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the insider one daily report


Thursday, July 12, 2001

It Breaks Your Heart

Neumu's Michael Goldberg writes: The visionary poet/musician/activist Gil Scott-Heron is apparently in a bad way, and it makes me feel sad. Scott-Heron was in court the other day agreeing to enter a drug treatment program rather than go to prison. But that's not the sad part. The sad part is that Scott-Heron continues to deny that he has a drug problem. "Most of the people who comment, I've never smoked a joint with," he told the Times. He says he pleaded guilty to felony possession of cocaine so he could fulfill touring commitments. "I had to say what I had to say to go where I needed to go," he said. I have no idea if Scott-Heron has a drug problem. The New York Times seems to believe he does. "His body, if nothing else, would seem to give him away," wrote Amy Waldman. "His cheeks are sunken, many of his teeth gone, his physique emaciated, his deep rumbling voice sometimes slurring into unintelligibility." His half-brother Denis Heron said, "I guess we were hoping he would hit bottom, and we could jump in. But he's a survivor. He's learned how to hover right above crashing." I've seen drugs fuck up a lot of musicians over the years. Drugs destroyed Rick James, who at one point in time was an amazing performer and recording artist. Street Songs is a classic funk/soul album. But freebasing led him to jail, and though he's since cleaned up, his moment as an artist connecting with the times is probably past. Drugs messed up Jerry Garcia and George Clinton and Sly Stone and Brian Wilson and Keith Richards and Arthur Lee. But what I want to know is, before the drugs messed them up, did they help those artists and many others to create the music that we love so much? Alcohol and drugs certainly fueled some of the great Rolling Stones recordings. Brian Wilson was high during the making of his masterpiece, Pet Sounds, and Rick James was smoking pot and snorting coke during the Street Songs sessions. There were plenty of drugs in the English, New York and L.A. punk scenes of the '70s and early '80s — scenes that produced lots of great music — and the same was true of Seattle in the late '80s and early '90s. There is no formula that guarantees great art. Is it possible to separate whatever was going on in terms of drugs and/or alcohol and the sessions that produced great albums by Hendrix, The Doors and The Stooges? Or the work of Nick Cave, the New York Dolls and Nirvana? I really don't know the answer. I do know that, over time, whatever inspiration the drugs may have provided fades, and those who continue to use became a shell of who they once were. I know that it's been a long time since Gil Scott-Heron made a new album, and longer still since he's recorded work that's made me sit up and pay attention. Perhaps that's just the way things would have gone, drugs or no drugs. All the same, reading about him in the Times, my heart felt heavy. Remember, this is the man who wrote "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." It breaks your heart, it really does.

Note: The "Captured" section of Neumu, featuring one of my photographs each week, is now live. We've also added the refined "44.1 kHz" album review archive to Neumu. Just use the "Archival" link at the far right of the nav bar at the top of every page to reach it. There are currently over 170 reviews in the archive, and we're adding new reviews daily. Don't forget that you need to use Explorer to properly experience Neumu.

The InsiderOne Daily Report appears weekdays at 9 AM PST, except when it doesn't.

by Michael Goldberg



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