Gil Scott-Heron, musician and poet who wrote 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' dies at 62 [updated]

 

 

Gil Scott-Heron, a musician and the author of the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" — which helped pioneer sounds that would fuse to become rap — has died in New York City. He was 62.

A friend who answered the telephone listed for his Manhattan recording company confirmed that he died Friday afternoon at a hospital. Doris C. Nolan said he died after becoming sick upon returning from a European trip.

Scott-Heron recorded "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" in the 1970s in Harlem.

He mixed minimalistic percussion and spoken-word performances tinged with politics in a style he sometimes referred to as bluesology. He recorded more than a dozen albums and wrote a handful of books.

Scott-Heron was born in Chicago on April 1, 1949. He was raised in Jackson, Tenn.

[Updated at 9:30 p.m. Scott-Heron's influence on rap was such that he was sometimes referred to as the Godfather of Rap, a title he rejected.

"If there was any individual initiative that I was responsible for, it might have been that there was music in certain poems of mine, with complete progression and repeating 'hooks,' which made them more like songs than just recitations with percussion," he wrote in the introduction to his 1990 collection of poems, "Now and Then."

He referred to his signature mix of percussion, politics and performed poetry as bluesology or Third World music. But then he said it was simply "black music or black American music."

"Because Black Americans are now a tremendously diverse essence of all the places we've come from and the music and rhythms we brought with us," he wrote.

Scott-Heron followed up "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" with more than a dozen albums, initially collaborating with musician Brian Jackson. His most recent album was "I'm New Here," which he began recording in 2007 and which was released in 2010.

Before turning to music, he was a novelist, at age 19, with the publication of "The Vulture," a murder mystery.

He also was the author of "The Nigger Factory," a social satire.]

More later at latimes.com/obits

-- Associated Press

 

 

Photo: Gil Scott-Heron in 1992. Los Angeles Times

Comments

[vincent joy]

the revolution to accomplish what?

[lau macdonald]

Bless you Gil scott, gone but never forgotten ...
laurie UK.

[imaginarynumber]

The first time that I heard "the revolution will not be televised" was many years after it was released. I instantly had an insight to the events that had taken place on the other side of the Atlantic many years before I was born.

The struggle may be on going but without Gil and his ilk the world would be a much darker and colder place.

May his dreams be fulfilled one day.

My thanks to a Great Man.

[p.i.oslon]

God bless GSH!

[fran]

B-Movie is one of my favorite pieces by him... he mixed soul, funk, politics, satire, biting humor and critique so seamlessly.

It's a blessing for us that he came back into the limelight this last few years after more than a decade hiatus to leave a few gems for us and letting us peer inside him more intimately.

I was sad I missed his riveting performance at Coachella last year, and ever more so now.

Rest in power Gil.

[thomas pleasure]

Gil Scott-Heron was a heroin addict in the early 70s and a crack user in the 21st century. He was a loser that the celebrity culture likes to idolize to encourage others to follow in the same chronically addicted manner. The Revolution will not be led by losers, even though the media pretends it can.

[D Brown]

RIP to a true innovator in music and poetry. Yes @thomas pleasure he was on drugs. Just like most artists and past heroes such as Bob Dillan, John Coltrane, and President George Washington. Im trying to figure out what his drug use had to do with his message? Another dumb comment by a stupid person.