It’s Aries season, y’all! And the month or so of the astrological sign is busy and auspicious for music history:
- DJ Premier‘s birthday was on the 21st
- Edward James “Son” House‘s birthday was on the 21st
- Damon Albarn‘s birthday was on the 23rd
- Chaka Khan‘s birthday was on the 23rd
- Aretha Franklin‘s birthday was on the 25th
- Sir Elton John‘s birthday was on the 25th
- Diana Ross‘s birthday was on the 26th
- Teddy Pendergrass‘s birthday was on the 26th
- Mariah Carey‘s birthday was on the 27th
- My birthday was on the 28th
- Tracy Chapman‘s birthday was on the 30th
- AC/DC‘s Angus Young‘s birthday was on the 31st
- Marvin Gaye‘s birthday was on the 2nd
- Muddy Waters birthday is today
It seems that I somehow forgot about the legendary Gil Scott-Heron, who was born 73 years ago on April 1. Scott-Heron is sort of a spiritual godfather to hip-hop and neo soul — and cognoscenti (including yours truly) can make a fair argument that acts like Public Enemy, Common, Talib Kweli and Mos Def, a.k.a Yasin Bey are indebted to his work, which threw together spoken word poetry, jazz, the blues, soul and rock in a difficult to pigeonhole mix. And although he left us 11 years ago, his work is still an incisive look at race in America and globally that’s still unnervingly relevant.