Name: The Last Holiday
ISBN: 9780802194435

Gil Scott-Heron

In a musical career spanning five decades, from Small Talk at a 125th and Lenox (1970) to I’m New Year (2010), Gil Scott-Heron (1949–2011) released twenty albums and many seminal singles including "The Revolution Will Not be Televised," "Home is Where the Hatred Is," "Winter in America," "B Movie" "Johannesburg" and "Lady Day and John Coltrane." He was also the author of three previous books—two novels, The Vulture (1970) and The Nigger Factory (1972) and Now and Then, The Poems of Gil Scott-Heron.

A Memoir

The Last Holiday

'Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream. And Stevie Wonder had a dream. This is a book about dreams.'In the autumn of 1980, Stevie Wonder invited Gil Scott-Heron to join him on a forty-one-city tour across America, ending in Washing­ton in January 1981, to gather popular support for the creation of a holiday in honour of the great civil-rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. Scott-Heron uses this history-making tour as the backbone of his fas­cinating memoir. Raised by his grandmother in Jackson, Tennessee, Scott-Heron's journey from humble beginnings to becoming one of the most uncompromising and influential musicians and songwriters of his generation is a remarkable one. Politically savvy and savagely satirical, socially conscious and tender-hearted, Gil Scott-Heron has been called the godfather of rap, and his unexpected death in May 2011 marked the loss of one of the world's most vocal and articulate artists. Chuck D of Public Enemy said of Scott-Heron, 'we do what we do and who we do because of you' and Eminem added, 'Scott-Heron influenced all of hip-hop'. And as Sarah Silverman said, "he mirrored ugliness with beauty, audacity, and valour'.A compelling testament to Gil Scott-Heron's career and achievements, The Last Holiday is also highly personal account of his growing up in the South and a touching portrait of Stevie Wonder, and it is full of Scott-Heron's keen insights into the music industry, the civil rights movement, modern America, governmental hypocrisy and our wider place in the world.

Zubaer

I really enjoyed about 2/3 of this book. There are some great stories, life lessons, and inspirational moments throughout. There's also a large amount of confusing, irrelevant, unnecessary information that gets randomly thrown at you every once in a while. Thankfully, the chapters are short, and often start on a new subject with each one, so it's not really that difficult to read.

The Last Holiday A Memoir

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