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17th Street
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Must Be Something
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The Bottle
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Album: It’s Your World (1976)
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The year was 1976. America was reveling in its bicentennial celebration. I was five, and don’t remember a thing. But my pop culture-filtered nostalgia imagines 1976 as the precipice between free love optimism and cocaine-fueled excess.
It’s Your World — a (mostly) live double-LP credited to Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson — was recorded just a couple of days before the July 4th holiday. While America at large was patting itself on the back, Gil was giving voice to those Americans who felt the country wasn’t living up to the Declaration of Independence’s key phrase, “All men are created equal.”
Gil Scott-Heron is so closely associated with his politics that it’s easy to forget the musicality apparent in his songs. Though Gil penned many of his own tunes, Brian Jackson contributed many of the duo’s finest compositions, and was the primary keys player.
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