OK, are we seriously maintaining that Bob Dylan never did drugs? That's patently absurd.

Maybe Heroin and Jackson can jam together wherever they ended up !

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Dylan never did drugs it was a publicity stunt strictly for business purposes to lure the masses so he would look cool. Dylan was to smart for that. After all he even changed his given birth name to "transform" himself for the part of an apple pie folk rocker. But this guy Heron at 62 seems to be too old for the inner-city hip-hop and drug scene. Oh wel I guess they go hand in hand.

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The sad ramblings from the talentless about the talented.

Gil was no role model, but like many of the other finest musicians, take Dylan for instance, another admitted heroin user, he never strove to be one. He simply wanted to craft what he wanted considered an important message into beautiful music, and in doing so found fans the world-over. Gil wouldn't advocate that everyone should walk in his shoes, but the world is more enlightened place for his poetry and music.

RIP Gil.

What a role-model ...... criminal, drug user and advocated revolution.......he ain't no Martin Luther King !

He should have included an 'i' in his surname to read 'Heroin'

Gil Scott-Heron Makes A Striking Return February 6, 2010 Forty years ago, Gil Scott-Heron was preaching revolution. Today, after multiple stints in prison, he's back with a more introspective collection of music: I'm New Here. It's his first new recording in 16 years. Scott-Heron's hugely influential 1971 spoken-word piece "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" has inspired generations of imitators. In a way, he was a rapper before rap existed. Even today, hip-hop artists scour his back catalog for samples. Gil Scott-Heron now lives in East Harlem ? just across the river from Rikers Island, where he spent more than a year of his life. That's where record producer Richard Russell first met with him in 2005. "It just struck me that he needed to be heard," Russell tells Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz. "I found it inconceivable that he didn't have things to say." Since Scott-Heron didn't write any music while he was in prison, the two of them spent a lot of time listening to songs they might cover ? from blues standards by Robert Johnson to the alternative folk of Smog. "[Russell] had some weird songs he wanted me to sing," Scott-Heron tells Raz. I'm New Here is Gil Scott-Heron's first album in 16 years. In the end, I'm New Here is filled with equal parts cover songs, poetry set to music, and what they call "interludes" ? snippets of conversation that the microphones caught during the production of the album. 'Something Spartan' Russell brought a minimalist electronic vibe to the production, a sound unlike anything Scott-Heron had ever attempted. "He wanted to do something spartan," Scott-Heron says. "I thought that some of my best work was when there wasn't a whole lot of work being done on it, like 'Winter in America' and 'Secrets' and other things where there weren't a whole lot of people in the studio. Just a whole lot of good music got played, even if it was just a piano and a vocal or something like that." But if you're looking for signs of regret about his checkered past, you won't find it on this album. Scott-Heron says he's unapologetic about his drug-related brushes with the law. "I have not recovered from anything," he says. "I did 18 months in one stretch and a year one time. That's a small enough price to pay for all the crimes I committed. I did a lot of s- - - I shouldn't have done. And do a lot of s- - - nowadays. If they catch me, I'm not gonna be able to do that no more." Critics are already praising Scott-Heron's return to recording. The Guardian writes, "This is as striking a return as we're likely to hear all year." Scott-Heron's analysis is a bit more modest. "The record came out pretty much the way we wanted it to," he says. "It said pretty much what we tried to say. It's as good a job as I could have done right there."

Gil Scott-Heron, Forefather of Hip Hop, Dead at 62 Scott-Heron was best known for 1970's 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' Gil Scott-Heron in Harlem, New York, 2010. By ANDY GREENE MAY 28, 2011 1:08 PM ET Revolutionary poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron, best known for his 1970 work "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," died March 27th at a New York City hospital. The exact cause of death is currently unknown, though he had been battling a severe drug addiction and other health problems for years. He was 62. Many hip-hop artists cite Scott-Heron as one of the forefathers of the genre, but Scott-Heron refused to take any credit. "I just think they made a mistake," he told The New Yorker last year. He also feels that people misinterpreted "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" ? a biting, spoken-work screed against the mass media and consumerist culture. "That was satire," he told The Telegraph in February of 2010. "People would try and argue that it was this militant message, but just how militant can you really be when you're saying, 'The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner'? My songs were always about the tone of voice rather than the words. A good comic will deliver a line deadpan ? they let the audience laugh." Scott-Heron was born in Chicago, but he moved to New York City as a teenager and received a scholarship to the prestigious Fieldston School in the Bronx after his teachers took note of his writing. Before he was even 20, Scott-Heron published a murder mystery novel called The Vulture. At Lincoln University he met his future musical partner Brian Jackson. In 1970 they released Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, which included a stripped-down version of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." The work failed to reach a mass audience, but was widely praised for its vivid depiction of urban decay and racism in American culture. Clive Davis signed Scott-Heron to Arista in 1974 and began releasing his records at a frantic piece, averaging more than one a year between 1970 and 1982. In 1979 he performed alongside Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne and many others at the MUSE benefits at Madison Square Garden, and in 1985 he sang the protest anthem "Sun City" with Bob Dylan, Steve Van Zandt, RUN DMC, Lou Reed and Miles Davis. In the mid-1980s he was dropped by Arista as drugs started to take over his life. He continued to perform, but only released a single record between 1982 and 2010. Many hip-hop artists sampled Scott-Heron's work in recent years, though he didn't consider that an achievement. "I don't want to tell you how embarrassing that can be," he told the New Yorker last year. "Long as it don't talk about 'yo mama' and stuff, I usually let it go. It's not all bad when you get sampled?hell, you make money. They give you some money to shut you up. I guess to shut you up they should have left you alone." In that same piece, writer Alec Wilkinson found Scott-Heron living in a cave-like Harlem apartment. He openly smoked crack in front of the writer, and occasionally fell asleep in the middle of an interview. Despite his severe addictions, Scott-Heron still performed and occasionally recorded new music. In 2010 he teamed up with producer Richard Russell for the blues and spoken-work LP I'm New Here. He had just returned from a European tour when he fell ill and checked into New York's St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. Tributes have been pouring onto Twitter ever since news of Scott-Heron's death hit Friday night. "RIP Gil Scott-Heron," Eminem tweeted. "He influenced all of hip-hop." Public Enemy's Chuck D, who has long pointed to Scott-Heron as one his biggest influences, wrote this: "RIP GSH..and we do what we do and how we do because of you. And to those that don't know tip your hat with a hand over your heart & recognize."