“If you believe in peace, you gotta go to work. If you believe in the things you say, you gotta get to work.” GS-H

Revolutionaries, people dreaming, people dissatisfied and joyless–it’s time to get to work. Gil Scott-Heron is performing two nights at the Blue Note. You missed the first night but tonight he’ll be back on stage for two performances. Make it there. The scene between sets outside his first show, when people were pouring out of the club and masses of people were squeezed into lines on a small sidewalk in the West Village, had that exciting “end of winter, you have a beautiful reason to be out in the cold” electricity. Bringing together a diverse audience, Scott Heron intoxicated us with stories and songs. When he’s called a “storyteller” it’s not only a reference to the cliché artist/songwriter telling stories through songs, he literally weaves back and forth between telling a story and performing a song. The story he told before “Winter Time in America” started off with, “This is a story about when the world began. I heard it from a brother that was there.”

His one-way banter with the crowd had the appeal of a new friend telling you things you really want to know–he talked shit about critics, gave history lessons, called Tupac a genius, took a slight shot at Sarah Palin, and alluded to his drug use which has landed him in jail off-and-on through out his career. The night is about his voice though, a voice that feels rare and magical; he can sing about peace and I don’t feel like it’s trite and empty. Maybe it’s authenticated because he was down in the trenches during the civil rights movement working for the peace and equality he advocates. For one night Scott-Heron prescribed that we have joy, and being in the dark railroad club alone, and receiving his voice I left with a joy that had escaped me all day.

Gil Scott-Heron and Friends will play at the Blue Note in Manhattan Wednesday March 3rd at 8pm & 10:30 pm.