Sly Stone has been booked – for gigs and into jails – many times over the decades. But as he crosses into his 80s, the former Family Stone leader has finally written a book.

With a forward by Questlove and an assist from co-author Bob Greenman, Stone tackles his life, his music, his reputation for being tardy and/or missing gigs and his herculean drug use – George Clinton was subdued in comparison, Stone writes – across the 320 pages that comprise Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir.

With Greenman’s help, Stone writes in concise, witty prose that keeps the pages turning at a rapid clip. Even if this wasn’t the belated telling of one of popular music’s most-underreported stories, “Thank You” would be easy to devour for the writing alone; that Stone’s memory remains so apparently unclouded is nothing short of miraculous.

He’s an introspective guy, to boot, as he writes about one of his many stints in the clink for drugs, or nonpayment of child support or some other crime:

“Alone, I could remember packed houses, those where I lived and those where I played,” Stone recalls. “In silence, I could remember the music I wasn’t able to make.”

Born Sylvester Stewart to musical parents in Texas in 1943, Stone was raised in California and was a deejay and producer before forming the Family Stone – a band of siblings, pals, black and white and men and women – that blazed brightly before burning out nearly as quickly. The mixed makeup of the band was a deliberate decision in keeping with Stone’s desire to consistently “generate a glow of goodwill,” even as the Black Panthers pressured him to replace the white members of the group.

From clubs to theaters to Woodstock to Madison Square Garden, the Family Stone was an unstoppable force scoring hits like “I Want to Take You Higher,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Family Affair” “Dance to the Music” and the titular track for this memoir until Stone’s unreliability – he blames it partly on himself but mostly on tour routing – and drug use derailed the group after less than a decade.

Arrests, bizarre public appearances, aborted comeback attempts and unstable living conditions marked many of the musically fallow decades that followed before Stone finally cleaned up in 2019. 

“I should have stopped sooner,” Stone writes. “Much sooner: less dust and powder, fewer rocks and pipes, enough days given back that they might have added up to years.”

Stone is brutally honest throughout “Thank You,” mostly taking responsibility for his predicament; calling Cynthia Robinson “the No. 1 in the band, even over me;” and acknowledging the damage he’s done. Conversely, Stone maintains he was consistently writing and recording music during his lost decades, yet the discography at book’s end reveals a paltry number of unreleased compositions among his relatively small output (12 albums) between 1967’s A Whole New Thing and 2011’s I’m Back! Family & Friends.

“I’m home most of most days,” Stone writes of his life in 2023. “I get itches in places I can’t reach. I have a backscratcher for that, and when I want people’s attention, I knock it against the table. There are other times when I don’t want anyone’s attention, and I leave it there and knock against nothing.”