Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson
From South Africa to South Carolina
1975 Arista Records AL 4044
01 Johannesburg 4:47
02 A Toast To The People 5:45
03 The Summer Of ’42 4:38
04 Beginnings (The First Minute Of A New Day) 5:36
05 South Carolina (Barnwell) 4:33
06 Essex 9:19
07 Fell Together 4:26
08 A Lovely Day 3:25 Continue reading
I’ve been fixing dead links on this site piecemeal and decided to announce at least a few of the ones that have received requests. I don’t always publish comments from people reporting dead links, because most of the time they can’t be bothered to even say ‘thanks for this post’. Anyway here are a handful of fixed posts with more to come in the near future
Jackson do Pandeiro – Os Grandes Sucessos de …
Maysa – Maysa, Amor… e Maysa (1961)
Colombia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes 1960-1976
Pretty Purdie & The Playboys – Stand By Me (Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get) (1971)
João Donato – The New Sound of Brazil / Piano of João Donato (1965)
Jorge Ben – Raridades e Inéditas (2009)
Pretty Purde & The Playboys
“Stand By Me (Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get) “
Released 1971 Mega Records (M51-5001) / Flying Dutchmen
This reissue — Year unknown
Stand By Me 4:55
Modern Jive 3:18
Spanish Harlem 3:29
Artificialness 3:05
Never Can Say Goodbye 3:00
Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get 5:13
It’s Too Late 4:30
Funky Mozart 3:00
You’ve Got A Friend 3:51
Vinyl repressing -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply) > Creek Audio OBH-15 -> M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard -> Adobe Audition 3.0 at 32-bit float s 96khz -> Click Repair light settings, additional clicks and pops removed in Audition -> ID Tags done in foobar2000 v.1.0.1 and Tag & Rename.
* Bongos, Congas – Norman Pride
* Drums – Pretty Purdie
* Electric Bass – Chuck Rainey
* Guitar – Billy Nichols, Cornell Dupree
* Harpsichord, Tambourine – Neal Rosengarden*
* Horns [Reeds] – Billy Mitchell, Don Ashworth, Lou Delgatto, Seldon Powell, Warren Daniels
* Piano, Electric Piano, Arranged By, Conductor – Harold Wheeler
* Trumpet – Snooky Young*, Gerry Thomas
* Vocals – Carl Hall, Hilda Harris, Norma Jenkins, Tasha Thomas
Recorded at Atlantic Recording Studios, NYC, August 12 & 13, 1971
Producedy by Bob Thiele
Photography by Clarence (CB) Bullard, Ray Ross, Bob Thiele, Giuseppe Pino, Popsie
Design by Haig Adishian
Liner notes by Nat Henthoff
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This record inhabits a weird space of deep soul originals and funky covers of pop and Brill Building material. The actual 45 RPM hit single off this record was one of the former — the infectiously silly “Funky Mozart”, which begs for a promotional video with an afro-cut Amadeus at a Hammond B-3. But the rest of the repertoire sees Purdie interpreting Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector, Clifton Davis / Jackson 5’s “Never Can Say Goodbye”, Carole King (twice!) and Ben E. King. In fact that opening title cut starts out sappy enough to make a person wonder whether or not they made a good choice putting this album on the platter, but those doubts are quickly dispelled. Thankfully, the album isn’t titled “Pretty Purdie Sings!” and this is the only vocal number than he handles himself, there than some scat, um scatting, Like all of Purdie’s albums under his own name – this is a ride based on fun, and if you can’t relax and enjoy yourself then you should probably get a job at AMG or Pitchfork or something.
One particular surprise on this one is an early cut from the recently-late, always-great Gil Scott-Heron, “Artificialness” in which he reads a poem relating domestic strife (and implied violence, incidentally) to the policies of the Vietnam War. Again, it’s humorous, but darkly so, and read over a blues groove that takes the song out swinging. Purdie had just finished playing on Gil’s “Piece of a Man” and http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthis tune probably has its origins in that initial pairing up.
Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson “1980”
Released on Arista Records (AL 9514) in, um, 1980
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Shut ‘Um Down 5:28
Alien (Hold On To Your Dreams) 4:09
Willing 4:16 Corners 4:47 1980 6:20 Push Comes To Shove 3:37 Shah Mot (The Shah Is Dead / Checkmate) 4:04 Late Last Night 4:25
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This last collaboration between Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson is an excellent, underrated album that continues in the same downbeat soulful mode as “Bridges” and “Secrets” and is as equally good as those two. In fact this is might be a better, more consistent album than both of those. For some strange reason, I did not take to this record right away. I am not sure why it took longer for me to assimilate. Perhaps I could attribute it to the production — althought it is mixed extremely well, I feel like my head is stuffed with cotton or I just took a lot of cold medicine when I listen to it. But actually this is a characteristic of “Secrets” as well — it seems like all the higher frequencies were rollled off during the mastering process. But once my ears adjust (and/or I took a little EQ tweak on my system), all is golden
There are absolutely no bad songs here, although the song “Alien (Hold On To Your Dreams)” has always striken me as a little corny and trite. Although the issues of immigration, labor, and “illegality” it addresses have always been salient in Amerikkka, it is with an ironic twist that as the discourse on immigration issues has actually *worsened* rather than improved over the last several years, this song actually strikes me as LESS corny than it formerly had. Still, though, I don’t feel that it’s one of Gil’s better examples of sociomusical engagement. After that slight bump in the road, however, the album comes on strong and just keeps coming. Every track is a delight, musicially and lyrically. I do miss Brian Jackson’s electric piano work on these later albums, as he shifted to playing synths almost exclusively at this point aside from some acoustic piano work. Gil’s verse on this album walks the line of acidic social critique and compassionate hopefulness like only he can, from the reflective self-assesments of Willing (NOT the Little Feat song, by the way) or When Push Comes to Shove, to the chilling intonations of 1980 and Shah Mot. In many ways this is a record of an artist growing older in all the positive senses of the word. I hesitate to use the word “maturing” because of its loaded connotations, not least of which is the insinuation that his earlier work was someone naive, which is most definitely was not. It is not as if the revolutionary fire of Gil’s powerful mind is in retreat here, but he has more moments of repose, and spins more narratives of a more personal and intimate nature – a stylist change that had begun with 1977’s Bridges, at least in my ears. Gil leaves us with a light-hearted tune about the trials of getting your inspiration down on paper before it leaves you, a nice way to close the album on the upbeat.
Of course, the resident expert and guru of Gil Scott-Heron in the “blogosphere” has to be Simon at Never Enough Rhodes, who has more amazing material than you can shake a stick at. His write-ups have always been an inspiration for me to try harder, incidentally, as it is blogs like his that set the standard for the possibilities of the format. It appears there has been some trouble with the links of some of the rarities he has over there, but I highly encourage people to check them out regardless of this as his work is a labor of love.
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson – 1980 in 320 kbs em pee tree
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson – 1980 in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO format
password, senha in comments
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson
“Bridges”
Released 1977
Japanese CD Reissue
This is one of my favorite records from Gil and Brian, absolutely. At one point I had this idea that I was going to share his entire classic discography from the 70s here, but then I ran out of steam and time. So I decided to jump ahead to this wonderful record. A long and wonderful review is deserved, but I am choosing to keep it brief this time. One memory I have of this record is turning my friend T on to it. Turning T on to music he doesn’t know is pretty difficult – the guy is ten years younger than I am and seems to have five times the musical knowledge, seems to have listened to everything under the sun, and has a pretty amazing collection. So I was rather proud to find a record he didn’t know. At first I just gave him one track, that I consider the centerpiece of the album, “We Almost Lost Detroit.” We were both living in Ann Arbor and T had grown up and spent most of his life in Michigan with family all over the Detroit area. I knew that the song was about stuff that actually went down in the 70s when a nuclear reactor has a partial melt-down and came very close to becoming a 3-Mile Island, and failed to be covered in the press in any significant way. Given the economic, social, and color profile of the city of Detroit, and the neighborhoods where the reactor is located, there is a lot of, um, food for thought here, to put it mildly… But leave it to T to learn what I didn’t know — that the song was titled after a book by the same name, by a John Fuller — which he of course tracked down and read. Guys like him restore my faith in humanity, I swear. Gil is famous for his songs offering pointed commentary on contemporary sociopolitical situations, but what makes this song slightly different than most of those (Johannesburg for example) is that it is not a fist-pumping rally-cry but a sad, mournful, soulful expression of a disaster narrowly averted and the forgotten people in already-devastated cities and ghettos whose lives would have been utterly ruined by it. It’s mellow groove belies the lyrical content, or at least acts as a sort of counterweight that creates tension. And then there is that famous keyboard line of Brian Jackson that has been sampled by a million people, coming at just the right place. Rather than my usual streaming audio sample I am including a link from U-tube, its a bit ‘lossy’ and crappy sounding but that should motivate you to get the real deal below.
1 Hello Sunday! Hello Road!
2 Song of the Wind
3 Racetrack in France
4 Vild (Deaf, Dumb and Blind)
5 Under the Hammer
6 We Almost Lost Detroit Jackson, Scott-Heron
7 Tuskeegee #626
8 Delta Man (Where I’m Comin’ From)
9 95 South (All of the Places We’ve Been)
Aside from this landmark song, the rest of the album is also fantastic, a really solid work that show Gil and Brian beginning a new phase of their prolific partnership.
GIL-SCOTT HERON & BRIAN JACKSON – Bridges (1977) 320kbs
Gil-Scott Heron & Brian Jackson – Bridges (1977) FLAC LOSSLESS
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LINER NOTES
Liner Notes
Brian Jackson and I have been writing music and performing together since 1969. From January of 1970 when we started traveling as the nucleus of a group call “Black & Blues” til now, mid ’77, responses from communities both far and near, have given us an opportunity to take our art to the streets and stages and share it with people we might otherwise never have encountered. Somehow, in even the most distant setting, the warmth and sincerity of the brothers and sisters we have come in contact with, has made us feel at home. Music has been our common denominator; our vehicle; the mutual vibration that gives us a focus, but the ideas and spirit behind the music has been the adhesive and inspiration for continued attempts to communicate.
There is a revolution going on in the world. We are very much a part of it and have a great deal to contribute to the force and direction of this revolution. There are many fronts within this struggle, many far flung outposts geographically isolated and distant from our mainstreams of communication. But everyone who struggles for a better life for oppressed people is an ally who could use any symbol of our concern and solidarity. There is a growing guerrilla movement in Southern Africa, a period of healing and rebuilding in Southeast Asia, a movement towards economic independence in the Caribbean and we are a part of it all. In our own lives the struggle to educate continues: to bring the need for positive change into focus; to bring about
a new understanding of the dynamics of change.
All things change. From the wheel to the automobile. From you, diapers, stuffed animals and bronzed baby shoes, to you in high school, in love, in debt. And the social dynamics and perimeters during your lifetime have exploded into a thousand fragments of liberation movements and human rights demands. It has been a revolution that ignited in the eyes of Asian peasant and African Bushmen and Afro-American Corner Kings who began to direct this inevitable change. It is a revolution in full stride that has changed, irrevocably, our understanding of ourselves in this society as it has demythologized so many of the impressions of black/white, wrong/right that imprisoned us all.
We still believe, as did El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X) among others, that America has the potential to undergo a bloodless revolution, in that change may come without pitched battles in the street. But there has already been bloodshed and stains are fresh. It is winter and we are regaining our strength. The key to our progress lies within our ability to support alliances between ourselves and Third World people. The support begins here. In solidarity with chicanos, Puerto Riquenos, Oriental American and Native Americans we will continue to focus on the need for justice and opportunity. We have debts to pays. In the interest of comrades who have contributed their lives, as well as in our own interest.
Song sample – GUERRILLA
Review coming soon
