The resourceful Greenman...has coaxed, wheedled, massaged, used God knows what processes of titration and palpation to extract a fascinating book from him.
It is difficult to convey just how astoundingly unlikely it is that this book exists. Sly Stone is one of pop music’s truest geniuses and greatest mysteries, who essentially disappeared four decades ago in a cloud of drugs and legal problems after recording several albums’ worth of incomparable, visionary songs. Fleeting, baffling, blink-and-you-miss-him appearances at his 1993 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction and a 2006 Grammy tribute only served as reminders that he was still alive and still not well. Which makes it almost impossible to set expectations for this memoir. If Amelia Earhart or the Loch Ness Monster released an autobiography tomorrow, would we complain about the unanswered questions or devour any glimpse we get into such mythic characters? ... Some of the biggest pleasures in Thank You come when we witness him teasing out a theme ... He’s actually at his least cagey talking about the drugs. He presents his experiences matter-of-factly ... Looking back at his notorious, frustrating, reclusive life, Sly Stone feels no need for explanation or contrition.
Stone provides tantalizing crumbs of insight into his oeuvre ... This bracing if somewhat superficial memoir is a reminder that even long, turbulent rides are capable of soft landings.
Frank, illuminating, and at turns harrowing, the book tracks a momentous arc. It’s a wild ride through heady excesses of the 1960s and 1970s ... The book’s voice is the purr and pacing of clever DJ patter and artful wordplay, as if he is back-announcing the sweep of his life ... Stone comes to the page candidly, even if, at first, it comes served with a curve. Still, for all of the text’s discursiveness—the two Sylvesters vying—Stone interrogates himself and lets us in ... He has turned the record over—the stories flowing, vivid and reflective.
A brisk, crackling tour through the highs and lows of Sly’s life, from his career beginnings as a radio DJ and aspiring producer to his imperial period with the Family Stone to his long fall from grace. It’s a fascinating, revealing, and sometimes difficult read—as the 1970s progress, the book becomes more of a memoir of addiction than of music-making. As a stylist, Sly is conversational and often quite funny. His voice comes through loud and clear, ragged but unmistakably sharp. He hasn’t lost his penchant for aphorisms ... Has the air of a man who has finally surfaced, in ways that are alternately disarming and disquieting. At times he can be glib and defensive about episodes from his life that seem pretty indefensible ... For those of us who love Sly’s music and have wondered and worried after him for years, Thank You is a bittersweet book, both a welcome indicator that Sly is very much still here and a sad reminder of a life and talent dimmed by so many decades of abuse.
While the charm, playfulness, humour and personality of Stone’s songs come through in his on-page voice (his penchant for wordplay would grate in any other context than a funkster’s memoir), he is not an especially philosophical or self-reflective character, and his insights on fame, drugs, music and women are rarely penetrating. Lovers of the man’s music will enjoy the book for the voice, the studio and touring details, the pop star anecdotes. Those not so committed may be less enthralled by a story that is largely unedifying and light on revelations.
Overflows with wit and wordplay ... Predictably, the memoir contains no shortage of occasionally humorous — but mostly bleak — backstage tales of debauchery and drug abuse ... Fans will certainly appreciate the vivid accounts from recording studios, concert stages and star-studded parties. But readers looking for personal insights will come away disappointed. Stone is self-aware but not particularly self-reflective.
Not only a welcome surprise, it’s written in a voice that will be so familiar to fans that its first few chapters are like a visit from a long-absent friend. Sly writes like his lyrics ... As exciting and life-affirming as the book’s early chapters are, the second half is tough — first watching him lose everything, then reading his dry accounts of addiction, multiple stints in jail and peripatetic existence ... It seems that after so many years in the wilderness, Sly is finishing on an thankful and thoughtful note.
A cleaned-up Stone signs off with some watery opinions about politics and music – a wan conclusion to a frustrating book ... It might have been more rewarding to play with his mysteries and evasions instead of trying to wrestle his life into a conventional narrative: let Sly be sly.
The prose only rarely conveys a recognizably personal voice, usually when Stone gets going on music and outlining the ideas behind specific songs or albums, or in flashes of sentiment over lost family and friends. He’s given to reeling off bits of wordplay in the style of his lyrics ... I suspect some interpretations of the music have been swayed by tales of Stone’s early ’70s lifestyle ... The tragedy of Sly Stone is sharpest in that gap between the liberated togetherness his music summoned and the trapped aloneness that addiction brings. This book has the wherewithal to document that process, but not to illuminate it.
An unabashed—and often uneven and frustrating—look at each dark detail and celebratory instance that [Stone] has ever been a part of. Stone’s incredulous retelling of almost every happy accident and dangerous coincidence can make his musings feel like star-studded lucid dreams. But when he turns his lens inward, there comes an intense clarity, with his meditations on his motivations and creative visions manifesting in sustained moments of linguistic brilliance.
tone’s voice isn’t sufficiently compelling to compensate for the shift to largely non-musical material, too much of it finger-pointing at those he blames for his troubles. Questlove provides the foreword, and the book includes a discography. An inside look at an important band and its music, but it loses interest when the music is no longer central.
