Gil Scott-Heron - Hold Onto Your Dreams (Live (Remastered) (2022) '2022

Tracks list

Tracklist:

1. Fast Lane (Live Remastered) (04:51)
2. Washington, D.C. (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (04:33)
3. Winter In America (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (07:58)
4. Gil Stage Announcement 1 (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (01:10)
5. Legend In His Own Mind (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (05:23)
6. Gil Stage Announcement 2 (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (00:44)
7. Shut 'Em Down (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (06:28)
8. First Minute Of A New Day (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (04:59)
9. Gil Stage Announcement 3 (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (01:12)
10. No Exit (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (04:22)
11. Gil Stage Announcement 4 (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (00:33)
12. Blue Collar (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (06:12)
13. Gil Stage Announcement 5 (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (01:13)
14. Explanations (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (04:28)
15. Gil Stage Announcement 6 (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (01:08)
16. Alien (Hold Onto Your Dreams) [Live] (Remastered) (Live Remastered) (05:32)
17. Gil Stage Announcement 7 (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (01:41)
18. Johannesburg (Live) [Remastered] (Live Remastered) (07:29)


 moreBorn in Chicago but transplanted to Tennessee in his early years,
Scott-Heron spent most of his high school years in the Bronx, where he learned
firsthand many of the experiences that later made up his songwriting material.
He had begun writing before reaching his teenage years, however, and completed
his first volume of poetry at the age of 13. Though he attended college in
Pennsylvania, he dropped out after one year to concentrate on his writing career
and earned plaudits for his novel The Vulture.

Encouraged at the end of the '60s to begin recording by legendary jazz producer
Bob Thiele -- who had worked with every major jazz great from Louis Armstrong to
John Coltrane -- Scott-Heron released his 1970 debut, Small Talk at 125th and
Lenox, inspired by a volume of poetry of the same name. After recording for
Thiele's Flying Dutchman Records until the mid-'70s, he signed to Arista soon
after and found success on the R&B charts. Though his jazz-based work of the
early '70s was tempered by a slicker disco-inspired production, Scott-Heron's
message was as clear as ever on the Top 30 single "Johannesburg" and the number
15 hit "Angel Dust." Silent for almost a decade, the proto-rapper returned to
recording with the release of his 1984 single "Re-Ron" in the mid-'90s, with a
message for the gangsta rappers who had come in his wake; Scott-Heron's 1994
album Spirits began with "Message to the Messengers," pointed squarely at the
rappers whose influence -- positive or negative -- meant much to the kids in the
'90s.

In a touching bit of irony that he himself was quick to joke about, Gil
Scott-Heron was born on April Fool's Day 1949 in Chicago, the son of a Jamaican
professional soccer player (who spent time playing for Glasgow Celtic) and a
college-graduate mother who worked as a librarian. His parents divorced early in
his life, and Scott-Heron was sent to live with his grandmother in Lincoln,
Tennessee. Learning musical and literary instruction from her, Scott-Heron also
learned about prejudice firsthand: he was one of three children picked to
integrate an elementary school in nearby Jackson. The abuse proved too much to
bear, however, and the eighth grader was sent to New York to live with his
mother, first in the Bronx and later in the Hispanic neighborhood of Chelsea.

Though Scott-Heron's experiences in Tennessee must have been difficult, they
proved to be the seed of his writing career, as his first volume of poetry was
written around that time. His education in the New York City school system also
proved beneficial, introducing the youth to the work of Harlem Renaissance poet
Langston Hughes and LeRoi Jones. After publishing a novel called The Vulture in
1968, Scott-Heron applied to Pennsylvania's Lincoln University. Though he spent
less than one year there, it was enough time to meet Brian Jackson, a similarly
minded musician who would later become a crucial collaborator and integral part
of Scott-Heron's band. Given a bit of exposure -- mostly in magazines like
Essence, which called The Vulture "a strong start for a writer with important
things to say" -- Scott-Heron met up with Bob Thiele and was encouraged to begin
a music career, reading selections from his book of poetry Small Talk at 125th &
Lennox while Thiele recorded a collective of jazz and funk musicians, including
bassist Ron Carter, drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, Hubert Laws on flute and
alto saxophone, and percussionists Eddie Knowles and Charlie Saunders;
Scott-Heron also recruited Jackson to play on the record as pianist. Small
Talk's most important track was "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," an
aggressive polemic against the major media and white America's ignorance of
increasingly deteriorating conditions in the inner cities. Scott-Heron's second
LP, 1971's Pieces of a Man, expanded his range, featuring songs such as the
title track and "Lady Day and John Coltrane," which offered a more
straight-ahead approach to song structure (if not content).

The following year's Free Will was his last album for Flying Dutchman, however;
after a dispute with the label, Scott-Heron recorded Winter in America for
Strata East, then moved to Arista in 1975. As the first artist signed to Clive
Davis' new label, much was riding on Scott-Heron to deliver first-rate material
with a chance at the charts. Thanks to a more focused push, Scott-Heron's
"Johannesburg" reached number 29 on the R&B charts in 1975. Important to
Scott-Heron's success on his first two albums for Arista (First Minute of a New
Day and From South Africa to South Carolina) was the influence of keyboardist
and collaborator Jackson, co-billed on both LPs and the de facto leader of
Scott-Heron's Midnight Band.

Jackson, however, had left by 1978, leaving the musical direction of
Scott-Heron's career in the capable hands of producer Malcolm Cecil, a veteran
who had midwifed the funkier direction of the Isley Brothers and Stevie Wonder
earlier in the decade. The first single recorded with Cecil, "The Bottle,"
became Scott-Heron's biggest hit yet, peaking at number 15 on the R&B charts,
though he still made no waves on the pop charts. Producer Nile Rodgers of Chic
also helped on production during the '80s, when Scott-Heron's political attack
grew even more fervent with a new target, President Ronald Reagan. (Several
singles, including the R&B hits "B Movie" and "Re-Ron," were specifically
directed at the President's conservative policies.) By 1985, however,
Scott-Heron had been dropped by Arista, just after the release of The Best of
Gil Scott-Heron. Though he continued to tour around the world, Scott-Heron chose
to discontinue recording. He did return in 1993, though, with a contract for TVT
Records and the album Spirits. For well over a decade, Scott-Heron was mostly
inactive, held back by a series of drug possession charges. He began performing
semi-regularly in 2007, and one year later, announced that he was HIV-positive.
In 2005, Scott-Heron returned to the studio. He met XL Recordings label boss
Richard Russell in 2007 and signed to the label. They continued working together
until early 2011, when the acclaimed I'm New Here was released. In February of
2011, Scott-Heron and Jamie xx issued a remixed version of the album, entitled
We're New Here. Later that year, Scott-Heron died in a New York hospital, just
after returning from a set of live dates in Europe.

On February 7 of 2020, XL celebrated the tenth anniversary of I'm New Here (to
the day) with a limited-edition, expanded version. In addition to the original
album, the anniversary edition included a pair of unreleased tracks: a cover of
Richie Havens' "Handsome Johnny" and the previously unheard Scott-Heron song
"King Henry IV." Also included in the multi-disc package was a selection of
other recordings from the original sessions previously available on a vinyl-only
deluxe version. On the same day, XL Recordings also issued Makaya McCraven's
We're New Again: A Reimagining. Titled after the Jamie xx remix set, the
celebrated Chicago drummer, conceptualist, and composer offered his own
interpretation of Scott-Heron's final album. ~ John Bush

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