[2] While some sources allege this may have been over financial or creative differences,[3] Scott-Heron maintained the switch was due to producer Bob Thiele's unwillingness to give Jackson co-billing.

[14] Originally conceived and penned by Cowell, it gave artists authority and responsibility over their recorded material independently, as well as the ability to assign the master tapes over to the label for distribution.

[14] Music journalist Kevin Moist later wrote of the label's "condominium" concept, "The idea was to try and develop an independent cultural space outside of the mainstream that could function self-sufficiently and be genuinely participatory for its members.

[22] Similar to his studio debut album Pieces of a Man, Winter in America has Scott-Heron exercising his baritone and deep tenor-singing abilities with some spoken-word elements.

[16] According to music writer Karl Keely, Pieces of a Man and Winter in America exhibit further departure by Scott-Heron from his prominent "angry and militant poet" persona.

[23] BBC Online writer Daryl Easlea wrote that it "captures Scott Heron at a turning point, largely leaving his heavier raps behind in favour of a floating ambience, with his poetry and song being illuminated by Jackson's superb instrumentation".

[25] Winter in America features a more stripped-down production and melancholy mood along with songs that exceeded four minutes, as opposed to Free Will, which was criticized for its brevity and time constraints.

[15] They also feature scene-setting, spoken word intros and mystical interludes, which were influenced by the free jazz stylings of contemporary artists such as Pharoah Sanders and Abdullah Ibrahim.

[15] Scott-Heron, as the main lyricist and vocalist, exhibited more pop sensibilities with his compositions and created indelible hooks that were influenced by the black popular music of the time.

[23] The themes of social disillusionment and the human condition featured on the album are also depicted on the Winter collage, representing the grim, sullen images of poverty, decay, and death in generally urban areas and ghettos.

[6] The album's style and themes are exemplified by the bookending track "Peace Go with You, Brother", with Scott-Heron's bluesy, jazzy vocals and Afrocentric lyrics accompanied by Jackson's soulful piano arrangements.

[3] "Rivers of My Fathers" is the album's longest track and features drummer Bob Adams' swing-style drum rim shots and pianist Jackson's wide, blocky chords, play in a blue-influenced style.

[32] Scott-Heron uses the water motif, a common metaphor in African-American culture, to evoke feelings of home and freedom and represent faith, amid the frustrations of a modern black man.

[6] The song originally served as an opening monologue concerning the Watergate incident used by Scott-Heron at his concerts, and it contains proto-rap and talking blues elements, in which rhythmic speech or near-speech is accompanied by a free melody and strict rhythm.

[6]The resulting track features sharp criticism by Scott-Heron of then-US president Richard Nixon and his vice-president Spiro Agnew, among other politicians involved in the scandal; the Watergate incident had yet to reach its conclusion when the song was recorded.

Music writer Karl Keely said of its significance, "The return of the refrain from 'Peace Go with You Brother' adds a sense of wholeness to end the record, an idea that the album has travelled through Gil Scott-Heron's worries, fears, pleasures, hopes, and finally, his pronounced disliking of Richard Nixon, before returning to the opening statement, in the hopes that the record may have made that selfish brother think more about his world and those in it, instead of moving along in a self-imposed bubble.

[16] The song features Scott-Heron's poetic references and lyrics that portray America in a dystopian state where "democracy is rag-time on the corner", "the forest is buried beneath the highway", "robins are perched in barren treetops", and, in conclusion, "no one is fighting because no one knows what to save.

[6]In a February 2009 interview with Jalylah Burrell of Vibe magazine, Gil Scott-Heron discussed the album's concept and title, as well as the social and political atmosphere at the time of Winter in America's recording.

[6] Consequently, Winter in America became considered by many fans to be the great "lost" Gil Scott-Heron album, before a proper reissue on compact disc thirty years following its original issue.

[47] According to an article on Scott-Heron for a November 1974 issue of Billboard, the success of the single "has made his most recent album, 'Winter in America', a national best-seller and heralds his wide-ranging appeal.

[28] Upon signing them, Arista executive Clive Davis said of Scott-Heron in an interview with Rolling Stone, "Not only is he an excellent poet, musician and performer—three qualities I look for that are rarely combined—but he's a leader of social thought.

[38] BBC Online's Daryl Easlea called the album "an affecting work" and wrote that its title track "should be played as standard on all modern history courses as a snapshot of the stilted hopes and aspirations in the post Watergate and Vietnam War mid 70s America".

[51] Los Angeles Times writer Mike Boehm viewed that its title track "sounded a sad death-knell for '60s hopes of transforming change", while calling it a "wonderful mood piece, capturing what it's like to feel oppressed in your soul by outer-world events that seem out of control".

[52] Danny Eccleston of Mojo called it an "alloy of Rhodes-laden souljazz with [Scott-Heron]'s razor-sharp beat-poetry" and quipped, "Anger, radicalism, humour and funk from the proto-rapper, thankfully restored to health and liberty.

"[53] Dream magazine columnist Kevin Moist stated that the album "further jazzified his mixture of street poetry, soulful spirit, political commitment, and Black cultural expression.

"[14] He also noted the history of the Strata-East label, and summed up Winter in America's significance, stating "Radically charged but musically mostly stark and low-key, melodic and soulful as hell, sometimes full band flow while at others just voice and piano, all hanging tight under a melancholy cloud of belatedness [...] Thematically, the album reaches back even further than its predecessors in drawing on Black cultural energy as a source of power for facing down the coming political/cultural Ice Age in America.

But Scott-Heron was never a one-dimensional ranter, and his pen is as double-edged here as it ever was, slicing into the growing self-destructiveness and sell-out/buy-in tendencies that were fragmenting the Black community, as incisively as it stabs at the jowls of evil in the White House.

[23] Pitchfork writer Michael A. Gonzales applauded its humanistic qualities, saying it "boldly proclaims how much we really matter through big pictures and intimate snapshots translated into the mediums of jazz, blues, soul, and literature.

"[41] However, Houston Press writer Paul J. MacArthur expressed a mixed response towards its production quality and called Winter in America the "most dated" of the Scott-Heron reissues.

[56] While the album did not have a direct impact on the black music scene at the time, it proved to become one of the Strata-East label's most successful LP releases, in terms of sales and appeal to their target audience.