"Gun" (excerpt)
"Blue Collar" (excerpt)
With much buzz surrounding Gil Scott-Heron's new album, here's a half hour bootleg featuring four kicking tracks from a 1986 live show at the Glastonbury Festival, originally broadcast on the BBC. Here we capture GSH somewhere in the middle of his 12 year hiatus between "Moving Target" and "Spirits", but he's in fine voice and spirit.
Keyboardist Kim Jordan switches between synth and piano, and she contributes some particularly fine piano solos - she was a member of Gil's touring band for 12 years, also appearing on the live "Minister of Information" album and "Spirits", both in 1994.
Also appearing on those albums was the Turrentine-ish saxophonist Ron Holloway, who also played on "Moving Target" from which both "Blue Collar" and "Washington DC" appear live here. He went on to record some albums for Milestone in the 90s, including 1998's "Groove Update" which features GSH on new versions of "Three Miles Down" and "We Almost Lost Detroit". That album also featured drummer Rodney Youngs from here.
Joe Phillips' guitar adds a blues sensibility to the proceedings, occasionally rocking things out a little too much for me, but holding back (or held back) enough to not ruin things. Bassist Robbie Gordon played with GSH from 1978 until 1994. He released a solo album called "Still Growing" in 1996, which included an unusual straight-ahead acid jazz version of Gil's classic song "B-Movie".
Best anecdote about this gig comes from the blog Look on the Nice Side, and I quote :
"I once had a pee on a fence next to him at Glastonbury festival, right after he’d just come off stage. And when I asked him if he didn’t have a hospitality area backstage and his own posh toilets, he shrugged and sad, “Yeah man, but I like to pee with the people”.
TRACKS
01 'Gun'
02 'Washington DC'
03 'Blue Collar'
04 'Johannesburg'
MUSICIANS
Gil Scott-Heron - vocals, keyboards
Kim Jordan - keyboards
Joe Phillips - guitar
Robbie Gordon - bass
Ron Holloway - saxaphone
Rodney Youngs - drums
Larry MacDonald maybe on percussion....
Download links (WAV & mp3)
(Thanx Simon666)
My tuppence worth - is that it is SO good to see Gil Scott-Heron back on top of things (musically and I hope personally!)
I will never forget seeing him at Womadelaide in 1993 (I think) when his lateness coming on stage was really pissing off the mostly ignorant crowd, causing Andy Glitre (as the MC) to ask for calm saying that this is "Gil Scott-Heron, that we are talking about!" and as we all know the man is truly an original!
PS:
From a comment by Jamie just left over at 'Never Enough Rhodes':
"I was at this gig as a young, wide-eyed first-time Glastonbury festival-goer. I was 16 years old, I'd just left school two days previously and had just had the best weekend of my life up to that point. What this tape omits is that 'Johannesburg' was aborted initially due to the lack of crowd response. Gil had asked the crowd to sing along with the chorus and he'd explained, patiently, that if we didn't sing up he wasn't going to do it. Cue the first 'What's the word?' bit and a fairly lacklustre response from the crowd. Gil cut the band and gently mocked our poor singing. I remember him saying something along the lines of 'OK, I know you were probably too busy pulling on a joint and missed it but this time you've gotta sing up'. The next chant of 'JOHANNESBURG!' you can hear on the recording...."
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