Eugene McDaniels has passed away. Why you should care.
Eugene McDaniels is hardly a household name. Even here amongst progressives (where he ought to be a legend), his passing may be considered only a footnote. I'd like to right that wrong today.
Eugene McDaniels
Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse
by Chris Dahlen
The album sounds so ebullient, you almost forget that McDaniels' message of love comes wrapped around the evils of racism, ethnic conflict and the bomb--
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5180-headless-heroes-of-the-apocalypse/
5 ‘Message’ Albums You Should Own!…According to Questlove
Music VIBE | September 21, 2010 - 5:40 pm
A lot of his message songs were so hard hitting that even John [Legend] thought it was a bit too much. Every song of this record had ended up in samples by Pete Rock, ATCQ, Beastie Boys…with his vocals that the VP of the USA in the Nixon admin and called and had him blacklisted from the musicians union. When the United Stated govt and vp has you blacklisted then you must have said something really really strong. The last time I played the record was on a L Hill record and one song “The Parasite” 10 mins by the time your got to the 5th min the audience would be like “what the hell is this”
http://www.vibe.com/2010/09/5-message-albums-you-should-ownaccording-questlove/
Singer-songwriter Eugene McDaniels reinvented himself as a folk-soul outlaw
"If you listen to Outlaw, you listen to Headless Heroes, everybody missed the point, well, not everybody, but a lot of people missed the point. It’s humor; I was just having fun, it was fun."
http://www.waxpoetics.com/features/articles/eugene-mcdaniels/
Aloe Blacc Talks Eugene McDaniels: On The Record (Interview)
by Napster TV
Napster's Ones to Watch artist for March, Aloe Blacc, sat down with us to take our On the Record challenge, in which he was given 45 seconds to talk about his all-time favorite album. Here, he discusses Eugene McDaniels' [Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse], a "psychedelic-soul-jazz" album from 1971. "Not many other artists have been able to accomplish anything as wonderful as this," says Blacc. Be sure to check it out!
http://us.napster.com//blog/post/otr-aloe-blacc-talks-eugene-mcdaniels?from=rhapsody
"Real, Compared to What"
Anti-War Soul
28 March 2003
Eugene McDaniels had a solid, if not spectacular, recording career in the 1960s, singing pop ditties for the Liberty label. Disenchanted by the state of race relations in the late 1960s, most notably the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., McDaniels took a brief sojourn from the States. During this period, he wrote “Compared to What.” The song was initially recorded and released by a young soul vocalist by the name of Roberta Flack
