hypersongs

Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson

The poet and singer Gil Scott-Heron and the keyboardist Brian Jackson, who met at Lincoln University in 1969 and, with the Midnight Band, made Winter in America (1974) and six more records into 1980.

Lincoln University to Strata-East

Gilbert Scott-Heron was born in Chicago on April 1, 1949, the son of the opera singer Bobbie Scott and the Jamaican footballer Gil Heron, who played for Celtic, and was raised partly by his grandmother in Jackson, Tennessee, and then in the Bronx from the age of twelve. He attended the Fieldston School on scholarship and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and took a master's in creative writing at Johns Hopkins in 1972. Brian Robert Jackson was born in Brooklyn on October 11, 1952, attended Erasmus Hall High School and studied piano for seven years. They met at Lincoln in 1969, Jackson's freshman year, through a talent show; Scott-Heron wrote lyrics and Jackson music, and they formed a ten-piece group called Black and Blues, the precursor of the Midnight Band.

Scott-Heron made Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (1970) and Pieces of a Man (1971), recorded at RCA Studios in New York with Ron Carter, Bernard Purdie and Hubert Laws, and Free Will (1972) for Flying Dutchman, Jackson appearing as a collaborator. In early 1973 they left for Strata-East, Jackson saying they wanted their publishing and the producer Bob Thiele refused, and Scott-Heron that Thiele would not give Jackson co-billing. Winter in America, with Jackson's name on the cover for the first time, was recorded on September 4 and 5 and October 15, 1973 at D&B Sound in Silver Spring, Maryland, and released in May 1974.

Arista and the split

They then signed to Arista with Clive Davis. The First Minute of a New Day (recorded June and July 1974, released January 1975) reached number five on the jazz chart and 30 on the pop chart; From South Africa to South Carolina (November 1975) includes "Johannesburg", a moderate disco hit; and It's Your World (November 1976) is a live double album recorded at Paul's Mall in Boston in July 1976 with studio tracks, including a 13:30 "The Bottle". Scott-Heron appeared on Saturday Night Live on December 13, 1975. Bridges (1977), Secrets (1978) and 1980 (1980) followed, with the film score The Baron (1977), and they split around 1980; a Tidal summary says Jackson left over irreconcilable creative and business differences.

Scott-Heron made Spirits (1994) and I'm New Here (2010) and died in New York on May 27, 2011, aged 62; he received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence in 2021, and his memoir The Last Holiday appeared in 2012. Jackson later worked with Earth, Wind and Fire, Will Downing and Gwen Guthrie and made Gotta Play (2000), Evolutionary Minded (2013, with M1 and the New Midnight Band), Jazz Is Dead (2021) and This Is Brian Jackson (2022), and gave a Red Bull Music Academy lecture in Paris in 2015. Setlist.fm lists 365 setlists for Scott-Heron from 1972 to 2010, 30 of them in 1975. The 1978 Midnight Band broadcast from KALX-FM at Berkeley circulates as a long-standing bootleg and a Live Berkeley 1978 vinyl exists. Winter in America is often cited with the Last Poets and the Watts Prophets as early rap, and Kanye West, Black Star, Mos Def and MF Doom have sampled or covered the pair.

Albums

  • Winter in America 1974 · Strata-East

    Their first album billed to both: nine pieces recorded on eight tracks for about four thousand dollars, with the Watergate piece "H2Ogate Blues" last.

Songs

  • Winter in America Winter in America · 1974

    The title track, which is not on the original 1974 LP; our upload is the whole album.

Sources

  1. Gil Scott-Heron, Wikipedia
  2. Brian Jackson (musician), Wikipedia
  3. Cold Comfort, The Quietus (2014-11-26)
  4. It's Your World, Wikipedia