Lawsuit for former Stone Manager

It seems the past has come back to bite a former manager. Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone), reclusive funk musician and leader of the 1960s/70s group Sly and the Family Stone, is leveling a $50 million lawsuit against his former manager for fraud. Jerry Goldstein, the manager, apparently diverted approximately $20-$30 million in royalties to himself over the course of 20 years. He has also been accused of taking out loans in the band’s name as it was supposedly owned by the Goldstein family. Stone is asking the Los Angeles Superior Court for an audit of the royalty collection companies’ accounts in relation to him so that the exact amount of money taken can be determined. There has been no official comment made yet by Goldstein.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new. In the music business, some artists are robbed of the benefits and results of their hard work. Stone, for example, was one of the biggest names in the 1960s and early '70s, even appearing at Woodstock. Now, he supposedly has to scrape by on social security despite some reports of Stone working on a new album for release this year. From the looks of things, it’s hard to tell what will happen in this lawsuit. A good part of it depends on the royalty collector records and what they indicate happened to the money in question. We will just have to wait and see what happens.