Fender form. Want that sound today? Use an American Vintage series ’52 Telecaster with a Vintage Reissue series ’65 Twin Reverb. James Burton would be proud.

2. Eric Johnson Stratocaster®/Twin Reverb

Texas Stratocaster virtuoso Eric Johnson is a musician’s musician admired worldwide for his immediately identifiable pure guitar tone, and not for nothing has he been one of Fender’s most popular signature artists for several years now.

The good news for guitarists is that Johnson’s utterly glorious tone is not at all unattainable. In fact, one need look no further than the guitarist’s own signature Eric Johnson Stratocaster model, which has pickups wound to Johnson’s specifications, a quartersawn V-profile neck and other features specified by Johnson himself. Amp-wise, Johnson’s signature clean tones have always come from a Fender Twin Reverb; sounds you can nail using a Vintage Reissue series ’65 Twin Reverb.

3. Jazzmaster®/Showman® Amp

Nothing epitomized the reverb-drenched sound of the surf era like a late-’50s Jazzmaster through an early-’60s Showman amplifier (and its subsequent sibling, the Dual Showman®). With a Fender Reverb unit between instrument and amp, seminal instrumental groups like the Ventures, the Surfaris and the Chantays brought the roar of the ocean to stage and studio alike.

Surf music has enjoyed a hip resurgence in the past decade or so—bands such as Los Straightjackets, the Bomboras, Satan’s Pilgrims, Man or Astro-Man? and the Mermen have all rode the wild surf with renewed vigor and just as much reverb. Fender is still there to catch that wave too, with current gear such as an American Vintage series ’62 Jazzmaster through a ’65 Twin Custom 15 or, if you crave that surf-classic blonde piggyback look, a blonde Super-Sonic™ head and matching blonde 212 cabinet. Cowabunga, dude.

4. Pre-CBS Stratocaster/late ’50s Bassman®

“Strong contender for the title of ‘All-Time Most Beloved Rock Rig’” and “one of the most versatile, toneful and desirable pairings known to the electric guitarist” writes Hunter in Guitar Rigs: Classic Guitar & Amp Combinations.

This is the sound of electric blues—Fender’s most famous guitar through one if its most beloved amps. A ’50s or early ’60s Stratocaster through a tweed 4×10 Bassman amp: clean, bell-like tone at low volume that breaks up sublimely into perfect rock ‘n’ roll crunch when you start turning it up past 4 or so. Just ask Buddy Guy or Jimmie Vaughan. To get the classic sound of this classic combination today, try an American Vintage series ’57 Stratocaster (or an American Vintage series ’62 Stratocaster for rosewood-fingerboard vibe), through a Vintage Reissue series ’59 Bassman LTD.

Reprinted from Fender Tech Talk.

 
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Posted in Current, music, The Fifties, The Sixties

 

News – Nokie Edwards and Les Paul honored

18 Nov

November 10 – Bob Bogle and Nokie Edwards of the Ventures were among eight new inductees into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in ceremonies in Muskogee. Also inducted (posthumously) was Ralph Blane, who wrote the Christmas hit “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” for his musical, “Meet Me In St. Louis.”

 

November 6 – Les Paul will be among those honored on the Music City Walk of Fame in Nashville .

 

 
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The Indianapolis Times 1964

14 Nov

The Indianapolis Times

My last job in Indianapolis was at the Indianapolis Times. I was hired in 1963 to sell classified advertising. I didn’t realize it at the time but it was a dead end job because Scripps-Howard had already announced they planned to discontinue the paper. The Indianapolis Star, a morning paper, had already gobbled up the Indianapolis News, portending the change in the business environment. You needed to know the news before your working day not leisurely looking at in the evening.

The venerable Indianapolis Times, also an afternoon paper, held on even longer than it should have to try and keep Indianapolis from becoming a one newspaper town. Even then it was realized how dangerous it was to have only one news source (FoxNews crack addicts are you listening?).

[Location: 300 block W. Maryland Street at Capitol Avenue, Indianapolis (Marion County, Indiana)]

Life at a Dying Newspaper

I was excited at the prospect of working for a newspaper at first but my department had realized long before I arrived that there was no future in working hard at the Times. We met at 8 o’clock in the morning for a half an hour sales meeting, usually including donuts and coffee (some people surreptitiously adding a little kick to their coffee even that early). Then everyone left, supposedly to work on sales for the classified ads. I was told to ‘cold call’ car lots, gas stations, radio stations, local businesses, etc. to drum up sales but within a couple of weeks some of the old timers told me not to waste my time. I would get ads from the companies that just wanted to be in every publication but I wouldn’t get any new ads because everyone knew the Time wouldn’t be in business much longer and circulation was way down.

Everyone in the department except me was split into two groups. The golfers, who left immediately for the links after the morning sales meeting, and the rest, who left for the bars. Around 4:30 everyone would gather again for the final sales meeting before leaving for the day. That could be a hoot as the barflys could be raucous and unruly and the golfers told outrageous lies about their golf game or sexual adventures.

For me, I found that I could slip into a library and read science fiction novels or meet up with some of the guys I sang with, most of whom were chronically unemployed. Often there were enough of us to get in some a cappella practice time. 1964 was the year we had a close brush with fame after recording “In The Still of The Nite” and our trips to Chicago to support the record. In the first few months of the year we still hoped we might be able to keep recording but the Indy Sound and Jan Hutchens Productions died as quickly as it had risen. It was on one such day in the fall that I recruited Mac Brown from the Casinos to come and sing with us. At our New Year’s Eve party on the last day of 1964, knowing that the day the Times would close was near I agreed to a brash proposal to try our luck as The Checkmates (precursor to Stark Naked and the Car Thieves) singing in night clubs. So in early February of 1965 I gave notice at the Times and tried my luck as a bar singer. Though that experience was a complete disaster life was never the same again.

Display Artist

One of the best things I learned at the Times was from the display artist. I would bring him display ads and he would draw them up right in front of me. He was half cartoonist and have illustrator. His main tools were a metal ruler and a #2 pencil. He would use the ruler to tear through newspaper pages and his pencil to block out new art, write in new copy using the ruler edge, and illustrate where and when needed. I’ve always been influenced by his rough and ready skill and talent even though the medium has changed to a digital world. I still keep a couple of steel rulers around for when I work on art in article, brochure, or book form even in this digital world.

 
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Posted in Indianapolis, The Checkmates, The Sixties

 

Bailey Carlisle

24 Oct

When we attended Murray State in Kentucky my wife Pat and I and Dave Dunn sang for awhile in a 3 guy, 2 girl configuration. One of the other guys in the group was Bailey Carlisle. We did Skyliner tunes as well as some other popular songs of the day and I remember us as sounding pretty darn good. This was the only time that my wife Pat and I sang together.

When we returned from Kentucky to Indianapolis, Bailey came along. He was a Bailey Carlisle high school year book and obit piccarefree fun-loving guy. He was fascinated by the Indianapolis 500 mile race. We got a car in line on 16th street for the 1963 race, a traditional way of getting a good spot in the infield. But, as so often happens, we were so hungover on race morning that we pulled out of line and went home. All except Bailey. He wouldn’t hear of it. He got out, got in the trunk and pulled out the last full case of beer and decided he’d walk the mile and half to the track and figure out how to get home afterward. I want to point out that these were long-neck glass bottles and the case was one of those old-fashioned heavy cardboard reusable ones. It was HEAVY.

Sometime just before dusk of race day after sleeping off the heroic beer drinking of the previous night and after watching the race on television, I was sitting on the porch to cool off from the day’s heat when I see a figure trudging up the middle of our street, carrying something. It was Bailey and he had lugged that case as he’d emptied the bottles inside with him all day. He was red as a beet but only on on the front. He was so tired after he finally got into the race and had drunk so much beer that he had fallen asleep and slept through the entire thing. But still he dragged that case home full of empties so that he could cash them in.

Bailey, Dave, Chuck Tunnah and I sang together for awhile during 1963. One day we got a phone call from a guy who said he was a record producer in New York City and if we came to the city he’d be interested in recording us. He’d heard an audition tape we’d sent to California for Jimmy O’Neil’s Shindig TV show. So with my wife’s blessing, I joined Dave and Bailey in taking the train to New York City with high hopes. We arrived to find that our potential record producer was some 16 year old kid running on pure hutzpah. It was very disappointing. On the plus side we got a tour of Bell Sound studios where some of the most classic music of the 40′s and 50′s was recorded. The walls featured groups like the Platters on posters as we walked through the corridors. Much later Stark Naked and the Car Thieves would record for Bell Records (Amy/Mala/Bell), and though I haven’t researched this, I am almost certain this was the record label’s original studio before it was sold.

Dave and I went to a to a 50′s rock revival at the Brooklyn Fox theater. I remember we got separated on the subway yet found  each other somehow at the theater just in time to get good seats through some out-of-towner magic. It was a great show with groups like Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, The Supremes, the Chantels and lots more. We had very little money so we were staying at the YMCA in downtown Manhattan in rooms like closets. Bailey hadn’t told us that he came with us virtually penniless so we had to try and keep him alive as well as ourselves. After 3 days, Dave and I had to phone home for bus fare. But not Bailey, even though he didn’t have a nickel to his name he was determined to stay and find his fortune on the Great White Way. He was always an optimist. I thought there was a good chance we’d never see him again. He was such an innocent soul with an outrageous belief that he could walk into any lion’s den and walk away unscathed. After another week or maybe more he somehow got himself back to Indy. He never explained how. That was Bailey in a nutshell.

Recently I stumbled across an obituary for Bailey posted online at his high school. Since Dave and I remember him and he was in a couple of renditions of our singing group and one of the more original and colorful characters I have ever known I wanted to remember him here on our site.

Bailey died November 4, 1998 where he was living in Earlington, KY.

He was survived by his mother, Francis, a daughter Irish, a son Evan and brother Bill. He was preceded in death by his father Elmo.

He was a member of the Kentucky All State Chorus, a member of the Campus Lights at Murray State University and was a Methodist. He was a retired Theater Manager.

Larry Dunlap

(This post was originally posted on 10/24/11 and updated on 1/3/12)

 
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Posted in Current, Recording, The Fifties, The Sixties, vocal groups

 

Funk legend Sly Stone homeless and living in a van in LA

28 Sep

By WILLEM ALKEMA and REED TUCKER
Last Updated: 12:10 PM, September 26, 2011
Posted: 2:05 AM, September 25, 2011

In his heyday, he lived at 783 Bel Air Road, a four-bedroom, 5,432-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion that once belonged to John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas.

The Tudor-style house was tricked out in his signature funky black, white and red color scheme. Shag carpet. Tiffany lamps in every room. A round water bed in the master bedroom. There were parties where Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Miles Davis would drop by, where Etta James would break into “At Last” by the bar.

Just four years ago, he resided in a Napa Valley house so large it could only be described as a “compound,” with a vineyard out back and multiple cars in the driveway.

SOUL SURVIVOR: Sly Stone, now 68 years old, shows he can still get funky -- brandishing a Taser for a photo session in front of his Studebaker.

John Chapple
SOUL SURVIVOR: Sly Stone, now 68 years old, shows he can still get funky — brandishing a Taser for a photo session in front of his Studebaker.

'I like my small camper. I just do not want to return to a fixed home ... I must keep moving,' Stone says.

John Chapple
“I like my small camper. I just do not want to return to a fixed home … I must keep moving,” Stone says.

But those days are gone.

Today, Sly Stone — one of the greatest figures in soul-music history — is homeless, his fortune stolen by a lethal combination of excess, substance abuse and financial mismanagement. He lays his head inside a white camper van ironically stamped with the words “Pleasure Way” on the side. The van is parked on a residential street in Crenshaw, the rough Los Angeles neighborhood where “Boyz n the Hood” was set. A retired couple makes sure he eats once a day, and Stone showers at their house. The couple’s son serves as his assistant and driver.

Inside the van, the former mastermind of Sly & the Family Stone, now 68, continues to record music with the help of a laptop computer.

“I like my small camper,” he says, his voice raspy with age and years of hard living. “I just do not want to return to a fixed home. I cannot stand being in one place. I must keep moving.”

Stone has been difficult to pin down for years. In the last two decades, he’s become one of music’s most enigmatic figures, bordering on reclusive. You’d be forgiven for assuming he’s dead. He rarely appears in public, and just getting him in a room requires hours or years of detective work, middlemen and, of course, making peace with the likelihood that he just won’t show up.

There was a time when Sly was difficult to escape. Stone, whose real name is Sylvester Stewart, was one of the most visible, flamboyant figures of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/the_rise_and_fall_of_sly_stone_qijyKoYzmAqer1PA0YogSJ#ixzz1ZIJ1NiyV

 
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Posted in Current, The Seventies, The Sixties

 
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