Sunday Music: Gil Scott-Heron
The first time I heard Gil Scott-Heron was on the No Nukes album from 1980. It included a live performance of "We Almost Lost Detroit," about a nearly disastrous nuclear accident at the Fermi 1 Nuclear Generating Station, just 30 miles south of Detroit. A progressive activist for many causes, Scott-Heron was foremost a poet who gave voice to the Black Power movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's. A recording of his brilliant proto-rap "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" can also be found on YouTube--highly recommended.
The piece included here, "The Bottle," was one of Scott-Heron's biggest hits. Sadly, in recent years, Scott-Heron himself succumbed to other lures of the street, and has been imprisoned twice for felony cocaine possession.
Gil Scott-Heron (Wikipedia) [Link]
"The Weary Blues: Hip-hop godfather Gil Scott-Heron’s out on parole, trying to stay clean, and ready for Carnegie Hall." New York Magazine. June 22, 2008. [Link]
3 comments:
Could "Midnight Special" possibly have been hip enough to book GSH? (The stage backdrop looks like it!) My personal fave: "Whitey's on the Moon"
Midnight Special actually had some really good acts! And no lip-synching, which was kind of standard on U.S. music shows up until then. WOTM is great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5smPcN8AoE
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