{"product_id":"gil-scott-heron_free-will_2022_soc","title":"FREE WILL","description":"Released in 1971, Gil Scott-Heron's second album, 'Pieces Of A Man', is a stone-cold classic and rightly considered one of the greatest albums of all time. There is a reason why a full album of songs did not appear as a follow-up. Producer Bob Thiele and Scott-Heron’s writing partner Brian Jackson had both been keen to move swiftly on with song-based material, but Scott-Heron considered himself a writer first and foremost. A new novel, The Nigger Factory, was due to be published in 1972 and he was also attending writing seminars at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Once the decision was made to pair poetry and song, sessions were booked for March 2nd and 3rd, 1972. The first session with Bernard 'Pretty' Purdie (drums), Hubert Laws (flute\/piccolo), David Spinozza (guitar), Jerry Jemmott (bass) and Brian Jackson (electric and acoustic piano) recorded the songs with Horace Ott taking care of the arrangements. The second session was dedicated to poetry, recorded with Scott-Heron, Jackson, Eddie Knowles and Charlie Sanders from their college band Black \u0026 Blues. 'Free Will' was released in 1972. The song part included the harrowing Vietnam War commentary of 'Do You Hear What They Said?', the propulsive title track and the beautiful 'The Middle Of Your Day'. The poetry side immerses you in the radical politics of the day via 'No Knock' and 'The King Alfred Plan', and concludes with his heartfelt tribute to John Coltrane '... then he wrote Meditations'. Like 'Pieces Of A Man', it is a classic and the cornerstone of any record collection. When BGP inherited the honour of looking after the Flying Dutchman legacy, we discovered that, as well as being almost unprecedented in his discovery of great talent, Bob Thiele had also recorded it impeccably. The label’s master tapes sounded exceptional and when it came to our reissue series required minimum equalisation before transferring them to disc. It is with this in mind that we embarked on a series of all-analogue remastering projects, to get the listener as close as possible to the sound captured on tape. Our first release was Gil Scott-Heron’s 'Pieces Of A Man', released in early 2023 and this second release is 'Free Will'. We took the original tape to Frank Merritt at The Carvery who transferred the audio and mastered it before cutting this new pressing himself. We then had it pressed onto 180 gram vinyl and our only wish now is that you drop the needle, sit back and go back to 1972 to enjoy Gil Scott-Heron at his peak.","brand":"Gil Scott-Heron","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55312595059032,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0898\/4943\/0360\/files\/0029667002219.jpg?v=1760402697","url":"https:\/\/vinyles.com\/en\/products\/gil-scott-heron_free-will_2022_soc","provider":"Vinyles.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}