Gil Scott-Heron
Photo Credit: Mischa Richter
In a musical career spanning five decades, from Small Talk at 125th and Lenox to I’m New Here, Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011) released twenty albums and many seminal singles including ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,’ ‘Home Is Where the Hatred Is,’ ‘Winter in America,’ ‘B Movie,’ ‘Johannesburg,’ and ‘Lady Day and John Coltrane.’ He was also the author of three previous books: two novels, The Vulture and The Nigger Factory and Now and Then: The Poems of Gil Scott- Heron.
The Last Holiday
‘Leave it to Scott-Heron to save some of his best for last … He’s a real writer, a word man, and [The Last Holiday] is as wriggling and vital in its way as Bob Dylan’s Chronicles: Volume One’ New York Times
“Words have been important to me for as long as I can remember. Their sound, their construction, their origins”
Canongate’s own Jamie Byng interview’s Gil Scott-Heron in 2010. This year would have marked Gil’s 68th birthday. His posthumously published, indelible memoir The Last Holiday is now a Canon.