Comments on: Winter in America: A Musical Lamentation Offered on the Passing of Gil Scott-Heron

By: Songsta

Songsta — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:46:12 +0000

Thank you Steve for this tribute and for introducing this wonderful man into my life. I will be exploring his music.

By: Anisse Gross

Anisse Gross — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 06:07:54 +0000

I guess I no longer have to finish my tribute to Gil for the Rumpus, now that you’ve offered this touching paean. It kind of breaks my heart to think that most people were first exposed to his work when KRS-one used “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” to make a f’n Nike commercial. But Gil’s a true blue. I love him. Thanks for this.

By: JOE JOE

JOE JOE — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 02:19:26 +0000

Thanks, Steve, for this unique piece and the album tips. Excited to check those out.

By: elfie

elfie — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 00:36:33 +0000

i love this. my heart has been broken for GSH since reading that piece in the New Yorker months back. thanks steve.

By: steve almond

steve almond — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:41:23 +0000

Oh, and “Pieces of a Man” is a fantastic early album.

By: steve almond

steve almond — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:40:32 +0000

Joe Joe: The Best of Gil Scott Heron is essential.

By: JOE JOE

JOE JOE — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 05:40:05 +0000

Thanks for this tribute. I know little of Gil Scott-Heron, but started exploring him after Kanye featured “who will survive in america” on his last album. Anyone have a recommendation for a good intro to Scott-Heron album?

By: Fella

Fella — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 03:42:53 +0000

Thank you, Steve, for honoring Gil Scott-Heron so deeply and intelligently. I’m happy he was able to finish his latest album, I’m New Here. The title track contains these words, which I find consoling.
Turn around, turn around, turn around
And you may come full circle
and be new here again.

Check out Gil’s smile at the end of the music video.
Gil Scott-Heron – ‘I’m New Here’ (official video)
http://www.youtube.com
Battered as he was (and yes, many of the wounds were, we can’t deny, self-inflicted) he still had some triumph in him.
Thank you, Steve, thank you, Gil Scott-Heron.

By: Sugar

Sugar — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 03:11:23 +0000

This is a beautiful tribute, Steve, and I thank you for it.

By: Buck

Buck — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:47:44 +0000

This is the song I find most diggable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Saqj7E3d3w. It’s got that early seventies vibe of utter genre-less-ness, an era that seems (to this guy who was four years old when the song came out and probably never heard it until about three months ago but thought it immediately sounded primally familiar) to have had a peculiar wide-open melancholy-tinged optimism. I hear it in Joni Mitchell and Jackson Brown (white, folky, West Coast-wise) and in Stevie Wonder and GSH (black, urban, East Coast). It was gone by ’74 (Blood on the Tracks, for me), but there’s such a washed-out sunniness to some of the records that came out of that period, like the recovery from the Altamont/Manson hangover if you want to get all Griel-Marcusy about it. “I Think I’ll Call it Morning” is just gorgeous. If you haven’t heard it before, tell me if it rings some distant bell of memory anyway. There’s just something about it.