Gil Scott-Heron/Brian Jackson: Winter In America [CULTURE FACTORY]

Why you'll love it

This Culture Factory reissue comes with an obi strip. Winter In America reached No. 6 on Billboard's jazz albums chart and stayed there 40 weeks, and "The Bottle" became a long-running underground hit.

This edition

• Obi strip
• Limited edition

About the album

Some records get famous on the radio; this one got famous by word of mouth, one copy passed hand to hand at a time. Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson cut Winter In America in a few days in September and October 1973 at D&B Sound in Silver Spring, Maryland, with Danny Bowens on bass and Bob Adams on drums, and put it out on the musician-run Strata-East label in 1974.

Jackson's electric piano and flute set the mood, warm and a little wintry, and Scott-Heron moves between singing and his half-spoken poetry. "The Bottle" is the one everybody knows, a rolling, flute-led groove about life on the corner. "Rivers of My Fathers" stretches out over eight minutes, "A Very Precious Time" and "Your Daddy Loves You" are as tender as anything either man wrote, and "H2Ogate Blues" is a long, sly spoken piece set to a blues.

By 1990 it had sold more than 300,000 copies, and Uncut's Barney Hoskyns called it a masterwork. Neo-soul and hip hop both owe it a debt, and plenty of producers have spent decades trying to make an electric piano sound this cozy in a cold room.

Also at Kops: more Gil Scott-Heron on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Culture Factory / Strata-East (cat# 783 889), a reissue of the 1974 album.