Gil Scott-Heron was a Chicago poet and novelist who turned musician and predated rap music with his spoken-word pieces. Accompanied by keyboardist and flutist Brian Jackson, Scott-Heron made an album of his poems, Small Talk At 125th & Lenox Ave (Flying Dutchman, 1970), which includes The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and Whitey On The Moon. Gil Scott-Heron - Small Talk At 125th And Lenox (1970). The Revolution Will Not Be Televised 02. Comment #1 05.
Gil Scott-Heron was a Chicago poet and novelist who turned musician andpredated rap music with his spoken-word pieces.Accompanied by keyboardist and flutist Brian Jackson, Scott-Heron made an albumof his poems,Small Talk At 125th & Lenox Ave (Flying Dutchman, 1970), which includesThe Revolution Will Not Be Televised andWhitey On The Moon.
![Small Small](/uploads/1/2/6/5/126524282/463112265.jpg)
The duo's Miles Davis-inspired fusion of jazz, funk and rock,and Scott-Heron's Phil Ochs-inspired agit-prop lyrics reached maturity onPieces Of A Man (april 1971 - Flying Dutchman, 1971), that includesLady Day And John Coltrane andHome Is Where The Hatred Is.
Free Will (march 1972 - Flying Dutchman, 1972) was relatively uneventful, butWinter In America (october 1973 - Strata-East, 1974) turned out to be his first'musical' statement, with fluid songs such as The Bottle (that borrows aCaribbean rhythm).
The First Minute Of A New Day (august 1974 - Arista, 1975) introduced a real band.From South Africa To South Carolina (Arista, 1975) contains theanti-apartheid sermon Johannesburg.Bridges (Arista, 1977) has the nuclear farce We Almost Lost Detroit.
It's Your World (july 1976) was the last album with Brian Jackson.
Without Jackson, the poet recorded Secrets (Arista, 1978), that containsAngel Dust, The Mind Of Gil Scott-Heron (Arista, 1979), withH2O Gate Blues,1980 (october 1979 - Arista, 1980),Real Eyes (Arista, 1980),Reflections (june 1981 - Arista, 1981),Moving Target (Arista, 1982), withBlue Collar and Black History,Tales (Peak Top, 1990),Minister Of Information (Peak Top, 1994),Spirits (TvT, 1994), whose highlight is the three-movementsuite The Other Side, 'sung' from the viewpoint of an addict.
Scott-Heron died in 2011.
Brief Bio
April 1, 1949, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Raised in Jackson, Tennessee, by his grandmother, Scott-Heron moved to New York at the age of 13. His estranged father played for Glasgow Celtic, a Scottish soccer team. Astonishingly precocious, Scott-Heron had published two novels (The Vulture and The Nigger Factory) plus a book of poems (Small Talk At 125th And Lenox) by 1972. He met musician Brian Jackson when both were students at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, and in 1970 they formed the Midnight Band to play their original blend of jazz, soul and prototype rap music. Small Talk At 125th And Lenox was mostly an album of poems (from his book of the same name), but later albums showed Scott-Heron developing into a skilled songwriter whose work was soon covered by other artists: for example, LaBelle recorded his 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' and Esther Phillips made a gripping version of 'Home Is Where The Hatred Is'. In 1973, Scott-Heron had a minor hit with 'The Bottle', a song inspired by a group of alcoholics who congregated outside his and Jackson's communal house in Washington, DC. Winter In America (on which Jackson was co-credited for the first time) and The First Minute Of A New Day, the latter for new label Arista Records, were both heavily jazz-influenced, but later sets saw Scott-Heron and Jackson exploring more pop-orientated formats, and in 1976 they scored a hit with the disco-based protest single, 'Johannesburg'. During this period they began working with pioneering electronic producer Malcolm Cecil from Tonto's Expanding Headband, with the duo's musical emphasis naturally shifting to synthesizer-based sounds.
One of Scott-Heron's best records of the 80s, Reflections (1981), featured a fine version of Marvin Gaye's 'Inner City Blues'; however, his strongest songs were generally his own barbed political diatribes, in which he confronted issues such as nuclear power, apartheid and poverty and made a series of scathing attacks on American politicians. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Barry Goldwater and Jimmy Carter were all targets of his trenchant satire, and his anti-Reagan rap, 'B-Movie', gave him another small hit in 1982. An important forerunner of today's rap artists, Scott-Heron once described Jackson (who left the band in 1980) and himself as 'interpreters of the black experience'. However, by the 90s his view of the development of rap had become more jaundiced: 'They need to study music. I played in several bands before I began my career as a poet. There's a big difference between putting words over some music, and blending those same words into the music. There's not a lot of humour. They use a lot of slang and colloquialisms, and you don't really see inside the person. Instead, you just get a lot of posturing'.
In 1994, Scott-Heron released his first album for 10 years, Spirits, which began with 'Message To The Messengers', an address to today's rap artists: '... Young rappers, one more suggestion before I get out of your way, But I appreciate the respect you give me and what you got to say, I'm sayin' protect your community and spread that respect around, Tell brothers and sisters they got to calm that bullshit down, 'Cause we're terrorizin' our old folks and we brought fear into our homes'. Scott-Heron's life was becoming increasingly bedevilled by drug addiction, however, and in 2001 he was imprisoned for three years for cocaine possession. It was a tragically ironic fate for an artist who had preached so eloquently about the danger of drugs. Scott-Heron and Jackson revived their musical partnership following the former's release from prison in 2003.
As of today Mr. Heron lives drug free and routinely tours the country. Performing spoken word, and singing infront of sold out crowds.
Poems - 10 in all
Gil Scott-Heron
The Klan
The Bottle
ANGEL DUST
JOHANNESBURG
Winter In America
GRANDMA'S HANDS
Whitey on the Moon
A VERY PRECIOUS TIME
I Think I'll Call It Morning
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised