Released in 1971 “Small Talk At 125th & Lenox” was the start of Gil Scott-Heron’s distinguished forty-year recording career but this album is his simplest and most hard-hitting. For the most part it features him with three percussionists performing his poetry. The rhythmic backdrop and the style of the delivery makes it more than a spoken word album. It is a classic that stands head and shoulders above similar albums of the same date. It laid the basis for Scott-Heron’s emergence as one of the leading figures of the black radical movement.
Here is the original of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ a FM radio hit which prompted the recording of the full band version better known today. The album also includes the renowned ‘Whitey On The Moon’ and the much-sampled ‘Brother’. Here are Gil Scott-Heron’s first three recordings as a singer, including the beautiful ‘Who’ll Pay Reparations On My Soul’. This debut album now reissued on CD from new 24–96 transfers and has never sounded better. The original album artwork is presented with its stark Charles Stewart photographs and the booklet contains a new essay on the album by compiler Dean Rudland.