Gil Scott-Heron, the essential recordings
“Whatever happened to the people who gave a damn?” Gil Scott-Heron once asked in song.
The Chicago-born artist was a voice of dissent in a music industry that was turning into a big business during the ‘70s, transforming pop hits and party tunes into profit. It wasn’t a particularly hospitable place for Scott-Heron, who died Friday at 62. But he never set his sights on the charts. Instead, he devoted his life to writing, speaking, agitating and thinking out loud about the world. He gave a damn.
He made poetry of confrontation and art out of everyday life. As the critic Nelson George once wrote, Scott-Heron was a “keyboardist, poet, singer, rapper, and teller of uncomfortable truths.” Those truths could encompass everything from chastising the President of the United States to musing about how difficult it sometimes is for a man to tell his child, “I love you.”
An uncompromising artist working in a machine that thrives on compromise, Scott-Heron was an imperfect fit for the disco and MTV eras, though his “uncomfortable truths” resonated with those who wanted more out of music than just escapist good times. His music was scattered across a hodgepodge of labels, and several of his best albums weren’t widely available until decades later.
The best of his music occurred in a rush of creativity through the ‘70s as he emerged from his teen years, already a published author and a serious student of blues, jazz, Langston Hughes and LeRoi Jones. He stumbled into the business of making records because a respected elder, veteran jazz producer Bob Thiele, encouraged him. He had a lot to say, producing an album a year for a decade-plus while touring relentlessly with the band he built with his college friend, keyboardist Brian Jackson.
Though Scott-Heron is often typecast as a rap progenitor – a label he steadfastly rejected -- he more accurately suggested a mix of Richard Pryor’s darkly comical oratory, beat poetry and blues-inflected ballad-singing. Musicians more steeped in jazz than funk accompanied him, and the music embodied many of the values of ‘70s jazz fusion, for better or worse. There were elastic time signatures and flowing keyboard melodies, but there were also plenty of meandering flute solos. Even amid the pastel arrangements, Scott-Heron’s rich, mahogany voice commanded attention.
He left behind dozens of recordings. How to get a handle on this multi-faceted artist? Here’s where to start:
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