| Pieces of a Man | ||||
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| Studio album by Gil Scott-Heron | ||||
| Released | 1971 | |||
| Recorded | April 19–20, 1971 RCA Studios (New York, New York) |
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| Genre | Soul, jazz-funk, jazz | |||
| Length | 47:56 | |||
| Label | Flying Dutchman/RCA FD-10143 |
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| Producer | Bob Thiele | |||
| Gil Scott-Heron chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Pieces of a Man | ||||
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Pieces of a Man is the debut studio album of American recording artist Gil Scott-Heron, released in 1971 in stereo format on Flying Dutchman Records in the United States. It was also issued in the United Kingdom on Philips Records in 1972. Recording sessions for the album took place at RCA Studios in New York City on April 19 and 20 in 1971. The album serves as the follow-up to Scott-Heron's live debut album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (1970), and it features compositions by Scott-Heron that were recorded in a more conventional song structure rather than the spoken word style of his previous work.
The album marked the first of several future collaborations by Scott-Heron with musician Brian Jackson. It is one of Scott-Heron's most critically acclaimed albums and one of the Flying Dutchman label's best-selling LP's. Earning modest success upon its release, Pieces of a Man has since received retrospective notice and praise from critics. Music writers have noted Scott-Heron's and Jackson's musical fusion of soul, jazz-funk, and proto-rap styles on the album and its influence on subsequent dance and hip hop music. The album was reissued on compact disc by RCA Records in 1993.
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Pieces of a Man was recorded at RCA Studios in New York City on April 19 and 20 in 1971.[1] The album features Gil Scott-Heron exercising his singing abilities in contrast to his previous work with poetry. It also contains more conventional song structures than the loose, spoken-word feel of Small Talk.[2] The album's first four tracks were written by Scott-Heron, and the last seven tracks were co-written by Scott-Heron and keyboardist Brian Jackson, who backs Scott-Heron with Pretty Purdie & the Playboys.[1] The music of the album is rooted in the blues and jazz influences to which Scott-Heron referred to as "bluesology, the science of how things feel."[3] Characteristics of this diverse blend are mellow instrumentation, jazzy vocals and free jazz arrangements, which Scott-Heron would revisit with Brian Jackson on their collaboration album Winter in America (1974).
On the jazz elements of Pieces of a Man, music critic Vince Aletti wrote, "the songs have a loose, unanchored quality that sets them apart from both R&B and rock work. Scott-Heron sings straight-out, with an ache in his voice that conveys pain, bitterness and tenderness with equal grace and, in most cases, subtlety. Frequently the nature of the jazz backing is so free that the vocals take on an independent, almost a cappella feeling which Scott-Heron carries off surprisingly well."[2] Uncut writes that "Heron adopts his trademark jazz-funk sound, underpinned by the great Ron Carter on bass, with Hubert Laws' flute fluttering about like an elusive bird of paradise".[4] Sputnikmusic's Nick Butler notes its latter eight songs as "in line with the soul of the very early '70s - think a Curtis that replaces an orchestra with a chamber band, or a What's Going On that replaces head-in-the-clouds wistfulness with earthy indignation, or a There's A Riot Goin' On without the drugs".[5]
Most evident of the material of Pieces of a Man to feature Gil Scott-Heron's unique and diverse sound is the high tempo ballad "Lady Day and John Coltrane", written by Scott-Heron in honor of the influential jazz musicians Billie Holiday and John Coltrane. In reference to their music, Scott-Heron's lyrics discuss how music can rid people of the personal problems of alienation and existentialism in the modern world.[6] The album features two of Scott-Heron's most well-known songs, "Home Is Where the Hatred Is", later a hit for singer R&B singer Esther Phillips, and the classic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", which was originally featured on his debut album Small Talk in spoken word form. "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" is a melodic, somber composition of the narrator's dangerous and hopeless environment, presumably of the ghetto, and how its effects take a toll on him. Scott-Heron's lyrics demonstrate these themes of social disillusionment and hopelessness in the first verse and the chorus.[7]
In contrast to most of the songs' lyrical content and themes on Pieces of a Man, "Save the Children" and "I Think I’ll Call It Morning" are both dedications to joy, happiness and freedom, and demonstrate Gil Scott-Heron's rare lyrical optimism on the album. The title track, described by journalist and music writer Vince Alleti as the album's best song, is a lyrically-cinematic account of a man's breakdown after losing his job as witnessed by his son.[2] Scott-Heron's lyricism on the album has been acclaimed by critics, as the lyrics for "Pieces of a Man" received praise for its empathetic narration.[2][7]
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The album's opening track, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", is a proto-rap track with lyricism criticizing the United States government and mass media. Considered a classic in the rap genre, the song features many political references, unadorned arrangements, pounding bass lines and stripped-down drumbeats.[8] The song's structure and musical formula would later influence the blueprint of modern hip hop. Because of the song's spoken word style and critical overtones, it has often been referred to as the birth of rap.[7][9]
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [8] |
| BBC Online | (favorable)[10] |
| Billboard | [11] |
| Ebony | (favorable)[12] |
| The Guardian | [13] |
| Melody Maker | [14] |
| Rolling Stone | (favorable)[2] |
| Sputnikmusic | (3.5/5)[5] |
| Uncut | [4] |
| Virgin Encyclopedia | [7] |
The album was released in 1971 in only stereo format on Flying Dutchman Records in the United States and in 1972 on Philips Records in the United Kingdom.[15][16] Pieces of a Man fared better commercially than Scott-Heron's live debut album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. Sales began to increase two years after its release, following Scott-Heron's and Jackson's departure from Flying Dutchman Records to the Strata-East label prior to recording Winter in America (1974).[17] Pieces of a Man entered the Top Jazz Albums chart on June 2, 1973.[17] The album peaked at number 25 on the chart and remained on the chart for six weeks until July 7, 1973.[17] "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" was released as a radio single with "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" as the b-side. However, it did not chart.[8] Pieces of a Man was later reissued in the United States in 1993 on compact disc by RCA Records.[18]
Initially, Pieces of a Man received little critical attention, with the exception of the critical praise it received from Rolling Stone. Later, the album gained much critical acclaim, as it was praised for Scott-Heron's lyrical artistry and political awareness, and for its influence on modern hip hop.[8] Despite little mainstream success or critical notice during the time of its release, music journalist Vince Aletti of Rolling Stone praised the album in a July 1972 article, stating "Here is an album that needs discovering. It's strong, deeply soulful and possessed of that rare and wonderful quality in this time of hollow, obligatory "relevance" – intelligence.... the material is tough and real, "relevant" while avoiding, on the one hand, empty cliche and, on the other, fierce rhetoric, its own kind of cliche.... It may not be easy to find, but it's an involving, important album (especially so because of its successful and accessible use of jazz) and it's worth looking for."[2]
Pieces of a Man received stronger retrospective reviews from music critics. Music historian Piero Scaruffi was favorable of Jackson's and Scott-Heron's style of music, as he said, "The duo's Miles Davis-inspired fusion of jazz, funk and rock, and Scott-Heron's Phil Ochs-inspired agit-prop lyrics reached maturity on Pieces of a Man."[19] Adam Sweeting of The Guardian praised the album in an August 2004 article, calling it a "pioneering mix of politics, protest and proto-rap poetry, set to a musical jazz-funk hybrid."[13] Despite noting that "Save the Children" is relatively "atrocious" to the "stunning" opening track, Nick Butler of Sputnikmusic called Pieces of a Man "a seriously solid soul record" and commented that it is "smooth in its execution, but it's stern and solid in its message".[5] Butler concluded that "if you take the last 8 tracks here as an album on their own, they stand up to anything Marvin or Sly put out during the same period".[5] BBC Online described Pieces of a Man as a "great example of his lyrical prowess and perfectly showcases the depths of his vocal talent."[10]
The album has earned a larger legacy based on its containment of the influential proto-rap song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". In a 1998 interview with the Houston Press, Scott-Heron discussed how much of the album was overshadowed by the controversial song and the social-consciousness displayed:
[It] was the only political piece [on the album].... Very few people heard 'Save the Children', 'Lady Day and John Coltrane' or 'I Think I Call It Morning'. They just missed the point. The point became one of the 11 pieces. The least inventive one on the album was the one that was the most heralded.... Maybe people were intimidated by the things that we felt were normal to comment on because they were part of our lives.... To ignore part of your life and not speak on it because it might intimidate somebody is not to be very mature.[9]—Gil Scott-Heron
In a review of the album, Nick Dedina of Rhapsody noted the album's influence on modern music forms, stating "Dance and hip-hop have borrowed (or stolen) so much from this album that it's easy to forget how original Scott-Heron's mix of soul, jazz, and pre-rap once was."[20] In 1996, radio station WXPN ranked Pieces of a Man number 100 on its list of The 100 Most Progressive Albums, and in 2005 it was included in Blow Up's list of The 600 Essential Albums.[21] Some of the recordings featured on the album, along with other Gil Scott-Heron compositions, would later be sampled by several rappers and hip hop groups,[22] while the blend of sound and instrumentation featured on Pieces of a Man later inspired many neo-soul artists in the 1990s.[23]
| Side one | |||||||||
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| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | ||||||
| 1. | "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" | Gil Scott-Heron | 2:59 | ||||||
| 2. | "Save the Children" | Scott-Heron | 4:55 | ||||||
| 3. | "Lady Day and John Coltrane" | Scott-Heron | 3:10 | ||||||
| 4. | "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" | Scott-Heron | 3:15 | ||||||
| 5. | "When You Are Who You Are" | Scott-Heron, Brian Jackson | 3:01 | ||||||
| 6. | "I Think I'll Call It Morning" | Scott-Heron, Jackson | 3:45 | ||||||
| Side two | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | ||||||
| 7. | "Pieces of a Man" | Scott-Heron, Jackson | 4:22 | ||||||
| 8. | "A Sign of the Ages" | Scott-Heron, Jackson | 4:05 | ||||||
| 9. | "Or Down You Fall" | Scott-Heron, Jackson | 3:08 | ||||||
| 10. | "The Needle's Eye" | Scott-Heron, Jackson | 4:01 | ||||||
| 11. | "The Prisoner" | Scott-Heron, Jackson | 8:39 | ||||||
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U.S. Billboard Music Charts (North America) – Pieces of a Man
The information regarding sampling of songs from Pieces of a Man is adapted from TheBreaks.com.[24]
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