Gil Scott-Heron: Free Will [BGP]

Why you'll love it

This BGP reissue is pressed in the EU in stereo. Free Will is Gil Scott-Heron's second studio album and his second with keyboardist Brian Jackson, who wrote the music for most of the first side.

This edition

• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Gil Scott-Heron split Free Will straight down the middle, and it plays like two records sharing one sleeve. Bob Thiele produced it at RCA Studios in New York over two days in March 1972, as the follow-up to Pieces of a Man, and it became his last studio album for Flying Dutchman.

Side one is the band: the title track opens with a meditation on personal responsibility, and "The Get Out Of The Ghetto Blues," with Jackson's bluesy piano and David Spinozza's guitar, is one of Scott-Heron's best-known performances. "The Middle Of Your Day" and "Speed Kills" round it out. Side two turns into a live rap session, Jackson switching to flute over a couple of percussionists while Scott-Heron reads "The King Alfred Plan," "No Knock," "Ain't No New Thing" and "Billy Green Is Dead."

Bluebird later put it out on CD with alternate takes of eight songs, and BGP brings the original running order back to vinyl. Side two is a poetry reading with flute and congas, which is a better night out than most poetry readings we've attended.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On BGP (cat# HIQLP 023), a reissue of the 1972 album.