The revolution will not be televised (Gil Scott-Heron) (LP 3740 - 3741)

Gil Scott-Heron  A New Black Poet - Small Talk at 125th and Lenix (Vinyl, Flying Dutchman Records, 1970) ****  

Gil Scott-Heron  Pieces of a Man (Vinyl, Flying Dutchman Records, 1971) ****

Genre: Street poetry, jazz 

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Pieces of a Man)

Gear costume: Lady Day and John Coltrane (Pieces of a Man), Whitey on the Moon (Small Talk...)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6

Active compensatory factors: I came across Gil Scott-Heron a long time after 1970, when his first album, performed live in the studio, came out and revolutionised performance poetry.

It was ten years later, while an undergraduate and doing poetry papers as part of my degree, that reading Amiri Baraka and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man led me to Gil Scott-Heron.

While working at Marbecks Records in the late seventies, I bought a compilation and that led to Pieces Of A Man and then to Small Talk at 125th and Lenix - where he is accompanied by David Barnes (percussion), Charlie Saunders, and Eddie Knowles (congas).

Both albums feature Gil's uncensored topical views on black life in America. Sadly, it sounds like not much has changed over 55 years as many of his messages are still extremely relevant (listen to Enough). Some advice: skip the homophobic The Subject Was Faggots.

Pieces of a Man is more conventional with clear song structures and sung songs, rather than the poetry accompanied by congas that is featured on Small Talk...

Brian Jackson's input on the album cannot be overstated. Brian wrote the music, plays piano and is joined by some jazz heavyweights: Hubert Laws on flute and sax, Ron Carter on bass and Bernard Purdie on drums. 

The album's combination of R&B, soul, jazz-funk, and proto-rap influenced the development of electronic dance music and hip hop. Gil was a revolutionary!

Where do they all belong? A must have if you have any kind of social conscience.