| "George Jackson" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Bob Dylan | ||||
| from the album Masterpieces | ||||
| A-side | George Jackson (Big Band version) | |||
| B-side | George Jackson (Acoustic version) | |||
| Released | November 12, 1971 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | Columbia Studio B, New York City: November 4, 1971 | |||
| Genre | Protest Song | |||
| Length | 5:38 (Big Band version) / 3:37 (Acoustic version) | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Writer(s) | Bob Dylan | |||
| Producer | Bob Dylan | |||
| Bob Dylan discography chronology | ||||
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"George Jackson" is a song by Bob Dylan, written in 1971, in tribute to the Black Panther leader, George Jackson, who had been recently shot and killed by guards at San Quentin Prison on August 21, 1971, an event that indirectly provoked the Attica Prison riot. Dylan's lyrics clearly identify the George Jackson of his song with the Black Panther leader by citing biographical details such as his being "sent [...] off to prison / For a seventy-dollar robbery" where "They [...] shot him through the head".[1]
Dylan recorded the song on November 4, 1971,[2] and it was quickly released as a 45 rpm single, Columbia 4-45516, on November 12, 1971.[3] The single consisted of a "Big Band version" of the song on Side A and an "Acoustic version" on Side B.[4]
The single reached number 33 on the Billboard charts.[5] The "Big Band version" was later included on the 1978 album Masterpieces, released in Japan and Australia. Both versions are currently available on iTunes as part of Bob Dylan: The Collection.[6] This package was removed from iTunes in December of 2009.
Considered within the chronology of Dylan's work, the song "George Jackson" is of special significance, because, along with the single "Watching the River Flow," it represents the only wholly new work to appear from Dylan in the years 1971-72, the period between the albums New Morning (1970) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). From the time of the appearance of his first album in 1962 until the 1990s, this was the longest period that Dylan would go without releasing an album of new material (although he made several new recordings of older songs to be released for the first time in a Dylan performance on 1971's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II). Along with the speed with which the song was written, recorded and released following the death of Jackson, its appearance in an otherwise creatively fallow period (as implied by the lyrics of "Watching the River Flow"[7]) suggests that Dylan was passionately motivated by this subject.
The song was covered by Steel Pulse on their 2004 album, African Holocaust, which also included an updated version of their own song 'Uncle George', which was also in tribute to George Jackson.
Big Band Version:
Acoustic Version:
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