Griot of protest: Gil Scott-Heron
'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'
Gil Scott-Heron the seminal author, poet, and musician died at the age of 62 on May 27 of undisclosed causes at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York’s Manhattan borough. A funeral service was scheduled for 8:30 am, at the Riverside Church, with a public viewing in the evening from 6 to 9 pm at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home at Madison Avenue and 81st Street. Scott-Heron is survived by his wife, Blaxploitation actress Brenda Sykes, and their daughter Gia Scott-Heron. His ground breaking use of spoken word and biting commentary on the social and political disparities of the 1970s were a precursor for generations of socially conscious Hip Hop performers, earning him such appellations as “the Black Bob Dylan,” and the “Godfather of Rap.”
Scott-Heron was born on April Fool’s Day 1949, the product of a marriage between a Jamaican soccer star of note who earned the distinction of becoming the first Black man to play for Scotland’s Glasgow Celtic Football Club, and a librarian and English teacher who sang during her off hours with the New York Oratorio Society, the venerated classical music institution.
His formative years were spent in Tennessee, where he endured the rigors of that state’s initial steps towards desegregation while establishing a musical foundation steeped in the gospel music fostered by his grandmother. Those years were infused with blues broadcasts from local radio station WDIA. As a teenager, he reunited with his mother and moved to New York City, where his writing skills gained him entry into the elite Fieldston School, whose alumni include Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander Jr., actress Joy Bryant, movie mogul and DreamWorks founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, and J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the World War II Manhattan Project and father of the atomic bomb.
Scott-Heron’s Afro-centric leanings led him to Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University, and the dominant creative partner of his career, Brian Jackson. Under the guidance of iconic jazz producer Bob Thiele, he launched his recording career with the 1970 work “Small Talk at 125th and Lennox,” featuring the landmark tune “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”
Over the next decade, Scott-Heron, Jackson, and their “Midnight Band” shepherded by legendary music executive Clive Davis, achieved commercial and critical success with such titles as “Angel Dust,” “The Bottle,” “Johannesburg,” and “Home is Where the Hatred Is.”
The fusion of jazz, funk and rock they produced provided an elegant cushion for Scott-Heron’s idiosyncratic vocals, resulting in an accessible music manifesting the confusion, cynicism, and insecurity of society’s marginalized segments.
The dissolution of that partnership signaled the beginnings of the downward spiral of Scott-Heron’s personal and professional life. Throughout the 1980s, he toiled in obscurity, recording and touring sporadically with his name popping up in the media occasionally as the result of narcotics convictions and parole violations. These reports were punctuated by rumors of drug addiction and/or HIV infection, encouraged by infrequent interviews suggesting that Scott-Heron’s constant companion was a propane torch to facilitate a crack dependence.
During the last three years of his life, he enjoyed a reprieve of sorts and apparently overcame his physical and emotional issues to embark on a series of successful performances in 2008 and 2009. These were followed by the release of his first studio album in more than a decade, 2010’s “I’m New Here” (on XL Recordings).
Perhaps the most critical recent and lasting tribute to Scott-Heron’s musical legacy was the utilization or “sampling” of his work by significant contemporary artists including CeCe Peniston, Dr. Dre, Mos Def, and Kanye West, who had previously referenced his musical inspiration’s substance abuse history in 2005’s cut “Crack Music.”
West’s latest incorporation of the Gil Scott-Heron catalog buoyed the track “Who Will Survive in America?” which was part of the 2010’s platinum chart topper “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.”
Jamaa Fanaka, born Walter Gordon, on Sept. 6, 1942, was an American filmmaker best known for his 1979 film, “Penitentiary,” and one of the leading directors of the L.A. Rebellion film movement. Fanaka died April 1, from complication of diabetes. He was 69.
Richard “Dick” Griffey, an iconic figure in the Black music who went from being a concert promoter to owning his own record label SOLAR (Sounds of Los Angeles Records)—credited for releasing hits such as “Fantastic Voyage” and “Rock Steady”—died Sept. 24, after complications from an earlier quadruple bypass surgery. He was 71.
SOLAR, founded in 1977, became the second largest African American-owned record company in the United States.
What made the work of internationally known visual artist Varnette Patricia Honeywood so special was that she created images that connected African Americans with their roots.
So, if you saw the image of women in the kitchen hovering around the stove and pressing their hair, or two women whispering to one another sitting on a church pew, you immediately said “I remember that.”
Jazz icon Buddy Collette (born William Marcel Collette) died Sunday Sept. 19 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after suffering shortness of breath.
Buddy was a well-known saxophone, clarinet, and flute player who organized his own band at the age of 12 and started performing professionally by age of 17.
Collette contributed immensely to the jazz movement while he simultaneously rose to fame alongside life-long friends, bassist Charles Mingus, saxophonist Dexter Gordon, and drummer Chico Hamilton.
Etta James, the big-voiced singer with the rowdy persona, has died after a long battle with leukemia. She was 73.
With her dyed blond hair piled high, eyes cat-shaped by mascara and big hoop earrings, she cultivated a whorish look and a loud, blustery attitude that made her seem tough, but by her own admission she was mushy inside and often confused and fearful.
