An excerpt from Gil Scott-Heron's memoir, printed in yesterday's Observer, which focuses on the campaign to have MLK's birthday recognised as a national holiday, and in which Gil pays tribute to Stevie Wonder's indomitable efforts towards that end. Hope you're not all feeling too broke after the Holiday season, as it looks like the book's going to be essential reading!

Memphis, Tennessee was only 90 miles west of Jackson, my childhood home. But Memphis was as far away as the north pole in my mind. The history that we were given about it was done in light pencil that hopscotched its way to a semi-solid landing with Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sun Records considered itself the fuse that lit the 1950s with Elvis and rock'n'roll. With Carla and Rufus Thomas and Otis Redding, Stax Records brought blues to the hit parade with hooks and horns and a solid beat, evolving into Al Green and Willie Mitchell. Memphis meant music.

And unless you stop to think for a minute, you might forget that it was in Memphis that Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was shot and killed on a motel balcony on 4 April 1968. Stevie Wonder did not forget. In 1980, Stevie joined with the members of the Black Caucus in the US congress to speak out for the need to honour the day King was born, to make his birthday a national holiday.

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Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk...uther-king

There's a further chapter excerpted on the publisher's website, but that seems to be down at the moment. Shame, because what makes that really special is a great spoken-word cut of the material by Gil, recorded by Malcolm Cecil some years ago, which has been uploaded as part of the publicity for the book. I'll check and see if it reappears and post it if it does.

One more thing: a thoughtful content editor at Guardian.co.uk has put a link in the article to the documentary Hotter Than July, broadcast shortly after the tour, which I had no idea was on YT. Here it is -- People may have already caught it (I haven't had a chance to watch it in full yet), but, for anyone who hasn't, it looks like a fantastic document of the tour and the concert in Washington.

Brotha' Gil