“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 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. 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.
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. 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 multifaceted artist? Here’s where to start:
“Small Talk at 125th and Lenox” (1970): The signature “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” more than any other explains why in retrospect he became known as the “rap godfather.” With its clever wordplay and biting humor, it clearly had an impact on the careers of hip-hop mainstays Chuck D and KRS-One, among many others.
“Pieces of a Man” (1971): His second and most fully realized album reprises “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and points toward his influences in “Lady Day and John Coltrane.” It ranges from reflective (“I Think I’ll Call It Morning”) to harrowing (the junkie’s lament “Home Is Where the Hatred Is”).
“Winter in America” (1973): “The Bottle” grooves even as it distills the horrors of addiction. The spoken-word “H20gate Blues” transcends dated references to the Watergate scandal with savage humor and punning rhymes.
“From South Africa to South Carolina” (1975): “What’s the word? Brother, tell me have you heard from Johannesburg?” Scott-Heron’s first major-label album portrays him as a global griot, traveling from continent to continent to spread the news.
“The Mind of Gil Scott- Heron,” (1978): A collection of spoken-word pieces, touching on everything from presidential pardons to immigrant murders. These proto-raps embody Scott-Heron’s maxim that “there are at least 500 shades of the blues.”
“The Best of Gil-Scott Heron” (1984): A solid one- disc overview of his classic period, plus a rhythmically aggressive new track, “Re-Ron,” aimed at a certain chief of state.
“Spirits” (1994): After a 12-year break from recording, Scott-Heron returns in top form on tracks in which he schools his hip-hop proteges (“Message to the Messengers”) and documents his struggles with the drug addiction that would eventually consume him (“The Other Side,” Pts. I-III).
“I’m New Here” (2010): After years of drug addiction, Scott-Heron sounds at death’s door on this disturbing, final recording, a mix of chilled-out atmospherics and late-night monologues.
