Image via Complex Original
Gil Scott-Heron, who died a year ago today, was a man of great strengths and tragic weaknesses. Beginning his career as a poet and novelist, he gained even greater fame as a revolutionary blues man whose music embraced spoken word, jazz, and funk. Backed by his chief musical collaborator Brian Jackson and a crew of inspired musicians, the learned lyricist spoke out about everything from mass media mind manipulation ("The Revolution Will Not Be Televised") to the evils of apartheid in South Africa to his own personal struggles with drugs and jail.
While many music critics baptized the rhythmic rebel as the “godfather of rap,” the brother preferred to dub himself “a blueslogist.” Nevertheless, Gil’s blend of bookish intellectualism and cynical humor inspired a generation of hip-hop rebels who embraced and built on his gritty vision. From Chuck D to Kanye West, the master blaster proved to be a profoundly influential voice. This Memorial Day Weekend, we take time out to look back at ten of his most seminal tracks.
Written By Michael A. Gonzales (@GonzoMike)
10. "I'll Take Care of You" (2011)
Album: I'm New Here
Label: XL Records
Even when he was close to death after years of living on the edge, smoking crack and going to jail, Gil Scott-Heron was still capable of great recordings. Billed as his comeback in 2010, the album I'm New Here was hailed as one of the best recordings of his illustrious career. Gil's gravelly version of this song, first made famous by old-school soul man Brook Benton, was remixed by Brit producer Jamie xx, who turned the track into a dance-floor sensation. More recently Drake and Rihanna had a huge hit that interpolated the song's chorus.
9. "Me and The Devil" 2010)
Album: I'm New Here
Label: XL Records
Most down-home music fans know the bugged tale about original guitar bluesman Robert Johnson, who supposedly sold his soul to the devil at them there Delta crossroads in exchange for mastering the axe. Like the iconic guitarist, Gil Scott-Heron also walked, talked and played mighty hard on the dark side. With his beautifully stark cover of Johnson's classic "Me and the Devil," he embraced that brooding blues lifestyle with a vengeance.
8. "Angola, Louisiana" (1978)
Album: Secrets
Label: Arista Records
"It's impossible to visit the place and not feel that a prisoner could disappear off the face of the earth and no one would ever know or care," wrote New York Times journalist Peter Applebome in 1998 about Louisiana's Angola State Prison. Known as one of the most brutal prison complexes in the country, Angola has more inmates on death row than any other facility in the country. Heron and Jackson wrote this track about the unfair imprisonment of black teenager Gary Tyler, who was jailed in 1975 after a 13-year-old white kid was killed during a riot. Although no weapon was found, Tyler was arrested for the crime. Supposedly beaten by police, he confessed and became the youngest person ever sentenced to death. Although no longer on death row, Tyler is still an inmate. While Brit artists UB40 ("Tyler") and Chumbawamba ("Waiting for the Bus") have since made songs about Tyler-but as in so many other cases, Gil Scott-Heron was the first.
7. "We Almost Lost Detroit" (1977)
Album: Bridges
Label: Arista Records
Always on the cutting edge of political commentary, Gil made this track about the dangers of nuclear power after reading the John G. Fuller book about the Fermi power plant that suffered a near meltdown in 1966. Name-dropping murdered activist and whistle-blower Karen Silkwood in the lyrics, the song was remade by indie pop band Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. earlier this year.
6. "Angel Dust" (1978)
Album: Secrets
Label: Arista Records
In the mid-1970s, a few years before the crack attack that ate New York City, angel dust became the killer-dilla drug of choice in hoods across America. Fly, funky and fantastic, this Gil Scott-Heron anti-drug song was pure dope.
5. "The Bottle" (1974)
Album: Winter in America
Label: Strata-East
Although Scott-Heron produced innovative music throughout his career, he wasn't exactly a "singles" kind of guy. Still, this track about the the evils of drunkenness managed to climb to No. 15 on the R&B charts in 1974. While the song's lyrics were serious as a pint of cheap gin, with its island groove and dope flute solo (courtesy of Brian Jackson) it was also quite danceable. According to music biz legend, the success of this track inspired Clive Davis to sign Scott-Heron to his newly formed Arista Records.
4. "H20 Blues" (1974)
Album: Winter in America
Label: Strata-East
Recorded at D&B Sound studio outside of Washington, D.C—where Gil and musical partner Brian Jackson dwelled—this song was an aural attack on the scandalous politicians who populated his home turf. Aimed directly at Tricky Dick Nixon and his crew of crooked cronies, this Watergate-era song dropped the bomb.
3. "Home is Where The Hatred Is" (1971)
Album: Pieces of a Man
Label: Flying Dutchman
Funky as hell, this sad tale of a junkie roaming the urban landscape of Any Ghetto, U.S.A. prophesied Heron's own cracked-out existence two decades later. As Kanye West proved when he sampled the track on Common's "My Way Home," this track still feels just as powerful as it did more than forty years after its release.
2. "Pieces of a Man" (1971)
Album: Pieces of a Man
Label: Flying Dutchman
The title track to Gil's debut studio album was a fitting ode to broken Black men dealing with their issues. Former Rolling Stone critic Vince Aletti wrote that Heron sang with “an ache in his voice that conveys pain, bitterness and tenderness.” He wasn't lying.
1. "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (1971)
Album: Pieces of a Man
Label: Flying Dutchman
While the bare-bones original version was recorded live as a spoken-word poem on Gil's gritty first album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, the song was later re-recorded with a full band that brought the funk and the flutes. Years later, Nike jacked the instrumental track and made the revolution about basketball with KRS-One rockin' the mic, which somehow just proved Gil's point all over again.