Audio Files

By GINA VIVINETTO

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 4, 2001

In honor of Black History Month, let's listen again to some classic albums by black artists, all reissued with bonus tracks, in February.

MARVIN GAYE, WHAT'S GOING ON, DELUXE EDITION (MOTOWN/UME) -- What's Going On, Marvin Gaye's 1971 masterpiece, is more an epic song cycle than an album. It's the artist's State of the Union, if you will, with the weary 32-year-old crooner stepping back in awe, addressing the Vietnam War, environmental issues, race relations and spirituality.

This month marks What's Going On's 30th anniversary with a two-disc set featuring the album proper and two hours of unreleased recordings, including live cuts, alternate mixes and instrumental versions.

What's Going On is a spiritual journey, at once exploring world-wide concerns as well as Gaye's personal demons.

Flyin' High In the Friendly Sky is undoubtedly a chronicle of Gaye's drug dependency, which, unfortunately, was to worsen in the following decade:

"I know I'm hooked," Gaye directly confesses to God, berating himself for being "so stupid minded" and hanging around with the "the boy who makes slaves out of men," a line that works on several levels. The track is one of Gaye's most candid and profound.

Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) is a turgid, rage-filled account of ghetto life. The song's despondent "This ain't livin' " refrain breaks hearts.

Gaye was careful to temper his insight and provocation with appealing music, which keeps What's Going On from getting unbearably heavy. Just the opposite: It's a powerful, uplifting album. Musically, the vibe is organic, loose, loaded with percussion, strings and rich, buttery flutes. Songs flow into each other. The album's influence and echo are heard in modern artists such as D'Angelo and Me'Shell Ndegeocello.

The gifts What's Going On bestowed also include the hits Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) and the title track, forever in pop's canon. Despite the references to long hair and hippiedom, both songs remain relevant -- which, when you think about it, is a sad commentary on our world three decades later. Grade: A.

-- GINA VIVINETTO, Times pop music critic

DIANA & MARVIN (MOTOWN/UNI) This 1973 album paired two of Motown's hottest solo superstars -- Diana Ross had just been nominated for an Oscar for the title role in Lady Sings the Blues and Marvin Gaye was celebrating the huge success of his album Let's Get It On. Their joining together made for one big dollop of gooey romance. (Flash: Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day. Sheesh, do I have to spell it out for you?)

Only this dynamite duo could take a sappy, cloying tune like You Are Everything and give it a reason to live. The Ashford & Simpson penned tunes are the real winners -- My Mistake (Was to Love You) and Just Say, Just Say. Wilson Pickett's Don't Knock My Love is also a peppy winner.

This digitally remastered reissue features tasty bonus cuts, including another Ashford & Simpson ditty, rare photos and a new essay in the liner notes.

Gaye bring out the best in Ross. We've never heard her so unpretentious, so un-diva-like. These two clicked. Somebody call the lab, 'cause all the chemistry's right here. Grade: B+

-- G.V.

GIL SCOTT-HERON AND BRIAN JACKSON, IT'S YOUR WORLD (TVT) Gil Scott-Heron invented rap. If you don't believe me consult Mos Def, Common, Chuck D., or any other thinking, hip-hopping rabble rouser. (Chuck didn't come up with that "The revolution will not be televised," bit on his own.) They give props to elder statesman Scott-Heron, who turns 52 this year. With his politically charged, provocative street poetry set to groovy, funky music, Scott-Heron and 1970s colleagues such as the Last Poets created a genre: Spoken words plus music equal power.

The TVT label has been remastering and reissuing Scott-Heron's most important records since last year, including bonus tracks and exciting liner notes by Scott-Heron himself.

Growing up in the Bronx, Scott-Heron took to writing at an early age, completing his first poetry chapbook when he was just 13. Later, he ditched college to complete a critically acclaimed novel. But music called to him, allowing Scott-Heron to deliver his aggressive, sharp commentary on race relations and pop culture in a performance setting. He became a sort of sage to the urban set.

Originally released as a double live album in 1976, It's Your World contains precious live versions of classics such as The Bottle; Home Is Where the Hatred Is, a chronicle of life as a junkie in the ghetto; and Trane, an ode to jazz saxophone legend John Coltrane, with music by Trane's widow, Alice.

The dynamic Midnight Band, full of sax and flute and congas, gives each song juice. Scott-Heron scored several hits on the R&B charts way back then, but remains largely an underground presence. Let's hope these reissues introduce him to the audience he deserves. Grade A.

-- G.V.

GIL SCOTT-HERON, THE MIND OF GIL SCOTT-HERON (TVT) Originally released in 1978, The Mind Of Gil Scott-Heron is a collection of some of Scott-Heron's most incendiary prose and poetry-over-music pieces, including the hilarious and haunting H20 Gate Blues, a delicious send-up of the Nixon administration.

Scott-Heron name-drops Strom Thurmond and Ronald Reagan -- this is 1978 -- and it's all still so amazingly apropos, it's scary.

Wickedly funny, with a voice that is syrupy and smooth, Scott-Heron's delivery is enchanting. His are rants, sure, but his outrage is filled with so much bemusement that the tirades are as funny as they are fierce.

Bonus: the 1990 track Space Shuttle, featuring The Jam's Paul Weller on keyboards. Grade A.

-- G.V.

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