Gil Scott-Heron

Genres:	Documentaries • Jazz • Music & Radio • R&B / Soul
Descriptive "tags":	soul • funk • jazz • poetry • political • spoken word
Decades Active:	1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s
Links online:	BBC Music • Discography • Wikipedia

Biography

1 April 1949, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Raised in Jackson, Tennessee, by his grandmother, Scott-Heron moved to New York at the age of 13. His estranged father played for Glasgow Celtic, a Scottish soccer team. Astonishingly precocious, Scott-Heron had published two novels (The Vulture and The Nigger Factory) plus a book of poems (Small Talk At 125th And Lenox) by 1972. He met musician Brian Jackson when both were students at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, and in 1970 they formed the Midnight Band to play their original blend of jazz, soul and prototype rap music. Small Talk At 125th And Lenox was mostly an album of poems (from his book of the same name), but later albums showed Scott-Heron developing into a skilled songwriter whose work was soon covered by other artists: for example, LaBelle recorded his ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ and Esther Phillips made a gripping version of ‘Home Is Where The Hatred Is’. In 1973, Scott-Heron had...

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