Gil Scott-Heron: an appreciation

Gil Scott-Heron passed away at 62 on May 27 in New York City. He had been hospitalized at St. Luke’s Hospital where he went to get treatment after returning ill from a touring trip in Europe.

So, if you see the vulture coming   flying circles in your mind;   Remember, there is no escaping   for he will follow close behind.   Only promise me a battle   for your soul   and mine.”                         Gil Scott-Heron

This is an appreciation not only of his cultural contribution but of his life. The words above are originally from the song “The Vulture” on Gil Scott-Heron’s first studio album, “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox.” They’re also used in the song “Your Soul and Mine” on Heron’s last album, “I’m New Here.”

“I’m New Here,” released in 2010, is seen by some as Heron’s most introspective studio album. It is spare, terse, yet dense, a contradiction, but fitting. Only 29 minutes in length, his words, in that craggy voice, may live on in your thoughts. After a few listenings, you want to hear it again, to hear him utter those words and bare himself, like he was sitting next to you, and the life in his eyes and the words coming from his mouth intoned in a way that sounds as if it hurts, so personal, so raw.

It took a decade and a half for new material from Gil Scott to be released. To cycle through “I’m New Here” knowing nothing of the 40 years that he had been performing — of the dozen or so studio albums and live recordings — is to be presented with someone tortured, who has lived an interesting, harsh life. It presents a person not afraid — not what usually passes for bravery in musical pop culture where a singer warbles about love lost — and of deeper, more profound social loss and despair.

For instance, the song “I’ll Take Care of You,” originally from Brook Benton, may be a song of personal love, but in Gil Scott’s hands and from his mouth it is a song of two people in their later years, lost and downtrodden, who have seen social and personal struggle and have found love, and he urges her not to worry.

His music reflected

social upheavals

Some may point to the difficulties in Gil Scott’s life in the decade that separated “Spirits” (1994) and “I’m New Here.” Almost every article since his passing mentions drug addiction, the stints in prison and whether he had HIV. Some writers speak of the irony of his earlier music like “Home Is Where the Hatred Is,” when he talks of the hardships faced by Black people in the ghetto and how heroin ravaged the Black community in the 70s and how he himself became an addict.

However, it’s better to point to the decline of the great social movements that inspired him — including the smashing of the more revolutionary wing and the long period of retreat, reaction, devastation — in particular of the Black working class in the inner city because of deindustrialization and the commodification of Black musical culture by popular media.

Unfortunately there is not space here to go over the entire discography of Gil Scott-Heron, though there should be pages, classes even, dedicated to studying the brilliance in his music and how he seemed to reflect the overarching mood, as any good socially conscious artist does.

In “Winter in America” and “We Almost Lost Detroit,” released in 1974 and 1977 respectively, Gil Scott is able to evoke the mood of the period. In “Winter in America,” a somber song appearing to lament the waning of the fervor of the 60s and 70s, he seems to be hinting at reactionary times to follow.

“We Almost Lost Detroit” is about a partial meltdown of the Fermi 1 nuclear reactor 30 miles outside of Detroit. One can’t help but link it to the devastating effects of deindustrialization on Detroit, a process that was just picking up in the late 70s.

Gil Scott’s relevant music was about social struggles, from the U.S. to South Africa, across the world. In 2010, after his last album debuted, though having just gotten out of prison with very little money, he turned down a concert in Israel out of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. There are other, more well known, richer artists who decided to play in Israel because they deemed that their music was beyond politics.

Gil Scott knew that artists have a social responsibility and that culture is of the world as it is and not above it. Despite needing money, he followed his conscience and didn’t betray his principles. For instance, in October 1981, he, along with flutist Dave Valentin, performed two benefit concerts for the All-Peoples Congress in Detroit.

Gil Scott didn’t completely lose his optimism, and though his last album is melancholic, as evidenced by his cover song “I’m New Here,” he is looking back over his life, his mistakes and over the social periods he lived through.

It is easy for so many to have gotten lost over the past 30 years. Media have become used more for social control. Young people are indoctrinated and inundated with the values of a decadent society.

Shortly after the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion — when Hip Hop music was still reflecting the conditions in the inner city — Gil Scott released his “Message to the Messengers,” imploring Hip Hop musicians to know the importance of the message. In the song he states, “Hey, yeah, we the same brothas from a long time ago/We was talkin’ about television and doin’ it on the radio/What we did was to help our generation realize/They had to get out there and get busy cause it wasn’t gonna be televised/We got respect for you rappers and the way they be free-weighin’/But if you’re gon’ be teachin’ folks things, make sure you know what you’re sayin.’”

And who can forget his most famous contribution that ends with: “The revolution will not go better with Coke/The revolution will not fight the germs that cause bad breath/The revolution WILL put you in the driver’s seat/The revolution will not be televised/WILL not be televised/ WILL NOT BE TELEVISED/The revolution will be no re-run, brothers/The revolution will be live.”