Gil Scott-Heron - The Poet of the Ghetto

This is the story of a man who imagined himself a poet, discovered he was a writer, and, in the end, turned out to be one of the finest musical performers of his generation. An activist who could express himself like no one else with a microphone in hand, and, at the same time, a poet gifted with a unique sensitivity in addressing a burning issue like the fight for the rights of Black people in 1970s America. An artist who gave us records wrapped in a kind of ecstatic timelessness; records that posterity has unfortunately struggled to pass on beyond the well-known borders of the US. This is the story of Gil Scott-Heron.

Gil Scott-Heron was born in Chicago on April 1, 1949, to Bobbie Scott-Heron, a lyric singer of modest talent, and the Jamaican Gil Scott-Heron, “The Black Arrow”, the first Black athlete to wear the Celtic Glasgow jersey. One could glibly say that Gil was born with music and the consciousness of the fight for the affirmation of his people's rights already in his blood.
Following his parents' sudden separation, the young boy was sent to live with his grandmother in Tennessee, where he was chosen by the local school as a “guinea pig,” along with two other Black children, to form an integrated class with white peers. But that was the Deep South, it was the early '60s, and the experiment proved to be a disaster.
At 12, his grandmother died and his mother took him back with her to New York, to the Bronx, and it was there that contact with the metropolis finally pointed Gil toward the path he would follow.
At school he immediately displayed tremendous skill in creative writing, enough to earn him a scholarship to the prestigious Fieldston School.
The themes addressed in his compositions, including his poems, concerned the enormous economic disparities he witnessed from the privileged vantage point of the Big Apple, and more broadly the struggle for substantive equal rights for Black people – in those years valid only on paper, at the constitutional level.

In the early '70s, during his time at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Scott-Heron was also active as a novelist: in 1970 came out “The Vulture”, which was regarded as ”an encouraging start for a writer with important things to say,” while 1972 saw the release of “The Nigger Factory”, a novel describing the tensions that arose within the community of an all-Black college in Virginia – probably the same tensions the author himself experienced firsthand. The novel pits two factions against each other, divided over how to respond to demands for greater rights on campus: there's the fraternity, ready for a head-on clash with the dean, and those, like protagonist Earl Thomas, who instead favor organizing a protest capable of achieving concrete results, even if it takes longer.
Appreciation for his literary works, especially these two early ones, has persisted over the years and has influenced many artists, Black artists above all. Among them, probably even Spike Lee, who in one of his rawer early films, the musical “School Daze”, seems to draw inspiration from the dynamics of Sutton University in “The Nigger Factory”.
Those were the years of Huey P. Newton's Black Panthers, whose interventionism in reclaiming the rights of the Black minority that continued to be trampled on Scott-Heron admired. This, even as he maintained a deep respect for the peaceful protest of Reverend Martin Luther King: after the assassination of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Scott-Heron would even go on a tour of the US together with his friend Stevie Wonder to campaign for the establishment of the pastor's birthday as a national holiday (eventually signed into law in 1986 by Reagan).

Just as the Chicago native's career seemed set on a literary course, fate brought Scott-Heron into contact with the two people who would decisively change the course of his life.
The first was Bob Thiele, the legendary producer at Flying Dutchman Records, who convinced the talented young man from New York of the musical potential of his words, so direct and passionate. Thiele had a roster of highly respected musicians working for him and was a true authority in the field of jazz. The result of their collaboration was the debut album Small Talk At 125th Avenue And Lenox from 1970, credited to “A new black poet – Gil Scott Heron”, with a black-and-white photo of the artist in shirtsleeves staring defiantly into the camera. Gil Scott-Heron's challenge to the world, a world so harsh and inhabited by prejudices that refuse to die.
The album already contains the song that would become the emblem of Scott-Heron's musical output, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, a bitter rebuke to his own people who, instead of standing up for their rights in the streets, numb themselves or get swept up in television programs whose sole purpose is to make people as harmless as tranquilizer addicts. The song remains to this day the symbol of Gil Scott-Heron's career, for its pioneering fusion of fiery proclamations delivered into the microphone and a musical backing that some critics point to as the first seed of many musical lineages to come, hip-hop among them.

Following “Small Talk”, Gil the poet abandoned his studies, later resuming them to earn a master's degree – again in creative writing – at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He decided that, from then on, poetry would no longer be his primary vehicle, and devoted himself body and soul to music instead.

1971 is the year that definitively shifted Scott-Heron's coordinates, completing his transformation from “Gil the poet,” as he was known, to “Gil the musician,” and crowning it with the album Pieces Of A Man
Despite the many other outstanding albums recorded afterward with his partner Brian Jackson, Pieces Of A Man remains one of a kind, also because of the unrepeatable personal and environmental circumstances in which it took shape. “Small Talk” had marked the first approach, but what came through there was mostly need, urgency: an outburst against white America, which only remembered minorities when it was time to enlist for some Vietnam or other – “arm yourselves and fight.”
In the early '70s, Scott-Heron was the polemical critic of American society and the fiery orator urging his people to reclaim what was rightfully theirs, although the poet himself would later say that his ironic streak – a quality he considered essential in a good communicator – was never given enough credit. So much so that later pieces like “H2OGate Blues” and “B-Movie”, sharply critical of the conservative policies of “Tricky Dicky” Nixon and Hollywood's own Ronald Reagan, seem better suited to cabaret, crafted ad hoc for the audience's amusement, than simple tirades against those in power.
The transformation that occurs on Pieces Of A Man is remarkable: despite the incendiary “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, reprised at the top of the record, Scott-Heron's second effort is pervaded by a moving sensitivity.
Here is the great Black mahatma coming to terms with a complex social situation, but rather than calling for action, for revolt, he gathers his brothers and sisters into one giant, consoling embrace: “Easy now, don't worry, tomorrow will be better, I'll take care of you.”
The artist doesn't abandon the social theme, he simply shifts his point of view: the goal is to widen the lens by telling individual stories, as these hit the audience with far greater emotional force. This time the punch lands, and how: a gut-punch that knocks the wind out of you.

The metamorphosis, in just two years, is incredible, and the team Thiele assembled is equally extraordinary: bassist Ron Carter, drummer Bernard “Bird” Purdie, saxophonist Hubert Laws, percussionists Eddie Knowles and Charlie Saunders elevate Gil Scott-Heron's singing and help craft a masterpiece.
It's hard to single out the most representative song: “Save The Children” is a touching plea to preserve, and if possible improve, this world before handing it down intact to future generations, “Lady Day And John Coltrane” is a tribute to two great idols set to an irresistibly catchy melody, “When You Are Who You Are” celebrates the beauty of being able to express one's true self without barriers, but each track is a small treasure chest waiting to be opened and discovered.
The title track deserves a special mention, a poignant, whispered ballad, mockingly prophetic of the singer's own fate, which – as the song fades out and his voice breaks with emotion – seems to be speaking of himself: “I saw him go to pieces/ I saw him go to pieces/ He was always such a good man/ He was always such a strong strong man/ Yeah, I saw him go to pieces/ I saw him go to pieces”.
Scott-Heron had found the defining path of his career, half crooner and half activist; at the same time, though, he realized it was time to step out from under Bob Thiele's protective wing.

Before taking the second, decisive turn of his career, Gil Scott-Heron recorded Free Will, released again on Flying Dutchman in 1972, an album often overlooked even by devoted fans, sandwiched as it is between two masterpieces, the already celebrated Pieces Of A Man and the subsequent Winter In America.
The record, despite the silence that weighs down its legacy, offers great moments. In the first six tracks, for instance, one can glimpse, in nuce, flashes of the extraordinary rapport with Brian Jackson that would only blossom, two years later, into the timeless colors of Winter In America.
In truth, the opening track still owes a great deal to the masterpiece of a year earlier, and indeed it could hardly be otherwise: some of the musicians backing Scott-Heron are in fact the same ones Thiele brought together for Pieces Of A Man (Hubert Laws, on flute here, and drummer Bernard Purdie).
The opening trio of tracks leads us to a table in a dark, smoky nightclub, the natural setting for the live shows where Scott-Heron barely touches the microphone and, cigarette in hand, wonders about a place where even words – the weapon he wields so masterfully – are forced to give way (“Words were never meant for explaining the mystery of our day/ We're so afraid of what's at stake when we die” from “The Middle Of Your Day”). The second, mirroring half of the album is surprising in just how stylistically opposite it is: the intimate, narrative atmosphere gives way to fiery public-square tirades, all built on the same two-part structure: first the subject is introduced, then an aggressive, experimental spoken word passage, laid over minimal flute-and-drum accompaniment. A genuine tribute to “Small Talk At 125th And Lenox”, in short.

We've already partly revealed the identity of the second person who brought about a genuine turning point in how the kid from the Bronx perceived music: Brian Jackson, who occasionally collaborates, in various capacities, on Free Will.
In fact, Scott-Heron met Jackson during his college years, and the two immediately struck up a deep friendship. Their collaboration would become close-knit, to the point that, aside from Free Will, the next five LPs would all be shaped jointly.
The echoes of Pieces Of A Man reverberate through Winter In America, the duo's first work. The title is a pointed one: everything seems frozen on American soil, the civil rights committees have lost the fervor of the 60s, and by 1974 it already feels like all is lost. But Scott-Heron's warm, weary voice finds new life over Brian Jackson's piano melodies. Gil had been right: leaving Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman hadn't been a misstep, since an immediate chemistry took hold with his new partner.
Brian Jackson's importance proved decisive, especially in terms of musical composition: the spare piano accompaniment on "Winter In America" is understated, yet essential. As Price, a housemate of Scott-Heron's during the Jackson years, once put it: "Gil was really limited in terms of musical ability; he wasn't a great pianist. Brian always lived in the shadows, but I don't know if Gil would ever have reached such a wide audience without Jackson's essential contribution."
The public showed it could embrace this new musical direction: in 1975, Scott-Heron and Jackson scratched the Billboard R&B singles chart (a rather limiting genre label for their music) for the first time with "Johannesburg," a cry of protest against the brutality of South African apartheid; in 1978, when the split from Brian Jackson came about for a new venture helmed by producer Malcolm Cecil, Scott-Heron would "hit" the charts again, reaching number 15 with "The Bottle."

Suzanne Moore, a blogger for the authoritative Guardian, drew readers' attention to this very trait in the wake of Scott-Heron's death: the ability to fuse message with rhythm: "Gil Scott-Heron was the leader of a revolution you could dance to. The revolution became irresistible, once you'd heard it."
As further proof of his standing in the international jet set, in 1979 the African-American artist was invited to the anti-nuclear "No Nukes" event, which featured all the biggest names in rock and pop. A true prophet in his own land, Scott-Heron took the Madison Square Garden stage in a fitted jacket and baseball cap, sitting down at his keyboard. The song, "We Almost Lost Detroit," is a stark account of the state of America's great cities: "Gentlemen," he seems to say, "we've stopped creating, or even believing, in a better future for young people. The union struggles à la Karen Silkwood, the demands raised by ordinary citizens, have been silenced. We've almost lost a city — more than one city, really: the working-class capital of the United States. Detroit."

These are the same echoes of disillusionment that run through "The Part About Fate," one of the stories in that modern classic, Roberto Bolaño's "2666," set in a destitute Detroit whose inhabitants hide like rats.

That Scott-Heron saw social engagement as the poet's primary mission is something the singer himself made clear in one of his earliest interviews: "A good poet senses the mood of his own community. It's like when you have a sore finger — the whole body feels it."
In 2010, at the Mediawave Festival, just a few months before his death, the artist seemed to pick up the thread of a thought first voiced more than 30 years earlier: "We've forgotten the important things, like telling each other every now and then: 'I love you.' A poet has to show the ordinariness of a community in order to reveal its humanity."

Over the remaining thirty years, Scott-Heron would release only five musical projects.
Was it creative dryness setting in, artistic differences, or an inability to reinvent himself for the tastes of the decade now hammering at the door? There's probably a grain of truth in each of these possible answers, though it would be crude to claim any single one as the whole truth. It fits the man far better to say that a poet should speak when he has something to say, not out of mere commercial calculation. Clearly, certain conditions were simply no longer there. Then again, the 80s were the kingdom of the ephemeral, of social disengagement, of one-night kings.
The Bronx singer's artistic response is neatly summed up by the cover of 1980, which mirrors the album's release date: Scott-Heron and Jackson, surrounded by fluorescent colors, sit inside what looks like a spacecraft.
The artist is ready to launch himself into the future (the colors, the spacecraft) without fear, if that's what the changed rules of showbiz demand. The former avant-garde poet knows he must adapt to the new stylistic conventions dictated by the times, if he wants to make sure his broadsides against American politics still reach a wide slice of the market.

After the forgettable albums of '81 and '82 (Reflections and Movin' Target, respectively), in which the singer's critical sights shifted to the newly minted free-market politics ushered in by Ronald Reagan, Arista Records dropped Scott-Heron from its roster.
In truth, Movin' Target contains the gorgeous "Blue Collar," which almost thirty years later would be superbly revived at the Coachella Festival before an adoring crowd, ready to welcome the African-American artist back after his long, near-forced absence from the stage.
Even on that occasion, old Gil proved he hadn't lost his magic touch with an audience, flashing his trademark wit despite his advancing illness: "For those of you who betI would not be here… you lose!"

Meanwhile, his fame kept spreading, with the budding hip-hop movement pointing to him as a model to follow, if not outright draw from. Scott-Heron's music in particular held a certain allure for beatmakers, who sampled his catalogue extensively (the debt owed by Game's "Angel" to "Angel Dust," from 1978's Secrets, is a clear example).
This was the period that would cement Gil Scott-Heron's reputation as the "godfather of rap" in the eyes of the wider public — largely thanks to his spoken word experiments of the early 70s, which nonetheless poorly represent the full arc of his musical career. It's a bit like Maradona being remembered only for the "Mano de Dios" and not for the 1986 World Cup.

Spirits, his 1994 album, is perhaps one of the most anonymous records of the African-American artist's career, remembered mostly for the track "Message To The Messengers," in which, aware of the respect the rapper community held for him (Nas, Mos Def and Chuck D among his most famous disciples), he warns them against squandering the enormous potential of the burgeoning "rhymed speech" medium on messages that are hollow for their own sake.

Scott-Heron was the father of four children. Little information about his personal life surfaced before 2000. From that point on, it's tempting to romanticize things, to claim that "something broke."
What is certain is that, from the dawn of the new millennium, Gil Scott-Heron — the singer so beloved for his resolve and social fire — fell into a hole.
His addiction to drugs was ferocious, and few substances could be said to have been foreign to his process of self-destruction. The rare occasions on which the papers remembered him were to portray him, aged an eternity, on his periodic visits to prison, by then reduced to homelessness.
Gil Scott-Heron was destined for a swift end. But first, he had one more twist in store from an incredible career: a moral testament.
It's 2010, and news of a new album shatters the pessimistic certainty that we'd never hear anything more from the New York artist.

I'm New Here is a redemption, the legacy of a sinner-saint: you listen to his hoarse voice and expect it to break off at any moment, unable to make it through the full 28 minutes of the record. It moves forward with difficulty, perhaps even in pain. The whole thing recalls the musical resurrection that Johnny Cash underwent when, persuaded by Rick Rubin, he relaunched a career many had considered spent with the "American Recordings" cycle.
Gil, a latter-day Faust, bears witness to his own encounter with the devil and the underworld: "Me And The Devil" couldn't be more explicit. The musical backdrop is built from minimal, almost anorexic electronic sounds, which complete the singer's faltering voice in a way that is both moving and terrifying. The result resembles a gargoyle, the kind that perch on the ledges of Notre-Dame Cathedral: frightening and enrapturing. Sublime.

Gil Scott-Heron was keen to make clear that he hadn't changed. Even in his precarious state of health, his social commitment never wavered. He was thinking of the community. Black, white, yellow — none of that mattered anymore. It's need that unites people in struggle; a minority has no color.
"I'll Take Care Of You" sums up a man who, worn out, still refuses to give up caring for his fellow human beings; a song later made eternal by the touch of Jamie from The XX, who drew from Scott-Heron's album an entire remix record of his own, titled "We're New Here." The tribute from the English indie band's member speaks eloquently to the far-reaching respect Scott-Heron earned over his four-decade career.
Finally came the idea of one last tour, including European dates, to bid farewell to his many admirers and — perhaps — dive back into the live dimension. The dimension he'd never truly abandoned, and the one that, more than any other, defined the poet, the activist and the musician, in all the shades of one great Black soul.
Gil Scott-Heron died on May 27, 2011, at the age of 62, in New York. The anthology The Revolution Begins: The Flying Dutchman Masters would celebrate him a year later, dusting off his earliest recordings across a triple CD.

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