Welcome to the New York Times

Your

Your Stubborn and Beloved Genius of Music, News, and Criticism.

I'm your host, John Caramonica.

It's a family of there. Why don't you? I'm your host, John Caramonica.

This week on podcast, we are talking about two musical greats who have left us in the past week.

We're talking about Sly Stone, and we're also talking about Brian Wilson, both of whom died this week at 82.

So in our first segment, we're going to be joined by Joseph Patel and Vernon Reed.

Joseph Patel, a producer of Sly Lives.

Vernon is featured in that film.

Vernon is, of course, one of the most versatile and well-known rock musicians of the last 50 years,

a founder of Living Color, a co-founder of the Black Rock Coalition, and just a huge font of historical memory.

And in the second segment, we're going to have Ben Greenman call in. Ben, in an unusual twist,

collaborated on memoirs with both Slystone and Brian Wilson. He was the co-writer for those memoirs.

So Ben is going to call in to talk about what it's like to work as a biographer and to write

alongside people in their later career as they're hoping to set the record straight and tell stories that need to be heard.

So we're here with Joseph and Vernon to talk about Sly. You both are here because of Sly Lives, which is the documentary, Joseph, that you were very heavily

involved in making.

You were a producer of this film directed by Amir Kusloff Thompson.

First of all, can you talk a little bit about Sly as a subject?

Obviously, you're coming to him late in his life.

He's not featured as an interview in the film because of his health at the stage that you guys were working on the film.

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