Nice article from a magazine in Ontario, Canada on Gil-Scott Heron
Gil Scott-Heron's voice has been described as a mixture of "mahogany, sunshine and tears," but recent decades have worn it down to a weary rumble. Scott-Heron is a contradictory figure who still commands intense devotion from long-time fans, and respect from several generations of rappers whom he inspired with his rapid-fire jazz poetry. He was an exclamation point at the end of the civil rights era; his repertoire deconstructs America's social and political failings from Nixon through Reagan. But he's no dour ideologue; his songs are full of beauty, tenderness and humour that leaven his withering critiques. Scott-Heron has been damned with faint praise as an "influential" artist. His decidedly adult musical brew of jazz, funk and Afro-Latino grooves never distilled easily for the masses. Though Scott-Heron has eloquently expressed a stunning range of black American experiences, he has only occasionally resounded commercially within his main constituency. At 60, this multi-talented artist looks worn down by bad habits and several spells in prison. However, his long anticipated I'm New Here, his first studio album in 17 years, may be his greatest chance ever to capture a wide audience ― not that this has ever been an explicit career goal. Can he keep himself together long enough to reap the rewards of his lifelong efforts?
1949 to 1969
Scott-Heron is born in Chicago on April Fool's Day, 1949. His parents are Bobbie Scott-Heron, who had sung with the New York Oratorio Society, and Giles "Gil" Heron, a football (soccer) player and the first black athlete to play for Glasgow's Celtic Football Club (a factoid guaranteed a mention in any British account of Scott-Heron's career). His parents' marriage ends not long afterward and Gil is sent to live with his grandmother Lillie Scott in Tennessee until he is 13. His grandmother is a paramount influence on him. "She was an issues woman, looking at things in terms of what's fair and not fair," he will tell NME in 1986. "It's a question of looking in your heart for the truth and not seeing whether your favourite politician goes for a particular issue. On a right and wrong type of basis, this is how my grandmother raised me, to not sit around and wait for people to guess what's on my mind ― I was gonna have to say it."
His grandmother purchases an upright piano. "It was either six dollars or eight dollars, I'm not sure. The story would change from time to time depending on how much she was trying to tell me that we didn't have no money," he would quip to the San Francisco Bay View. He learns to play piano by ear, and becomes, in his own words, "functional, not exceptional." His grandmother also introduces him to the all-around artistic talent and social activism of Langston Hughes and the publication he writes for, the black weekly newspaper The Chicago Defender. He's made aware of the changes wrought by civil rights legislation in Tennessee, and, by contrast, the self-interest of people involved in the organization of the NAACP.
After Lillie Scott dies in 1962, he moves in with his mother in the Bronx, then to the Lower Manhattan neighbourhood of Chelsea, where he is first introduced to Latin rhythms. In high school, one of his teachers, impressed with Gil's writing, recommends him to the prestigious Fieldston School. Upon graduating, Scott-Heron attends Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the same school as Hughes, whom he has now met. Here he meets future musical soul-mate Brian Jackson and has his first gigging experiences with Jackson's Black and Blues band. After finishing two years at Lincoln, Scott-Heron drops out to write two novels (The Vulture and The n----r Factory) and a volume of poetry. The novels will be published in 1970 and 1971 respectively; The Vulture will receive great acclaim.
1970 to 1974
Scott-Heron takes to performing his poetry in coffee houses and jazz clubs. He is approached by jazz producer Bob Thiele to record an album on Thiele's new label, Flying Dutchman. Thiele had been a key figure in Impulse Records' jazz output, producing classic recordings by John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Sonny Rollins. Surprisingly, Scott-Heron's debut is a live recording of his poetry, including material from The Vulture. Even the title, Small Talk At 125th And Lenox, showcases a man of biting wit who is unafraid to righteously take issue with the fading promises of the civil rights era, the emptiness of consumerism and entrenched economic iniquities in America. The musical accompaniment of congas and an occasional dash of piano is little more than a pulse underneath his rapid-fire, didactic spoken word style, which reaches its peak with "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and "Whitey On The Moon." At the time, he's compared to fellow New Yorkers the Last Poets, who also combine highly charged spoken word politics with minimal, percussive instrumentation. Both artists' work at this time is widely acknowledged to be a key influence on rap. Flying Dutchman is a tiny label and the album doesn't attract much attention outside New York, but it is heard by influential people. The next year's follow-up is Pieces Of A Man, which in many ways is Scott-Heron's true debut album. Thiele employs New York's jazz luminaries to help out, including Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, Ron Carter and former Curtis Mayfield arranger Johnny Pate. Also notable is the presence of Brian Jackson on keyboards.
Pieces Of A Man is a quantum leap forward from Scott-Heron's debut. The re-recorded "Revolution," now underpinned by Purdie's breakbeats, becomes an even clearer foreshadowing of hip-hop. Scott-Heron sings much more than he raps, and employs conventional song structures, as in the joyous "Lady Day and John Coltrane," which speaks of the uplifting effect of jazz, a theme to which he will return throughout his career. His emotional range is much broader, from the harrowing junkie chronicle "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" to the serene beauty of "I'll Think I'll Call It Morning." With this album, Scott-Heron's characteristic jazz-funk fusion, dominated by electric piano, is established. Though critical and commercial reaction is poor at first, it eventually reaches #25 on Billboard's soul album charts two years after its release, becoming one of Flying Dutchman's most popular records.
The third album for the label is Free Will in 1972. One side is recorded with roughly the same band as Pieces Of A Man, and the other side is similar in style to Small Talk. Though all the music is wonderful, the album's concept is ultimately unsatisfying, and the songs are perhaps too compact in length. Still, two of his poems ― "No Knock," about police harassment, and "Sex Education: Ghetto Style" ― refine his proto-rap even further. Scott-Heron's first three albums are distilled into a greatest hits package entitled The Revolution Will Not be Televised, released in 1974 and hitting #21 on the soul charts. With his deal fulfilled with Flying Dutchman (and amid conjecture that he was getting "Jesse James-ed" by the label), Scott-Heron and Jackson move to another jazz indie: Strata East. Working only with a bassist and drummer, Scott-Heron and Jackson created a stark and minimal album that's another clear progression in their sound. Winter in America is released in mid-1974, credited to Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, as were almost all their albums until 1980. Spacey, liquid sounds of the Fender Rhodes mix with African-inspired percussion and free jazz motifs to create a sound that's deeper than ever before. The songs are almost entirely sung, and showcase Scott-Heron's smooth yet anguished baritone perfectly. "The Bottle" brings Scott-Heron a new level of recognition. Riding a four-to-the-floor rimshot to create a reggae-like beat, together with a rolling, disco-anticipating bass line, the song becomes a big local hit in New York and rises to #15 on the soul charts. Cover versions follow, most notably by salsa/soul fusioneer Joe Bataan, who scores a major hit in discos with his heavily orchestrated version.
1975 to 1980
His commercial breakthrough does not go unnoticed. In 1975, Gil Scott-Heron becomes the first artist ever signed to Arista Records. This is a major development, since the company's president Clive Davis is one of the biggest stars of the music business in the '70s, and this new label boasts major capitalization through Columbia Pictures. The first album on Arista introduces Heron and Jackson's new ensemble, the Midnight Band. Significantly, the band have no guitarist, so the focus remains on keys, percussion, and for the first time, horns. The First Minute Of A New Day introduces more Latin and funk rhythms into the mix, but broadens the free-meets-soul jazz palette established on Winter In America. Despite the change in label, Scott-Heron maintains his lyrical acuity. Thanks to Arista's heavy promotion, it reaches the top ten on Billboard's soul album chart. Scott-Heron starts attracting much more press coverage and is now described as a major jazz poet and ―inevitably and erroneously ― "the black Bob Dylan." He is the musical guest on the ninth-ever episode of Saturday Night Live at the insistence of host Richard Pryor.
Next year brings From South Africa to South Carolina, which contains one element the previous album had lacked: a hit single. "Johannesburg" is an early and strident critique of South Africa's apartheid. It makes the top 30 soul charts in the U.S, and establishes his fame in Britain. Chuck D would later remark: "If you're going to be talking about Johannesburg, and most people don't know anything outside of Pittsburgh, you're bringing a worldly discussion to the table, like Malcolm X." Though he has never shied away from autobiography in his songs, this album witnesses a slow increase of such material in his repertoire. This year also sees the release of the mostly live double album It's Your World, recorded in Boston during the American Bicentennial celebrations. This set showcases the original Midnight Band at their peak, stretching songs beyond ten minutes with considerable soloing that borders on self-indulgence. The sound of 1977's Bridges is less polyrhythmic and adds electric guitar to the mix. The dominant instrumental touch of the album is Jackson's early adoption of synthesizer bass. Bridges' signature sound is "We Almost Lost Detroit," describing a near-disaster at a nuclear plant in the Detroit area in 1966. Its synth solo will be sampled by Kanye West for Common's "The People" 30 years later.
At this point the Jackson/Scott-Heron duo is in constant recording and touring mode. The even funkier Secrets comes out in 1978, and nods to disco. It featured Scott- Heron's biggest hit "Angel Dust" charting at #15, and "Show Business," one of his more overtly humorous songs. Also that year, The Mind Of Gil Scott-Heron is released, compiling a disc of mostly unaccompanied poetry readings and monologues dating from 1974 onward. Extremely political and topical, it has aged poorly and requires a thorough knowledge of domestic American politics of the '70s to appreciate in its proper context. "We Almost Lost Detroit" gains additional traction in 1979 following the Three Mile Island incident in Pennsylvania. Scott-Heron is a natural choice for the concerts organized by Musicians United for Safe Energy at Madison Square Garden later this year. He appears alongside Bruce Springsteen, Crosby Stills and Nash, Carly Simon, Jackson Browne and others in the film documentary No Nukes, and lends "Detroit" to the album of the same name.
http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/timeline.aspx?csid1=141
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