FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Gil Scott-Heron – Pieces of a Man
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FOR Vinyl Corner in October…
PHOTO CREDIT: Chuck Stewart
I am featuring great albums by black artists – as it is Black History Month in the U.K. I am going to cover a couple of albums from British artists and a couple from American artists. Today, I wanted to urge people to buy Gil Scott-Heron’s Pieces of a Man on vinyl, as it is a landmark debut from an artist who inspired generations of artists. Although Scott-Heron sadly died in 2011, his footprint and mark on music cannot be ignored. His debut album was recorded at RCA Studios, New York in 1971 and was a move away from the Spoken Word textures of his live album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (1970). Working alongside Brian Jackson on the songs (who played piano on the tracks), Pieces of a Man gained a modest nod upon its release but, like all albums ahead of its time, earned huge respect and understanding years after its release. In 1971, there was very little like Pieces of a Man in the market. The album has gained a big legacy down the line because of songs like The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and how it was contained; it was one of the few political songs on the album and, although Gil Scott-Heron preferred other tracks, one cannot underestimate the importance of that standout cut. Pierces of a Man is such a varied and wide-ranging album; not just in terms of its lyrics but the blending of sounds – the album has inspired artists across the broad, from Rap and Neo-Soul through to Rock.
I think Pieces of a Man is an album that warrants fresh ears and eyes. Consider tracks like Save the Children and Lady Day and John Coltrane and you have so much variety and brilliance on offer. Rather than it being an album defined by a single track, Pieces of a Man’s title says everything: this is a record composed of eleven numbers that reflect this complex human, that tell a story and paints a picture. So many artists have borrowed from the album and been moved by it. Even though the songs on Pieces of a Man are more conventional than his Spoken Word albums, there is a looseness and sense of the conversational that gave the album greater weight and nuance; setting it aside from the formality of other artists/albums. I guess it is the Jazz influence that one can link to the style of the vocals. Scott-Heron penned Lady Day and John Coltrane as a homage to Billie Holiday and John Coltrane, so it is clear Jazz was a major lifeforce for him. Fusing this with Funk, Pieces of a Man is an album that can mix social dissolution and strain with passion, groove and love. I will bring in a couple of retrospective reviews that show how Pieces of a Man has inspired and moved people through the years.
In their review, AllMusic discuss the sheer power and weight of Pieces of a Man:
“Gil Scott-Heron's 1971 album Pieces of a Man set a standard for vocal artistry and political awareness that few musicians will ever match. His unique proto-rap vocal style influenced a generation of hip-hop artists, and nowhere is his style more powerful than on the classic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Even though the media -- the very entity attacked in this song -- has used, reused, and recontextualized the song and its title so many times, the message is so strong that it has become almost impossible to co-opt. Musically, the track created a formula that modern hip-hop would follow for years to come: bare-bones arrangements featuring pounding basslines and stripped-down drumbeats. Although the song features plenty of outdated references to everything from Spiro Agnew and Jim Webb to The Beverly Hillbillies, the force of Scott-Heron's well-directed anger makes the song timeless. More than just a spoken word poet, Scott-Heron was also a uniquely gifted vocalist. On tracks like the reflective "I Think I'll Call It Morning" and the title track, Scott-Heron's voice is complemented perfectly by the soulful keyboards of Brian Jackson. On "Lady Day and John Coltrane," he not only celebrates jazz legends of the past in his words but in his vocal performance, one that is filled with enough soul and innovation to make Coltrane and Billie Holiday nod their heads in approval. More than three decades after its release, Pieces of a Man is just as -- if not more -- powerful and influential today as it was the day it was released”.
I listen to Pieces of a Man now and it still sounds completely bold and revealing. Maybe it is the times in which we live, but I think Pieces of a Man still has so much to offer regarding the music scene and providing fresh spark. There is no telling just how far its legacy has spread; so many artists through the decades have been moved by this terrific work. I will end the feature shortly, but I want to introduce a couple of other features that pay tribute to Gil Scott-Heron’s mighty debut. In this piece from The Guardian, they talk about Scott-Heron’s influence regarding the development of black music; the relevance of the Don Letts documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003).
“Awareness of Scott-Heron's place in the development of black music has been given a boost by the recent Don Letts' documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, so it's an opportune moment for BMG to reissue the Scott-Heron catalogue at mid-price. A fine opportunity to get acquainted with Scott-Heron's pioneering mix of politics, protest and proto-rap poetry, set to a musical jazz-funk hybrid.
Unlike some of those he influenced, Scott-Heron had enough intellectual and musical flexibility to ensure that his medium wasn't crushed under the ponderous weight of his message. Perversely, it's to Scott-Heron's credit that not even RCA/BMG super-svengali Clive Davis was able to exploit him commercially, though the messages in his music remain indestructible”.
Pieces of a Man remains one of the most important debut albums ever, and it will continue to fascinate and influence generations from now. If you are new to Gil Scott-Heron, I would advise people to grab Pieces of a Man (on vinyl if you can) and experience something wonderful. The last feature I want to source from concerns Gil Scott-Heron’s impact on music and how his run of albums in the 1970s and 1980s spiked the imaginations and charge of some seriously heavyweight acts:
“Along with the insurgent spoken word collective The Last Poets, Heron’s infusion of poetry and immersive, rhythmic grooves left a template for the future. In his legendary 70s and 80s run, his attempts to galvanise his community into action in ways that were not only digestible but danceable laid the groundwork for the future of protest music as we know it. From Grandmaster Flash’s gritty reportage on “The Message”, to Public Enemy’s cries to “Fight The Power”, the lineage of these propulsive public addresses can be traced right back to Scott-Heron’s blunt proclamations on tracks like “Winter In America” or “The Needle’s Eye”: “A circle spinning faster, and getting larger all the time / A whirlpool spelled disaster, for all the people who don’t rhyme.”
Eulogised by Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Michael Moore, to name a few, his erudite commentary and imposing performance style granted him the retrospective moniker of the ‘The Godfather Of Rap’, an honour that he was eager to refute. In fact, his interest in the rap genre didn’t come from a place of comradeship, but from the lucrative rewards that it occasionally afforded him.
In a profile with The New Yorker, the self-proclaimed ‘bluesologist’ outlined his uneasy truce with the artform that sees him as a munificent well of inspiration: “Long as it don’t talk about ‘yo mama’ and stuff, I usually let it go. It’s not all bad when you get sampled – hell, you make money. They give you some money to shut you up. I guess to shut you up, they should have left you alone.”
A true radical in every sense, his work possessed an earnestness that his descendants carry with them to this day. No words that summarise his legacy quite like his probing self-evaluation to percussionist Larry McDonald: “I saw some shit that needed to be spoken on and nobody was speaking on it. So, I just said it”.
I am spotlighting fantastic albums from black artists all this month, and I have been eager to cover Gil Scott-Heron’s Pieces of a Man for a long time now. It is a record that is, as I said, so stirring and moving to this day. So many artists owe a debt to Gil Scott-Heron and his truly revolutionary debut. I am glad I have had a chance to salute and celebrate…
ONE of music’s most important albums.