People: Report says music great Sly Stone is near homeless in Los Angeles

Sly Stone, the soul music mastermind who rose out of the East Bay with his band Sly and the Family Stone and became one of the most influential musicians in R&B history, has fallen on hard times and lives in a van in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood, the New York Post reported Monday.

"I like my small camper," Stone told the New York Post. "I just do not want to return to a fixed home. I cannot stand being in one place. I must keep moving." The Post said Stone parks his motor home in the Crenshaw section of L.A., the brutal neighborhood where the movie "Boyz n the Hood" was filmed.

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 report says, Stone, 68, continues to record music with a laptop computer. He recently released an album, "I'm Back, Family and Friends," which consisted largely of reworked versions of his classic hits.

Sly and the Family Stone, which formed in Vacaville, was credited, along with such artists as Stevie Wonder and James Brown, with laying the foundation for contemporary soul, funk and R&B. Following the band's overwhelming success, Stone eventually relocated to a 5,432-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion that once belonged to John Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas.

It has long been reported that Stone succumbed to drug addiction and other problems after resettling in L.A., and that he went through thousands and thousands of dollars buying narcotics, cars and motorcycles. His career suffered from a string of drug arrests and missed appearances. Sly and the Family Stone broke up in 1975. Stone performed in 1987, then vanished from the stage until 2006, when he appeared in a bizarre Grammys tribute, during which he walked off the stage midway through a song.

Just what has been going on with Stone all these years has been difficult to chronicle, given his reclusive nature. As the Post reporters noted, "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."

Stone's last Bay Area home, the New Yost Post says, was a spacious a Napa Valley house with a vineyard out back and multiple cars in the driveway.

Stone tells the Post he started having serious money problems in 2009, stemming from a bad management contract he signed in 1989. He has been locked in a legal battle with a former manager for the past year, and is hopeful he can get his music career going again.

"Please tell everybody, please, to give me a job, play my music," the soul legend told the Post. "I'm tired of all this (expletive), man. I see all the guys playing those old songs. Let these guys know, like Lady Gaga, let me come in, just let me come in and pay me if you like it."