On the 15th anniversary of his passing (May 27, 2011), a young producer remembers his “strange, beautiful” relationship with the legendary soul pioneer Gil Scott Heron on an album that was never released.
There’s an unlikely link between Marvin Gaye, The Trammps, Gil Scot Heron and others. The link was a former boxing impresario turned soul music entrepreneur from Belgium called Freddy Cousaert. In the eighties, he brought US soul artists that were slipping from the spotlight and toured extensively with them across Europe.
While there, he always tried to get them into studio. For a while, his go-to producer was Ben Schwag – an American composer, sound engineer and singer that was working from Belgium. “In LA, I had a reputation for recording guitars, particularly for light funk,” he remembers. Ironically, it was outside LA that he would work most closely with many of his idols.
“Gil, meet Ben”
While touring Europe, Cousaert brought Scott Heron into contact with Ben, whom he managed separately as a producer, sound engineer and performer. “The connection was immediate,” notes Ben. The occasion was a live album of his current tour. “We spent a lot of time together. He was even staying at my home at the time. It was a beautiful, strange relationship – this guy who had achieved so much and this eager young pup thrilled to be walking among his legends.” Hanging out in eighties Belgium, something odd happened. People thought that Scott Heron was his father. “We kinda looked alike.”
Ultimately, the album was never released. A notoriously unscrupulous British music publisher and the SABAM meant that Schwag ultimately lost his rights. “From that day on until recently, I stopped recording and registering music.” He has since invested in old analogue recording equipment and is currently restoring many of the tracks from those days, including Heron’s live album and tracks by Stanley Wade (The Trammps) and George Williams (The Tymes).
“Do I have regrets? No, not at all. I was young, I had a studio and I was working with someone whose music helped me get through difficult times. What more could I ask for? I was doing something I love – getting record releases and money and all that is secondary. Do music because it feels good.”
Ben Schwag is currently working on a project that brings together the French freestyle maestro M’Tiss on recordings of Johnny Guitar Watson and Sly Stone.