This is a cool doco, featuring legendary bluesologist, musician and poet Gil Scott Heron with his collaborator Brian Jackson, his contemporaries and followers. Directed by Don Letts in 2003 for the BBC.
There's even some great live footage of when Gil and his band opened for Stevie Wonder on the tour where Stevie campaigned to make Martin Luther King Jr's birthday a national holiday. Gil joined Stevie onstage every night to close the show with Wonder's song Happy Birthday, about MLK.
Heron's book The Last Holiday (published posthumously in 2012) talks about that tour - he joined to replace Bob Marley, who was ill.
The Guardian: "Scott-Heron's original intention was to produce a narrative in homage to Stevie Wonder's crucial role in pressing for the institution of Martin Luther King Day to be established – which finally happened in 1983. Wonder's 41-city tour across the US to promote his Hotter than July album, which features the irrepressible "Happy Birthday", was a pivotal point in the campaign. Scott-Heron opened each show of Wonder's tour, which culminated with an awe-inspiring concert and rally in January 1981 at the spot in Washington DC where King delivered his "I have a dream" speech."
More reading: Still taking the rap - Don Letts on his doco on Gil Scott Heron (Guardian, 2003)
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