Iconic prescient eulogy song

I never mentioned much on the passing of Gil Scott-Heron earlier in the week. He was a key artist for me in the eighties, representing a number of essential musics and ideals, he was the Godfather of hip-hop, a jazz singer, a soul man, a poetic political protester (Winter in America is the best of these songs, for me, a proper elegy – it will make you cry). He was very cool too, of course, like drug addicts can be. When Red Ken was in charge of the GLC he had a habit of setting up free gigs on the south bank just across the river from the Houses of Parliament, expressly designed to inflame Maggie, Norman St John Stevas, and the Daily Mail. I saw Gil Scott-Heron and the Midnight Band down there a couple of times (‘And to my left welcome Brian Jackson on flute!’ – you don’t here that one at too many gigs) and on one of these occasions GSH himself smiled at me. No, I didn’t imagine it, he really did: I was a twenty year-old in a trilby on a summer’s day. I wrote my first published work about him – a letter to the NME, and at my height of dope smoking I listened to his album Reflections a thousand times. I can still recite the thing if you like: B-Movie is the great tune. I am sad he has gone; but he has taken everything a man can take in his time and that will always cut you down short. Sometimes artists are just like that because that’s the way they are. He has left a piece of himself behind, a real legacy; can you ask for more?

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