Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day
The Song of the Day is:
Gil Scott-Heron – “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
From the album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (1970)
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat
The revolution will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live
Gil Scott-Heron
Today, as we observe Martin Luther King Day, I don’t have the same sense of finality to King’s story. His work never has been done, but this year the idea of Martin Luther King is no longer in the history books, it’s right in our faces. We got names of victims of police brutality such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake imprinted on our souls; names we didn’t know a year ago. We had a whole summer full of peaceful and non-peaceful protests in their name. We saw white privilege on display as white supremacists (among other protesters) storm the Capitol with little resistance, in comparison to the heavily-armed response that they gave BLM protestors. I never pictured race relations taking so many steps backward in my lifetime, but here we are creating more divisions amongst us. This doesn’t seem to be the year for quiet reflection on MLK day, this is a more angry year. To reflect this change, I’m not playing a more wistful, hopeful song in the vein of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Gonna Come”, no I’ve got something more militant in mind. Today, we honoring Dr. King by playing one of the activists who helped this holiday in his honor, the incendiary poet Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron burst onto the scene with this song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, a beat poem that predated rap music and tried to inform a large swath of America will be ignorant to the fact that social equality won’t be seen on the evening news, rather it would be out on the streets, by those not getting the credit. The many commercial slogans referenced in the song are a reminder that there’s a whole different way of life for the have-nots in this society. Scott-Heron didn’t really care much about being agreeable, he was furthering a movement with his music. Prior to his musical career, Gil Scott-Heron was a novelist influenced by the writings of Langston Hughes. After seeing the Last Poets perform, he decided to try his hand at music. His first album was pretty sparsely arranged, and it contained a minimal recitation of this song. A year later, it was recorded again for his second album, Pieces of a Man, but with a full band accompaniment. While never a hitmaker, other memorable songs he performed were “Whitey’s on the Moon”, “Who Will Pay Reparations to My Soul?”, “Billy Green is Dead”, “The Bottle” and the soulful “Homes is Where the Hatred Is”. Most of his songs had a social bent with a soul-jazz arrangement, but occasionally would dip into more personal matters. His most frequent musical partner was arranger/keyboardist/flautist Brian Jackson. Between 1970 and 1982 he released 13 albums, and in the early eighties went on that successful campaign alongside Stevie Wonder to enact this holiday. His later years were less glorious than his early career. He had been imprisoned over drug charges for much of the 2000’s and at some point had contracted the HIV virus. He died in 2011, but not before releasing one final critically-hailed album, 2010’s I’m New Here. Gil Scott-Heron’s impact on rap music is immeasurable, and he is considered to be one of the forefathers of the genre.
If you enjoy the blog, please consider helping me pay the dues paypal.me/MichaelSliwa.
Thanks!
Hear Today, Grown Tomorrow 