Videos: Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx

I'll Take Care Of U

Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011)[2] was an American poet, musician, and author known primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and 80s, and for his collaborative soul works with musician Brian Jackson. His collaborative efforts with Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues and soul music, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron. The music of these albums, most notably Pieces of a Man and Winter in America in the early 1970s, influenced and helped engender later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul. Scott-Heron's recording work is often associated with black militant activism and has received much critical acclaim for one of his most well-known compositions The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. His poetic style has been influential upon every generation of hip hop since his popularity began.[3] In addition to being widely considered an influence in today's music, Scott-Heron remained active until his death, and in 2010 released his first new album in 16 years, entitled I'm New Here.

Gil Scott-Heron was born in Chicago, Illinois, but spent his early childhood in Jackson, Tennessee, the home of his maternal grandmother Lillie Scott.[citation needed] Gil's mother, Bobbie Scott-Heron, sang with the New York Oratorio Society. Scott-Heron's Jamaican father, Gilbert "Gil" Heron, nicknamed "The Black Arrow", was a soccer player who, in the 1950s, became the first black athlete to play for Glasgow's Celtic Football Club. Gil's parents divorced when he was young and Gil was sent to live with his grandmother Lillie Scott.[4] When Scott-Heron was 13 years old, his grandmother died and he moved with his mother to The Bronx in New York City, where he enrolled in DeWitt Clinton High School. He later transferred to The Fieldston School after one of his teachers, a Fieldston graduate, showed one of his writings to the head of the English department at Fieldston and he was granted a full scholarship.

Scott-Heron attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, as it was the college chosen by his biggest influence Langston Hughes. It was here that Scott-Heron met Brian Jackson with whom he formed the band Black & Blues. After about two years at Lincoln, Scott-Heron took a year off to write the novels The Vulture and The Nigger Factory.[5] He returned to New York City, settling in Chelsea, Manhattan. The Vulture was published in 1970 and well received. Although Scott-Heron never received his undergraduate degree, he had a Masters degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University.
[edit] Recording career

" Small Talk at 125th and Lenox"
The early live recording from Scott-Heron's debut album features spoken word vocal delivery and African-style congas.
" The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"
One of his most well-known compositions contains hip hop elements such as rapping, cultural and political references, heavy drumbeats, and minimalist production.
" The Bottle"
Winter in America's only single, a rhythmic social commentary with Scott-Heron on keyboards and Brian Jackson playing flute.
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Scott-Heron began his recording career in 1970 with the LP Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. Bob Thiele of Flying Dutchman Records produced the album, and Scott-Heron was accompanied by Eddie Knowles and Charlie Saunders on conga and David Barnes on percussion and vocals. The album's 15 tracks dealt with themes such as the superficiality of television and mass consumerism, the hypocrisy of some would-be Black revolutionaries, and white middle-class ignorance of the difficulties faced by inner-city residents. In the liner notes, Scott-Heron acknowledged as influences Richie Havens, John Coltrane, Otis Redding, Jose Feliciano, Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Nina Simone, and the pianist who would become his long-time collaborator, Brian Jackson.

Scott-Heron's 1971 album Pieces of a Man used more conventional song structures than the loose, spoken-word feel of Small Talk. He was joined by Johnny Pate (conductor), Brian Jackson on keyboards, piano, Ron Carter on bass and bass guitar, drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, Burt Jones playing electric guitar, and Hubert Laws on flute and saxophone, with Thiele producing again. Scott-Heron's third album, Free Will, was released in 1972. Jackson, Purdie, Laws, Knowles, and Saunders all returned to play on Free Will and were joined by Jerry Jemmott playing bass, David Spinozza on guitar, and Horace Ott (arranger and conductor).

1974 saw another LP collaboration with Brian Jackson, the critically acclaimed opus Winter in America, with Bob Adams on drums and Danny Bowens on bass. The album contained Scott-Heron's most cohesive material and featured more of Jackson's creative input than his previous albums had. Winter in America has been regarded by many critics as the two musicians most artistic effort.[6][7] The following year, Scott-Heron and Jackson also released Midnight Band: The First Minute of a New Day. A live album, It's Your World, followed in 1976 and a recording of spoken poetry, The Mind of Gil Scott-Heron, was released in 1979. In the July 1976 Bicentennial issue of Playboy Scott-Heron was profiled; the accompanying artwork shows Scott-Heron singing or speaking into a microphone as it melts from the heat of his words.[citation needed] Another hit success followed with the hit single "Angel Dust", which he recorded as a single with producer Malcolm Cecil. "Angel Dust" peaked at #15 on the R&B charts in 1978.

In 1979, Scott-Heron played at the No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden. The concerts were organized by Musicians United for Safe Energy to protest the use of nuclear energy following the Three Mile Island accident. Scott-Heron's song "We Almost Lost Detroit", written about a previous accident at a nuclear power plant, was included in the No Nukes album of concert highlights. (We Almost Lost Detroit is the title of a book about the accident by John G. Fuller.) Scott-Heron was a frequent critic of President Ronald Reagan and his conservative policies.

Scott-Heron recorded and released only four albums during the 1980s; 1980 and Real Eyes in 1980, Reflections in 1981 and Moving Target in 1982. Ron Holloway on tenor saxophone was added to Gil's ensemble in February 1982. He toured extensively with Scott-Heron and contributed to his next album, Moving Target that same year. His tenor is prominently featured on the songs "Fast Lane" and "Black History/The World". Holloway continued with Scott-Heron until the summer of 1989, when he left to join Dizzy Gillespie. Several years later, Scott-Heron would make cameo appearances on two of Ron Holloway's CD's; Scorcher (1996) and Groove Update (1998), both on the Fantasy/Milestone label.[8]

Scott-Heron was dropped by Arista Records in 1985 and quit recording, though he continued to tour. Also that year, Scott-Heron helped compose and sing the song "Let Me See Your I.D." on the Artists United Against Apartheid album Sun City, containing the famous line, "The first time I heard there was trouble in the Middle East, I thought they were talking about Pittsburgh." The song compares racial tensions in the US with those in apartheid-era South Africa, implying that the US was not too far ahead in race relations. In 1993, he signed to TVT Records and released Spirits, an album that included the seminal track "'Message to the Messengers". The first track on the album criticized the rap artists of the day. Scott-Heron is known in many circles as "the Godfather of rap"[9][10] and is widely considered to be one of the genre's founding fathers. Given the political consciousness that lies at the foundation of his work, he can also be called a founder of political rap. Message to the Messengers was a plea for the new generation of rappers to speak for change rather than perpetuate the current social situation, and to be more articulate and artistic. On hip hop music in the 1990s, Scott-Heron later said in an interview:

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 humor. 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.[11]
—Gil Scott-Heron

[edit] Later years

"Gil Scott-Heron released poems as songs, recorded songs that were based on his earliest poems and writings, wrote novels and became a hero to many for his music, activism and his anger. There is always the anger - an often beautiful, passionate anger. An often awkward anger. A very soulful anger. And often it is a very sad anger. But it is the pervasive mood, theme and feeling within his work - and around his work, hovering, piercing, occasionally weighing down; often lifting the work up, helping to place it in your face. And for all the preaching and warning signs in his work, the last two decades of Gil Scott-Heron's life to date have seen him succumb to the pressures and demons he has so often warned others about."
— Fairfax New Zealand, February 2010 [12]

In 2001, Gil Scott-Heron was sentenced to one to three years' imprisonment in New York State for possession of cocaine. While out of jail in 2002, he appeared on the Blazing Arrow album by Blackalicious. He was released on parole in 2003. On July 5, 2006, Scott-Heron was sentenced to two to four years in a New York State prison for violating a plea deal on a drug-possession charge by leaving a drug rehabilitation center. Scott-Heron's sentence was to run until July 13, 2009. He was paroled on May 23, 2007.[13] The reason given for the violation of his plea deal was that the clinic refused to supply Scott-Heron with HIV medication. This story led to the presumption that the artist was HIV positive.[14][15]

After his release, Scott-Heron began performing live again, starting with a show at SOB's in New York on September 13, 2007. On stage, he stated that he and his musicians were working on a new album and that he had resumed writing a book titled The Last Holiday, previously on long-term hiatus, about Stevie Wonder and his successful attempt to have the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. declared a federally recognized holiday in the United States.
Scott-Heron performing at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco, 2009

On October 10, 2007, the day before a scheduled (but ultimately cancelled) second SOBs performance, he was arrested on felony possession of cocaine charges. However, he continued to make live appearances at various US venues during the course of 2008 and 2009, including further appearances at SOBs in New York. He stated in interviews that work was continuing on his new album, which would consist mainly of new versions of some of his classic songs, plus some cover versions of other artists' work.

Having originally planned to publish The Last Holiday in 2003, before it was put on hold, Canongate Books now tentatively intend to issue it in January, 2011. The book was due to be previewed via a website set to be launched on April 1, 2009, but this did not appear.

Mark T. Watson, a student of Scott-Heron's work, dedicated a collection of poetry to Gil titled Ordinary Guy that contained a foreword by Jalal Mansur Nuriddin of The Last Poets. The book was published in the UK in 2004 by Fore-Word Press Ltd. Scott-Heron recorded one of the poems in Watson's book Black & Blue due for release in 2008 as part of the album Rhythms of the Diaspora by Malik & the OG's on the record label CPR Recordings.

In April 2009 on BBC Radio Four, poet Lemn Sissay presented a half-hour documentary on Gil Scott-Heron entitled Pieces of a Man.[16] Having interviewed Gil Scott-Heron in New York a month earlier, Pieces of a Man was the first UK announcement from Gil of his forthcoming album and return to form. In November 2009, the BBC's Newsnight interviewed Gil Scott-Heron for a feature titled The Legendary Godfather of Rap Returns.[17] In 2009, a new Gil Scott-Heron website, gilscottheron.net, was launched with a brand new track "Where Did The Night Go" made available as a free download from the site.

Gil Scott-Heron released his new album I'm New Here on independent label XL Recordings on February 9, 2010. Produced by XL label owner Richard Russell, I'm New Here is Scott-Heron's first studio album in sixteen years. The pair started recording the album in 2007, with the majority of the record being recorded over the last twelve months with engineer Lawson White at Clinton Studios in New York.

The album attracted substantial critical acclaim with The Guardian newspaper's Jude Rogers declaring it one of the next decade's best records.[18] The first single from the album was "Me And The Devil", which was released on February 22, 2010. It was debuted by BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe as his "Hottest Record In The World", along with other specialist DJs such as Gilles Peterson and Benji B. The album's remix, We're New Here, was released in 2011, featuring reworking by English music producer Jamie xx of material from the original album.[19] It was also very well-received by music critics.[20]

In 2010 he was due to play a gig in Tel Aviv, this attracted criticism from Palestinian groups who stated "Your performance in Israel would be the equivalent to having performed in Sun City during South Africa’s apartheid era... We hope that you will not play apartheid Israel." In response he cancelled the gig.[21]
[edit] Death

Scott-Heron died on the afternoon of May 27, 2011, at St. Luke's Hospital, New York City, after becoming sick upon returning from a European trip.[1][22] He is survived by his wife, Brenda Sykes, and daughter, Gia.[23]

In response, Public Enemy's Chuck D stated "RIP GSH...and we do what we do and how we do because of you." on his Twitter account.[24] His UK publisher, Jamie Byng, called him "one of the most inspiring people I've ever met".[22] On hearing of the death, R&B singer Usher stated "I just learned of the loss of a very important poet...R.I.P., Gil Scott-Heron. The revolution will be live!!".[25] Richard Russel, who produced Scott-Heron's final studio album, called him a "father figure of sorts to me".[26] Eminem stated that "He influenced all of hip-hop".[27]
[edit] Influence

The music of Scott-Heron's work during the 1970s influenced and helped engender later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul. He has been described by music writers as "the godfather of rap" and "the black Bob Dylan".[28] On his influence, a music writer later noted that "Scott-Heron's unique proto-rap style influenced a generation of hip-hop artists".[3] The Washington Post wrote that "Scott-Heron's work presaged not only conscious rap and poetry slams, but also acid jazz, particularly during his rewarding collaboration with composer-keyboardist-flutist Brian Jackson in the mid- and late '70s."[29] The Observer's Sean O'Hagan discussed the significance of Scott-Heron's music with Brian Jackson, stating:

Together throughout the 1970s, Scott-Heron and Jackson made music that reflected the turbulence, uncertainty and increasing pessimism of the times, merging the soul and jazz traditions and drawing on an oral poetry tradition that reached back to the blues and forward to hip-hop. The music sounded by turns angry, defiant and regretful while Scott-Heron's lyrics possessed a satirical edge that set them apart from the militant soul of contemporaries such as Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield.[28]
— Sean O'Hagan

Scott-Heron's influence over hip-hop is primarily exemplified by his definitive single "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," sentiments from which have been explored by various rappers, including Aesop Rock, Talib Kweli and Common. In addition to his vocal style, Scott-Heron's indirect contributions to rap music extend to his and co-producer Brian Jackson's compositions, which have been sampled by various hip-hop artists; among the most notable is rapper/producer Kanye West, who has sampled Scott-Heron and Jackson's "Home is Where the Hatred Is" and "We Almost Lost Detroit" for his song "My Way Home" and the single "The People," respectively, both of which are collaborative efforts between West and Common.[30] Scott-Heron, in turn, has acknowledged West's contributions, sampling the latter's 2007 single "Flashing Lights" on his latest album, 2010's I'm New Here.[31] West has gone on to name Gil Scott-Heron, among others, as a major influence on his own latest offering, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, where portions of his work "Comment #1" appear on the album. "We Almost Lost Detroit" has also been sampled by Brand Nubian member Grand Puba ("Keep On"), Native Tongues duo Black Star ("Brown Skin Lady"), and underground notable MF DOOM ("Camphor").[32] Furthermore, Black Star MC Mos Def has sampled Scott-Heron's "A Legend in His Own Mind" on the Q-Tip-featuring song "Mr. Nigga," and producer Dr. Dre (some of whose early G-Funk compositions mirror Scott-Heron's musical style in both texture and sentiment, specifically "Lil' Ghetto Boy," which in fact samples Scott-Heron contemporary Donny Hathaway) recorded the song "Blunt Time," on which former Death Row Records rapper RBX interpolates the opening lyrics from Scott-Heron's recording "Angel Dust." In 2000, CeCe Peniston as well used a sample of a Heron's song ("The Bottle") while recording her single "My Boo".
[edit] Discography
[edit] Studio albums
Year Album Label
1970 Small Talk at 125th and Lenox Flying Dutchman Records
1971 Pieces of a Man Flying Dutchman Records
1972 Free Will Flying Dutchman Records
1974 Winter in America Strata-East Records
1975 The First Minute of a New Day Arista Records
1976 From South Africa to South Carolina Arista Records
1976 It's Your World Arista Records
1977 Bridges Arista Records
1978 Secrets Arista Records
1980 1980 Arista Records
1980 Real Eyes Arista Records
1981 Reflections Arista Records
1982 Moving Target Arista Records
1994 Spirits TVT Records
2010 I'm New Here XL Recordings
[edit] Live albums
Year Album Label
1976 It's Your World Arista Records
1990 Tales of Gil Scott-Heron and His Amnesia Express Castle Music UK/Peak Top Records
1994 Minister of Information: Live Peak Top Records
2004 The Best Of Gil Scott-Heron Live Intersound
2004 Tour De Force Phantom Sound & Vision
2004 Save The Children Delta Music
2004 Winter In America, Summer In Europe Pickwick
2005 Greatest Hits Live Intersound
2008 Live At The Town & Country 1988 Acadia / Evangeline Records
[edit] Compilations
Year Album Label
1974 The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Flying Dutchman
1979 The Mind of Gil Scott-Heron Arista Records
1984 The Best of Gil Scott-Heron Arista Records
1988 The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Bluebird Records
1990 Glory: The Gil Scott-Heron Collection Arista Records
1998 The Gil Scott-Heron Collection Sampler: 1974-1975 TVT Records
1998 Ghetto Style Camden Records
1999 Evolution and Flashback: The Very Best of Gil Scott-Heron RCA Records
2005 Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - Messages (Anthology) Soul Brother Records
2006 The Best Of Gil Scott-Heron Sony/BMG
2010 Storm Music (The Best Of Gil Scott-Heron) Phantom Sound & Vision
[edit] Bibliography
Year Title ISBN
1970 The Vulture 0862415284
1970 Small Talk at 125th and Lenox
1972 The Nigger Factory 0862415276
1990 So Far, So Good 0883781336
2001 Now and Then: The Poems of Gil Scott-Heron 086241900X
2003 The Last Holiday (unpublished) 1841953415
[edit] Filmography

Black Wax (1982). Directed by Robert Mugge.
Word Up (2005). Directed by Malik Al Nasir for Fore-Word Press UK.
The Paris Concert (2007).