BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 1: Gil Scott-Heron is a genius.

In the day when downloading music was the cool thing to do I was behind the curve.  I always and still do like holding the physical item.  It was one day when a friend came over my house and introduced to me file sharing.  He also took me to the local electronics store and bought me an external hard drive.  It was a small hard drive compared to the ones I own now own.  I have many because this addiction has gotten worse.  It all started with that gentle nudge to file sharing, but back then I was thinking that I have all I need and if not, I will go to the local store to get it.

What was cool about file sharing was that I could find albums that would take me forever to find at the local store.  I mean why do I want to pay $40 for an import of an album when some cool person has it on the file share.  The unique thing about early file sharing was that if you browse the host who is sharing.  Once in a while I could find some odd gems with some of the people who share.  We had high speed internet that was pale compared to today, but the person who shared might have something faster.

If I got four good albums from someone I thought it was a good day.  I had my fair share of disappointments.  A great example is getting all but one song for an album and waiting to find a host who had it, or come back another day and see he or she is on and quickly grab it.  One drawback was my mother thought I was getting something that would get me in trouble with the law. I told her one day, "If they want to bust me for grabbing anything by Moby Grape, Bill Fay, an out of print Neil Young album (there was a couple) or a live show with excellent quality then come and get me."

In my time of collecting all these MP3's I had to buy more hard drive space.  When I did I would be more select on what I would download.  It did help me save some money going to the store. Once in a while I would find something that was not quite right.  These not quite right files were live music.  Early in file sharing there could be untagged MP3's that would show up now and then.  But in a great while a person who was sharing would tag even the least important file.  This one guy had live music and tagged everything.  It could have been an official release like any live album we all have or in this case a bootleg.  These bootlegs were my crumb to the cookie to find and explore more.

One day that crumb did turn into a cookie and a lot of cookies. When I went to browse the host who I was getting this music from I found a Gil Scott-Heron Live at the Bottom Line 1977 it was thirteen songs and Pre-FM broadcast.  I knew that this was as close to a soundboard show and the quality was extraordinary.  I knew a bit about Gil Scott Heron's music and had a few CD's of his, but I had one official live show and that was from 1976.  That only seventy-three minutes of music.  A full length of a CD.  This was almost two hours and most of the music.  Three of the songs on my live official Gil Scott-Heron where on this, but at much great length. When all downloaded this "bootleg" was five minutes short of two hours.  It was at that time a jaw dropping experience  to find something with such great quality and complete.

When I finished downloading the show I quickly put it on my iPod and also my external hard drive for future safe keeping.  A few years later I went to The Bottom Line to see a few shows. I have to admit the place is not like any other.  It's rich history has a lot to tell.  Seating is also small with it's capacity of only 400. It also has a few important performances.  In the past performers such as Van Morrison, Peter Gabriel Neil Young, Miles Davis, Prince and countless others.  Add Gil Scott-Heron to that list and it felt like a who's who of first rate musicians.  The shows I went to were not too shabby by any means, but like any concert venue it will always have a story to tell.  One guy I met at a Bottom Line show mentioned he was at the Gil Scott show I was talking about.  He told me it was amazing and cooled off a really hot day in the city.  I could not agree more.  This show was smoking.

In conclusion of this post I really wanted this show to be to a wider audience.  I wanted people to step into a time machine and see and hear for ourselves about a classic time in history.  Thanks to this bootleg this it can happen.  You can listen attentively and hear a classic show from 1977.  I only wish there was some video of this performance. but beggars can't be choosers.  The man who decided to let me have this show I give a big thanks.  To the early years of downloading this was a birthday and or Christmas gift.  After all this getting excited over a live unreleased show I went to check on more of his live recordings.  He had many, but the highlights were a Van Morrison from 1973 and a Stevie Wonder from 1974.

Each was the treat I loved to have in my collection and each was something that made my mind wonder where and why such great shows as these never surfaced commercially.  There will be more about Gil Scott-Heron in future post, but for now I will give out my best card and showcase an awesome live show from an amazing musician, poet and godfather of rap.  Scott-Heron was a genius beyond words and hearing this bootleg shows that in his prime he was an "A-list" performer like everyone who was great of that decade.  Worth seeking out if you can find and worth seeking a historical recording that sounds great today as it did when it was recorded four-three years ago.