GIL SCOTT HERON "HOME IS WHERE THE HATRED IS" (reaction)

[@cheesesteak59]

Gil Scott Heron is America's most underappreciated musical lyricist.

[@hornyconvict]

He just might be honestly

[@willywonka7812]

Genius. This is a masterpiece

[@An_Cat_Dubh]

Great reaction, SAD. My favorite track from GSH's 1971 debut studio album, "Pieces of a Man". GSH was a proto-rapper (on of his most famous poetry raps is on this same album: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"). His immediate influences were members of the Black Arts Movement and The Last Poets group, but I see a connection between his work and the Beat poets of the late 1940s and 1950s who sometimes recited freeform verse to Jazz instrumental accompaniment. The backing musicians on this album were A level: Burt Jones is on lead electric guitar, Ron Carter on bass, and Bernard Purdie on drums. Brian Jackson played the piano and co-wrote the music with GSH, and Hubert Laws played the flute and saxophone on this album. It was produced by the legendary Bob Thiele, head of Impulse! Records (producing John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins, Archie Schepp, among others).

[@shoutinchuck3363]

Excellent choice An Cat. And thanks for the details. I didn't realize he had such an all star cast backing him. Ron Carter, Bernard Purdie, Hubert Laws! What?!! Hall-of-famers!

[@An_Cat_Dubh]

@@shoutinchuck3363 GSH's first album, Small Talk at 125th & Lenox, was a recording of a live performance and it has a jazzy backing too. But the Pieces of a Man album is sonically brilliant, and is more song-oriented than the 1st album. It's one of my top picks for 1971, along with Rotary Connection's Hey, Love album. Pieces of a Man just sounds fantastic.

[@SightAfterDark]

What a legendary line up! Woww Bernard Purdie too. Thanks for the amazing info An Cat! Another banger!

[@shoutinchuck3363]

@@An_Cat_Dubh Agree. Great album from that era. At that time I had a weekend job in DC and one of the radio stations we listened to was WHUR, the Howard University station. They wore this album out! That's how I became a GSH fan. The music was great but he also spoke to was going down at that time. It was like going to the "Church of What's Happening Now!" (as Flip Wilson used to say).

[@zunbake3]

My favorites by Heron are The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and Have You Heard The Word, Johannesburg.

[@zunbake3]

Also Whitey On The Moon

[@kylehopkins1180]

Thank you for the Gil! What a great song by a great poet!

[@SightAfterDark]

Thanks for watching Hoppy!

[@DrSardonicuss]

Great Stuff! Only got to see Gil once in the '70s sadly~

[@sonicart1808]

Awesome, Gil was a visionary and ahead of his time, a great poet & musician..... he sang about the real things in life, a great reaction from you both and you both felt his meaning....

[@shoutinchuck3363]

GSH in "street poet" mode. Painful lyrics in this song. I'm familiar with that plea to "kick it, quit it, kick it, quit it". Been there. It ain't easy, but it's possible! The "Pieces of a Man" album was part of my early 70s soundtrack, especially "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". Classic spoken word with a musical groove.

[@zimbalistdavis923]

Funny you said that.. been there too, u can kick it Quit it 😮😮been there did that's

[@pcraig1383]

Gil was a musical genius. Chk out 'Is That Jazz' live version or anything else. Thanks S A D!

[@ykmgeedee]

Keyboardist Brian Jackson was his main collaborator. Also too-short Whitey on the Moon one of his more well-known tracks.

[@abmqa]

Gil Scott Heron! ❤❤ So very, very, underrated😢 Would love to see you react to Angel Dust 🙏 The Bottle, No Such Thing As Superman, Winter In America, I could go on and on. It's a worthwhile rabbit hole for sure. Damn, I'm now off listen to these songs and more😅😮😅 I grew up listening to him, me being 60 years old.

[@SightAfterDark]

Thanks for watching Alfred! We’ve actually done The Bottle m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/p5Wumq2dmq9_nbc&pp=ygUgc2lnaHQgYWZ0ZXIgZGFyayBnaWwgc2NpdHQgaGVyb24%3D

[@abmqa]

@Sight After Dark awesome! I'm going to check it out. Btw, one of my favorites by GSH is Re-Ron, particularly because of the lyrics. Check it out. He gets very political 🙄 🤣 👏

[@brettAnichols]

Alien is my favorite song of his. But every track on the album Pieces of a Man is incredible!

[@AmberPearcy]

Wow!

[@kylehopkins1180]

Need to do a deep dive and do whole albums.

[@mr.goodenough3796]

One of my favorites by Gil !

[@moanman1776]

Like the best poets of their time, Gil Scott-Heron was a very honest barometer of the status quo. "The Bottle"... "Johannesburg," etc. Gil told the truth, warts & all. His "Whitey's on the Moon" is so freakin' punishing, but it's REAL!

[@barnabyhughes5643]

The Keyboard player is Brian Johnson. He collaborated and co-wrote all the music that Gill Scott Heron did in the 1970's. Brian wrote the music and Gill wrote the lyrics.

[@GeronFletcher]

Too real

[@mr.goodenough3796]

Gil plays Keyboards. " Pieces of a Man" is another great song by him.

[@damonhines8187]

'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' was my first (remembered) exposure to/experience of GSH, about '81. 'Whitey's On the Moon' is another I've really enjoyed and felt bone-deep. ❤✨️🕊 Loved this one too, surprised to hear him singing after previous encounters being more easily classified as "spoken word". Groovy accompaniment, no wonder, killer bunch of players contributing. Addiction sounds horrible, don't it?😢💉☠️

[@galbierobinson218]

I really dig how you both are doing the fathers of rap Between Zappa and Gil I guess Leonard Cohen would be the third one to include Dig you guys

[@SightAfterDark]

Thanks for your support!

[@dorseydixon2721]

Gil plays any and all instruments. Like prince. Please critique: gil scott heron , (Better days ahead)

[@dorseydixon2721]

My favorite entertainer of all time. His wisdom has taken me from1977 til 2024

[@kylehopkins1180]

Gill was peg as jazz. But he speaks about that on the live version of Is That Jazz

[@jac8436]

Check out GSH what’s the word? Johannesburg

[@dunbarf2413]

95 South (All of the Places We've Been) - Gil Scott Heron & Brian Jackson.

[@paulfenwick8767]

I like his voice. It's great for this style of music. Not my favourite, but I find it ok and understand it's place. Lyrically weak. Just another junkie whinging hard luck story...always someone else's fault! No real message, just a bunch of cliche's. Guess it was hip at the time. The musicians were adequate. Listenable.

[@chazblitz]

Perfect assessment on the lyrics.

[@TR-cy5fg]

🙄

[@garagepunkfan]

@paulfenwick8767, context is everything. In 1960 the government figures had something like 50,000 heroin addicts around the country or heroin users and it had crept up to something like 200,000 or 500,000 by about 1970. There was all this cheap heroin in the theater of war in southeast Asia, a lot of troops were getting hooked, they all start bringing this heroin back, and it really starts devastating the inner city. Drugs have always played a scapegoat role in our society, where we see other social forces, in particular economic forces and other things that have been pressures on communities, and it's very easy to point the finger at drugs. In some ways it's a natural reaction to try to crack down on them in the harshest way. Of course, by cracking down on drugs, which are an inanimate object, there is no such thing as a crackdown on drugs. You're cracking down on people. And when you crack down on people, that has a reverberating effect. The crackdown becomes a tool of class and racial oppression. If you can't extrapolate that from the lyrics, perhaps your white privilege is blocking your view.

[@paulfenwick8767]

@@garagepunkfan ? I'm black

[@chazblitz]

@@paulfenwick8767 I can't believe this douche is lecturing a black man such as yourself!!

[@poppiethestable1090]

Esther Phillips took this from Gil