a massive northern soul hit in the 1970's, gil scott heron's 'the bottle' was an autobiographical song about his fight with alcoholism, what always bothered me about this release was the cartoon cover, gil scott- heron and brian jackson were black, as were most of his band, why then was the picture sleeve featuring  character's, [caricatures?] of a group who looked more like huey lewis and the new's? this was the first song i heard by gil scott- heron, as i sought out more of his work i soon realised that this mid-tempo lilting song was nothing like his harder edged work and which had a massive influence on the latter day hip-hop artist's and rapper's, i was hooked straight away as soon as i heard 'the revolution will not be televised' it opened up a whole new world to me, a world of black revolutionary music, music like the last poet's, not easy listening for a young white apprentice from an unfashionable east midland's town, but, like i have said before, we were in a state of flux, the times, really were a changin'..................[click last photo to check out the tune's]