can't stop now: the curtis mayfield legacy

can’t stop now

Copyright © 2011 by Mario Mejia. Printed and hand-bound in San Francisco for can’t stop now, The Curtis Mayfield Legacy event. Limited press run of 500. Text set in Arial and Georgia. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 0-7871-0680-1

Designed by Mario Mejiahttp://mariomejia.us

THE CURTIS MAYFIELD LEGACY

MM PUBLISHING

can’t stop now

Curtis Mayfield is to soul music what Bach was to the classics and Gershwin and Irving

Berlin were to pop music.

–ARETHA FRANKLIN

cabrini green 12tenth grade 26the impressions 40

curtis 56

blaxploitation 70

curtom records 84

paralysis 100

new world order 114

keep on pushing 128

MOVE ON UP

ROOTS

CAN’T STOP NOW

• PART ONE •

roots

can’t stop now: roots

Born on June 3, 1942, Curtis Lee Mayfield grew up in a poor Chicago family that moved from neighborhood to

neighborhood. By the time he was in high school his family had settled in the Cabrini-Green public housing projects on the city’s north side. Mayfield’s strongest early musical influence came from his membership in a local gospel group called the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers, which included three cousins and acquaintance Jerry Butler. Mayfield told the Detroit News in 1974, “I was writing music when I was 10 or 11 years old.” Mayfield’s grandmother was a preacher in the Traveling Souls Spiritualist Church, and traces of church and gospel music are unmistakable in many of his compositions. Mayfield attended Chicago’s Wells High School but left in the tenth grade to join what would become the Impressions.

The Impressions began performing in the mid-1950s as the Roosters, in Chattanooga, Tennessee; their lineup comprised of Fred Cash, Sam Gooden, Emanuel Thomas, and the brothers Richard Brooks and Arthur Brooks. Seeking to advance their musical careers, Gooden and the Brooks brothers went north to Chicago in 1957, settling in the Cabrini-Green projects. Jerry Butler was a senior in high school at the time, and he acted as a replacement for the Impressions vocalists who had stayed

• CHAPTER ONE •

cabrini green

15

behind in Tennessee. According to Robert Pruter in Chicago Soul, Butler encouraged Mayfield to join the group, saying they needed someone “who could play an instrument and who could help us get our harmony together.” By now, Mayfield was writing gospel-influenced songs and had learned to play the guitar.

The group made some early recordings for the Bandera label and were discovered by Eddie Thomas of Vee Jay Records, who became their manager and changed their name to the Impressions. The single “For Your Precious Love” was released on the company’s subsidiary label, Falcon, and featured Jerry Butler’s lead vocals. Its first issue sold over 900,000 copies. A Vee Jay executive signed the Impressions to a recording contract immediately after hearing them, which he reportedly liked for their spiritual feel—a genuine departure from the doo-wop harmonies of the day.

Vee Jay promoted them as “Jerry Butler and the Impressions” and then developed Butler as a solo artist. After three singles, Butler left the group to go out on his own. Mayfield told Pruter, “When Jerry left... it allowed me to generate and pull out my own talents as a writer and a vocalist.” Mayfield’s soprano singing, however, contrasted sharply with Butler’s baritone leads. The group released a few singles with Mayfield as leader and was


then dropped by Vee Jay. From 1959 to 1961, the Impressions did not work as a group; Mayfield began writing songs and playing guitar for Butler in 1960.

By 1961 Mayfield had saved enough money—about a thousand dollars—to regroup the Impressions and take them to New York City to arrange a recording session. In July of that year they recorded “Gypsy Woman” for the ABC-Paramount label. Mayfield was only 18 when the group signed with ABC-Paramount. “Gypsy Woman” was the start of a seven-year string of rhythm and blues and pop hits—all composed by Mayfield. The Brooks brothers left the Impressions in 1962; the remaining members continued as a trio throughout the 1960s.

In 1963 the group recorded “It’s All Right,” which Chicago Soul’s Pruter termed “the first single to define the classic style of the 1960s Impressions.” Producer Jerry Pate “lifted the energy level considerably, adding blaring horns and a more forceful, percussive bottom,” wrote Pruter. “It’s All Right” was a crossover hit that went to Number Four on the pop charts and Number One on the rhythm and blues charts in the fall of 1963. The song featured “the lead switching off from among the three [group members] and the two others singing in harmony with the lead,” elaborated Pruter. Though the song represented a

spiritualistic church

17

new sound in rhythm and blues, critics have long noted that the feel of “It’s All Right” sprung directly from his gospel roots.

In 1964 the Impressions became a major act with a series of strong singles that included “I’m So Proud,” “Keep On Pushing,” and “Amen.” By most accounts, Mayfield was very profoundly motivated by the emergence of the civil rights movement. Civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jesse Jackson adopted “Keep On Pushing” as an unofficial theme song for the movement. Chicago Tribune contributor Dan Kening wrote that Mayfield’s “inspirational lyrics reflected a strong black consciousness while preaching the tenets of hard work, persistence, and faith as the key to achieving equality.”

In addition to composing, singing, and playing the guitar, Mayfield was also interested in setting up his own record label. In 1960, at the age of 21, he made the unprecedented move of establishing his own music publishing company, Curtom, while recording at Vee Jay. Mayfield began developing two labels in 1966, Mayfield and Windy C., but it was in 1968 that he founded his most successful label, also called Curtom. The budding entrepreneur took the Impressions away from ABC and also recorded and produced other acts. Mayfield’s songwriting and producing abilities were a key factor in the label’s success.

“At a very young age my early musical aspirations were derived

from involvement with the

through my grandmother”spiritualistic church


In August of 1970 Mayfield announced his departure from the Impressions. He began his solo career the following year, offering “a biting commentary of the American scene and impressions of oppressed people,” according to a review in Billboard. A New York Times music critic said of his first solo album, Curtis: “Mayfield himself continues to be a kind of contemporary preacher-through-music. He sings in a breathlessly high, pure voice, breaking his phrases into speech-like patterns, his rhythms pushed by the urgency of his thoughts.... His message seems as important to him as his melody.” Including songs of up to ten minutes, Curtis established Mayfield as an album rather than a singles artist.

Mayfield began a successful career writing soundtracks for films with the 1972 movie Superfly. The controversial film depicted the life of a drug dealer and was part of the then popular genre of “blaxploitation” films. According to a New York Times review, “Mayfield’s music is more specifically anti-drugs than the philosophical content of the movie, and it is also considerably more stylish in design and execution.” Two Top Ten hit singles resulted from the soundtrack: “Freddie’s Dead” and “Superfly,” respectively.


During the 1970s Mayfield continued to write soundtracks and solidified his reputation as a solo artist. His solo compositions featured a more intense style than was expressed in those he had written for the Impressions; instructive lyrics and social commentary were the norm. Bucking pervasive negative criticism, Pruter assessed Mayfield’s 1970s output positively, writing, “Some of the very best black popular music of the 1970s came from Mayfield, who despite the many misses during the decade was one of the creative leaders in establishing a new contemporary style of rhythm and blues, one with a militant, harder edge.”

Mayfield joined the Impressions in 1983 for a reunion tour. Original members Butler, Mayfield, Gooden, and Cash sang the 1960s hits of the Impressions along with Butler and Curtis Mayfield’s more popular solo efforts. According to Robert Palmer of the New York Times, the performances “amounted to a capsule history of recent black popular music, from the slick doowop and grittier gospel-based vocal group styles of the 1950s to Mr. Butler’s urbane pop-soul, Curtis Mayfield’s soul message songs and later funk, and the styles the Impressions have tackled as a group.”

“I was writing music

when I was 10 or 11 years old.”

21

Mayfield’s influence on new generations of performers is evident. His 1960s compositions for the Impressions have enjoyed numerous cover versions from a wide range of popular singers. Mayfield’s characteristic falsetto and innovative guitar work—the latter a clear inspiration to guitar colossus Jimi Hendrix—helped set new standards for contemporary music. And critics have pointed out that his anti-drug messages, most emphatically expressed in the songs for Superfly, are echoed in the films of the young black filmmakers who gained prominence in the late 1980s. Controversial rap singer and actor Ice-T, who lent vocals to “Superfly 1990,” said in tribute to the artist, “There’s only been a couple of people I’ve met [in the music business] that to me are really heavy. Curtis is one of them.”

Mayfield was known for introducing social consciousness into African American music as well as R&B and wrote songs protesting social and political equality. He had written and recorded most of the anthemic soundtracks during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly with The Impressions. Super Fly is regarded as an all-time great that influenced many and truly

This time.

Eddie

you

should

know

better

Brother you know

you’re wrong

Think of the tears and fears

You’d bring your folks back homeThey’d say where did he go wrong My Lord

We planned and worked hard from the very startTried to make him better than all the rest

But the brother proved to be s o m u c h l e s sEddie is everybody’s friend

But sometimes you wondernow and then

The only time he choose youIs when there’s something to loose

Through his p e r s o n a l l o s sAnd the friend pays the cost

A l l t h e t i m e Must be something that is freezing his mind

That has made him through greed so very blindand I don’t think he’s gonna make it,

23

invented a new style of modern black music. Just as the Civil Rights Act passed into law in 1964, his group The Impressions produced music that became the soundtrack to a summer of revolution. Black students sang their songs as they marched to jail or protested outside their universities, while King often marched to peaceful sounds of Mayfield’s Keep On Pushing, People Get Ready and We’re A Winner. Mayfield had quickly become a civil rights hero.

Mayfield, along with several other soul and funk musicians, spread messages of hope in the face of oppression, pride in being a member of the black race and gave courage to a generation who were demanding their human rights. Mayfield has been compared to of Martin Luther King Jr arguably for making a greater lasting impact in the civil rights struggle with his music. By the end of the decade he was a pioneering voice in the black pride movement along with James Brown and Sly Stone. Paving the way for a future generation of rebel thinkers, Mayfield paid the price, artistically and commercially, for his politically charged music. Irrespective of the persistent radio bans and loss of revenue, Mayfield continued his quest for equality right until his death. His lyrics on racial injustice, poverty and drugs became the poetry for a generation. Mayfield

know

25

was also a descriptive social commentator. As the influx of drugs ravaged through black America in the late 1960s and 1970s his bittersweet descriptions of the ghetto would serve as warnings to the impressionable. Determined to warn all about the perils of drugs, Freddie’s Dead remains one of the most graphic tales of street life. After hearing the Rev. Martin Luther King deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech that August day in 1963, the crowd of 250,000 sang “We Shall Overcome.” In 1965, another gospel song emerged–People Get Ready by Mayfield and the Impressions. Keep On Pushing and People Get Ready were two songs that became embedded in the national movement for civil and social rights, heard at all the rallies and marches, songs-as-inspiration. His song “People Get Ready” was written in the year after the march on Washington’s. For many, it captured the spirit of the march –the song reaches across racial and religious lines to offer a message of redemption and forgiveness.

Mayfield produced many of the songs that helped shape and define the Black Power Movement, exemplifies the workings of music in the BPM and their 1967 song ‘We’re a Winner’ can be seen as one defining element of the movement. Mayfield’s


uncompromising look at racism and his calls for black pride and economic determinism place him firmly within the BPM. Significantly, when he and his friend Eddie Thomas founded the Custom record label to protect black artists from the exploitation that they often suffered with other record labels, not only was the BPM ideal of black entrepreneurship realized but also the BPM had a record label that was synonymous with Black Power. Empowered in part by the ownership of his own label and in part by his affiliations with other artists, Mayfield presented a crucial look at American racism in ‘This is My Country’ with lyrics that spoke of ‘three hundred years of slave driving, sweat and welts on my ‘We’re a Winner’ conveys the essential ideological message of the BPM.


• CHAPTER TWO •

By the time Curtis Mayfield was in high school his family had settled in the Cabrini-Green public housing projects

on the city’s north side. Mayfield’s strongest early musical influence came from his membership in a local gospel group called the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers, which included three of his cousins and acquaintance Jerry Butler. Mayfield told the Detroit News in 1974, “I was writing music when I was 10 or 11 years old.” Mayfield’s grandmother was a preacher in the Traveling Souls Spiritualist Church, and traces of church and gospel music are unmistakable in many of his compositions. Mayfield attended Chicago’s Wells High School but left in the tenth grade to join what would become the Impressions.

The Impressions began performing in the mid-1950s as the Roosters, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, their lineup com-prised of Fred Cash, Sam Gooden, Emanuel Thomas, and the brothers Richard and Arthur Brooks. Seeking to advance their musical careers, Gooden and the Brooks brothers went north to Chicago in 1957, settling in the Cabrini-Green projects. Jerry Butler was a senior in high school at the time, and he acted as a replacement for the Impressions vocalists who had stayed behind in Tennessee. According to Robert

tenth grade

29

Pruter in Chicago Soul, Butler encouraged Mayfield to join the group, saying they needed someone “who could play an instrument and who could help us get our harmony together.” By this time, Mayfield was writing gospel-influenced songs and had learned to play the guitar.

The group made some early recordings for the Bandera label and were then discovered by Eddie Thomas of Vee Jay Records, who became their manager and changed their name to the Impressions. The single “For Your Precious Love” was released on the company’s subsidiary label, Falcon, and featured Jerry Butler’s lead vocals. Its first issue sold over 900,000 copies. A Vee Jay executive signed the Impressions to a recording contract immediately after hearing the song, which he reportedly liked for its spiritual feel—a genuine departure from the doo-wop harmonies of the day.

Vee Jay began promoting the group as “Jerry Butler and the Impressions” and then developed Butler as a solo artist. After three singles, Butler left the group to go out on his own. Mayfield told Pruter, “When Jerry left... it allowed me to pull out my own talents as a writer and a vocalist.” Mayfield’s soprano singing, however, contrasted sharply with Butler’s baritone leads. The group released a few singles with Mayfield


as leader and was then dropped by Vee Jay. From 1959 to 1961, the Impressions did not work as a group; Mayfield began writing songs and playing guitar for Butler in 1960.

By 1961 Mayfield had saved enough money—about a thousand dollars—to regroup the Impressions and take them to New York City to arrange a recording session. In July of that year they recorded “Gypsy Woman” for ABC- Paramount. Mayfield was only 18 when the group signed with ABC-Paramount. “Gypsy Woman” was the beginning of a seven-year string of rhythm and blues and pop hits—all composed by Mayfield. The Brooks brothers left the group in 1962; the three remaining members continued as a trio throughout the 1960s.

In 1963 the group recorded “It’s All Right,” which Chicago Soul’s Pruter termed “the first single to define the classic style of the 1960s Impressions.” Producer Jerry Pate “lifted the energy level considerably, adding blaring horns and a more forceful, percussive bottom,” wrote Pruter. “It’s All Right” was a crossover hit that went to Number Four on the pop charts and Number One on the rhythm and blues charts in the fall of 1963. The song featured “the lead switching off from

“Mayfield absorbed the

of blues and gospel music”city’s rich heritage

31

among the three and the two others singing in harmony with the lead,” elaborated Pruter. Though the song represented a new sound in rhythm and blues, critics have long noted that the feel of “It’s All Right” sprung directly from his gospel roots.

In 1964 the Impressions became a major act with a series of strong singles that included “I’m So Proud,” “Keep On Pushing,” and “Amen.” By most accounts, Mayfield was profoundly motivated by the emergence of the civil rights movement. Civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jesse Jackson adopted “Keep On Pushing” as an unofficial theme song for the movement. Chicago Tribune contributor Dan Kening wrote that Mayfield’s “inspirational lyrics reflected a strong black consciousness while preaching the tenets of hard work, persistence, and faith as the key to equality.”

In addition to composing, singing, and playing the guitar, Mayfield was also interested in setting up his own record label. In 1960, at the age of 21, he made the unprecedented move of establishing his own music publishing company, Curtom, while recording at Vee Jay. Mayfield began developing two labels in 1966, Mayfield and Windy C., but it was in 1968 that he founded his most successful label, also called Curtom.


The budding entrepreneur took the Impressions away from ABC and also recorded and produced other acts. Mayfield’s songwriting and producing abilities were a key factor in the label’s success.

In August of 1970 Mayfield announced his departure from the Impressions. He began his solo career the following year, offering “a biting commentary of the American scene and impressions of oppressed people,” according to a review in Billboard. A New York Times music critic said of his first solo album, Curtis: “Mayfield himself continues to be a kind of contemporary preacher-through-music. He sings in a breath lessly high, pure voice, breaking his phrases into speechlike patterns, rhythms pushed by the urgency of his thoughts.... His message seems as important to him as his melody.” Including songs of up to ten minutes, Curtis established Mayfield as an album rather than a singles artist.

Mayfield began a successful career writing soundtracks for films with the 1972 movie Superfly. The controversial film depicted the life of a drug dealer and was part of the popular genre of “blaxploitation” films. According to a New York Times review, “Mayfield’s music is more specifically anti-

Been with you a l l t h e t i m e

Something

you

that

never

had

Slid in on an oily rag

The price is right upon the tag

You put it in a brand new bagThis thing will let you be y o u r s e l f

And won’t offend nobody elseNothing like you ever saw

And it’s not against the lawcheck out your mind

People thinking they’ve been tookJust finding out they overlooked

They never found the m i s s i n g l i n kForget they had a mind to think

Why don’t you...Check out your mind

Trust in me and I in youNo matter what you see me do

I’m doing for all I’m worthNone do me better on this earth

Why don’t you...Check out your mind

35

drugs than the philosophical content of the movie, and it is also considerably more stylish in design and execution.” Two Top Ten hit singles resulted from the soundtrack: “Freddie’s Dead” and “Superfly.”

Throughout the 1970s Mayfield continued to solidify his reputation as a solo artist. His solo compositions featured a more intense style than was expressed in those he had written for the Impressions; instructive lyrics and social commentary were the norm. Bucking pervasive negative criticism, Pruter assessed Mayfield’s 1970s output positively, writing, “Some of the very best black popular music of the 1970s came from Mayfield, who despite the many misses during the decade was one of the creative leaders in establishing a new contemporary style of rhythm and blues, one with a militant, harder edge.”

Mayfield joined the Impressions in 1983 for a reunion tour. Original members Butler, Mayfield, Gooden, and Cash performed the 1960s hits of the Impressions along with Butler and Mayfield’s more popular solo efforts. According to Robert Palmer of the New York Times, the performances “amounted to a capsule history of recent black popular music, from the slick doowop and grittier gospel-based vocal group

never

This thing will let you be y o u r s e l f

And it’s not against the law


styles of the 1950s to Mr. Butler’s urbane pop-soul, Curtis Mayfield’s soul message songs and later funk, and the styles the Impressions have tackled as a group.”

Mayfield’s influence on a new generation of performers is widely evident. His 1960s compositions for the Impressions have enjoyed numerous cover versions from a wide range of popular singers. Mayfield’s characteristic falsetto and unique guitar work—the latter a clear inspiration to guitar colossus Jimi Hendrix—helped set a new standard for contemporary music. Critics have pointed out that his anti-drug messages, most emphatically expressed in the songs for Superfly, are echoed in the films of the young black filmmakers who gained prominence in the late 1980s. Controversial rap singer and actor Ice-T, who lent vocals to “Superfly 1990,” said in tribute to the artist, “There’s only been a couple of people I’ve met that to me are really heavy. Curtis is one of them.”

Mayfield was known for introducing social consciousness into African American music as well as R&B and wrote songs protesting social and political equality. He had written and recorded most of the anthemic soundtracks during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly with The Impressions. Super Fly

37

is regarded as an all-time great that influenced many and truly invented a new style of modern black music. Just as the Civil Rights Act passed into law in 1964, his group The Impressions produced music that became the soundtrack to a summer of revolution. Black students sang their songs as they marched to jail or protested outside their universities, while King often marched to the peaceful sounds of Mayfield’s Keep On Pushing, People Get Ready and We’re A Winner. Mayfield had quickly become a civil rights hero.

Mayfield, along with several other soul and funk musicians, spread messages of hope in the face of oppression, pride in being a member of the black race and gave courage to a generation who were demanding their human rights. Mayfield has been compared to of Martin Luther King Jr arguably for making a greater lasting impact in the civil rights struggle with his music. By the end of the decade he was a pioneering voice in the black pride movement along with James Brown and Sly Stone. Paving the way for a future generation of rebel thinkers, Mayfield paid the price, artistically and commercially, for his politically charged music. Irrespective of the persistent radio bans and loss of revenue, Mayfield continued his quest for equality right until his death. His

“Even before reaching his teen years he had

formed his first groupThe Alphatones”

39

lyrics on racial injustice, poverty and drugs became the poetry for a generation. Mayfield was also a descriptive social commentator. As the influx of drugs ravaged through black America in the late 1960s and 1970s his bittersweet descriptions of the ghetto would serve as warnings to the impressionable. Determined to warn all about the perils of drugs, Freddie’s Dead remains one of the most graphic tales of street life. After hearing the Rev. Martin Luther King deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech that August day in 1963, the crowd of 250,000 sang “We Shall Overcome.” In 1965, another gospel song emerged – People Get Ready by Mayfield and the Impressions. Keep On Pushing and People Get Ready were two songs that became embedded in the national movement for civil and social rights, heard at all the rallies and marches, songs-as-inspiration. His song “People Get Ready” was written in the year after the march on Washington’s. For many, it captured the spirit of the march –the song reaches across racial and religious lines to offer a message of redemption and forgiveness.

Mayfield produced many of the songs that helped shape and define the Black Power Movement, exemplifies the workings of music in the BPM and their 1967 song ‘We’re


a Winner’ can be seen as one defining element of the movement. Mayfield’s uncompromising look at racism and his calls for black pride and economic determinism place him firmly within the BPM. Significantly, when he and his friend Eddie Thomas founded the Custom record label to protect black artists from the exploitation that they often suffered with other record labels, not only was the BPM ideal of black entrepreneurship realized but also the BPM had a record label that was synonymous with Black Power. Empowered in part by the ownership of his own label and in part by his affiliations with other artists, Mayfield presented a crucial look at American racism in ‘This is My Country’ with lyrics that spoke of ‘three hundred years of slave driving, sweat and welts on my ‘We’re a Winner’ conveys the essential ideological message of the BPM. Music, as exemplified by Curtis Mayfield, was to foster mobilization by presenting the political ideology of Black Power that enforced notions of black pride, but it also offered a venue for the creation of black culture that was not defined by the dominant white culture.


• CHAPTER THREE •

The Impressions provided a critical link between Fifties rhythm & blues and Sixties soul. They pioneered and

epitomized the sound of Chicago soul, a marriage of gospel and pop influences with a timely conscience. From the beginning, leader Curtis Mayfield was an innovative song writer and producer whose work with the Impressions was typified by sophisticated yet celebratory grooves, elaborately detailed vocal arrangements, and lyrics that addressed and advanced the black freedom movement of the Sixties. On the strength of such indelible songs of striving and transcendence as “People Get Ready,” “Keep On Pushing,” and “We’re a Winner,” Mayfield has been credited with authoring “the soundtrack to the civil-rights movement.”

The Impressions came together as a union between Sam Gooden and brothers Richard and Arthur Brooks (members of a vocal group called the Roosters) and songwriter/ producers Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield (of the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers). Their debut single, “For Your Precious Love,” was a masterpiece of dramatic, resonant soul testifying that sold 900,000 copies and rose to #11 on the Top Forty. Released in 1958, it was credited to “The Impressions Featuring Jerry Butler,” and the spotlighting

the impressions

43

of the song’s lead vocalist resulted in jealousies leading to Butler’s departure that same year. For a few years thereafter the Impressions foundered, but they regained their footing and discovered their signature sound in the early Sixties with Mayfield in command. First, Mayfield cowrote and performed on “He Will Break Your Heart,” a stately soul gem that became Jerry Butler’s first solo hit. In 1961, a re-formed Impressions, which found Butler replaced by Fred Cash, released “Gypsy Woman,” a marriage of Brazilian rhythms and sensuous soul distinguished by Mayfield’s sweet falsetto.

Having been reduced to a trio by the departure of the Brooks brothers, the Impressions soared through the Sixties with a string of chart successes that established the group as the social conscience of soul music. Their biggest hit was “It’s All Right” (#1 R&B, #4 Pop), a casual, easygoing soul shuffle that provided much-needed comfort and solace to a nation reeling from the recent assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Impressions songs that have had the greatest staying power are those, like “People Get Ready” and “Amen,” that provided inspiration to those caught up in the social struggles of the Sixties. All the while, Mayfield’s work outside the group as a songwriter and producer yielded


a bumper crop of Chicago-soul hits for such artists as Major Lance (“The Monkey Time,” “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um”) and Gene Chandler (“Just Be True,” “Nothing Can Stop Me”).

After leaving the Impressions in 1970, Mayfield addressed issues of black identity and self-assertiveness with an even greater sense of urgency as a solo artist. He founded his own Curtom label and connected with such topical fare as “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going to Go.” His solo career found him giving freer reign to his guitar playing, a choppy, rhythm-based funk style that owed much to his Chicago blues heritage. (Among other things, Mayfield had played guitar on a few Jimmy Reed sessions.) Mayfield hit his creative and commercial peak in the Seventies with the soundtrack to Superfly, a blend of smoldering rock-disco grooves and pointed social commentary that yielded the Top Five hits “Freddie’s Dead” and “Superfly.”

Throughout his career, Mayfield’s willingness to give voice to the truth–and the simultaneously dignified and funky ways in which he’s musically cast forthright sentiments –have made him one of the great soul icons of the age. Mayfield was paralyzed from the neck down in a 1990 accident when a lighting tower fell on him prior to a show in New York.

“The Impressions provided a

between Fifties rhythm & blues and Sixties soul.”

critical link

45

However, this tragic setback has not diminished his spirit or his career. In 1996, he released his 25th solo album, New World Order. In his own words: “How many 54-year-old quadriplegics are putting albums out? You just have to deal with what you got, try to sustain yourself as best you can, and look to the things that you can do.” He died in 1999.

Since their origination, The Impressions have maintained their reputation as one of the most successful and highly respected vocal groups of the past near half century. Since the release of ‘For Your Precious Love’ in July ’58 the Impressions, evolving through a number of personnel changes have created over 50 hit singles and have recorded a dozen albums, several of them charting in the USA and Europe. Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield left the Impressions to become two very successful solo acts but the heart of this superb group still are veteran members Sam Gooden and Fred Cash and this is their story.

Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield met up with three guys from Chattanooga Sam Gooden, Richard and Arthur Brooks in their hometown of Chicago in 1957 and this quintet formed the Impressions. They hit the American R&B and pop charts at #3 R&B/#11 Hot 100 pop in July ’58 with their first record ‘For Your Precious Love’. It was a classic soul ballad that meant


nothing outside the US but put this young group on TV and sent them around the States on tour. Unfortunately they could not match the records success with their next few recordings and lead singer left for a solo career. Fred Cash flew in from Chattanooga as Jerry’s replacement and Curtis assumed the lead spot but he could not reverse their downward sales trend and VeeJay dropped them.

Butler’s career however was on the rise and Curtis parked the Impressions to join him on tour as his guitarist. Over the following 18 months Curtis and Jerry combined to write and perform the three hit records that set up Butler’s career starting with ‘He Will Break Your Heart’, ‘Find Another Girl’ and ‘I’m A Telling You’ all hitting top ten on R&B and top 30 pop. When Mayfield had saved enough money he took the Impressions to New York to relaunch their own careers with ‘Gypsy Woman’ that found international success in November ’61. History seemed to repeat itself and their next five singles all failed to chart. The group split in half when Curtis decided to relocate back to Chicago in ’62. The Brooks brothers stayed in New York to set up their own Impressions and Curtis, Sam & Fred continued with ABC as a trio. Their classic recording of ‘It’s All Right’ put them firmly back on top in October ’63 when it

against the kingdom’s throne.

People

get ready

there’s a train a coming.

you don’t need

no baggage

you just get on board.

All you need is faithto hear the diesels humming.

You don’t need no ticket,you just thank the lord

So people get ready,for there’s a train to Jordan.

Picking up passengersc o a s t t o c o a s t

Faith is keyopen the doors and board em.

There’s hope for allamong those loved the most

There is no roomfor the hopeless s i n n e r

who would hurt all mankindjust save h i s o w n

Have pity on thosewhose choices grow thinner

for there’s n o h i d i n g p l a c e

49

went to #1 US R&B and #4 pop and this time their success set up a run of 20 hit singles including ‘Talkin’ Bout My Baby’, ‘Keep On Pushing’, ‘You Must Believe Me’, ‘People Get Ready’, ‘Woman’s Got Soul’, ‘You’ve Been Cheatin’’, ‘Can’t Satisfy’ ‘We’re A Winner’ and many others with ABC. Mayfield set up Curtom records in ’68 and built a superb roster around the Impressions who continued to hit the charts with ‘Fool For You’ and ‘This Is My Country’, ‘Choice Of Colors’ and ‘Check Out Your Mind’. Curtis went solo in 1970 and was replaced by Leroy Hutson and for the first time the Impressions did a limited tour of Europe.

Sales began to fall away and Hutson also went solo on Curtom. The Impressions brought in two new members Reggie Torian and Ralph Johnson and in April ’74 they topped the US R&B singles charts once again (and went to #17 pop) with ‘Finally Got Myself Together’ that also sold well in Europe. ‘Sooner Or Later’ and ‘Same Thing It Took’ both scored high on R&B but after that record sales began to tail off and Johnson left to form his own group Mystique. The Impressions quit Curtom and signed to Cotillion with new lead Nate Evans. Though they never returned to the same level of public accep- tance the Impressions continued to make great records like


‘This Time’ and ‘You’ll Never Find’. They joined producer Carl Davis at ChiSound in ’79 and made two great albums there entitled ‘Come To My Party’ and ‘Fan The Fire’.

The Impressions however were far from finished. After 11 years with the Group, Reggie Torian relinquished his place to Vandy (‘Smokey’) Hampton, who had spent the past ten years singing with the Soul Majestics and the Chi-Lites. After Chi-Sound ceased operation the Impressions found plenty of steady work on tour, playing revues and often making appearances on Gospel TV. The group, that still included Sam, Fred, and Nate Evans, celebrated their Silver Anniversary in 1983. In the latter part of ‘82 on his return from a successful UK tour, Curtis, once again linked up with Jerry Butler and the Impressions to create, rehearse and celebrate their Silver Anniversary with a nationwide US tour that was a big success all over America. The group got a one shot deal with MCA and had a low R&B chart single entry with “Can’t Wait ‘Til Tomorrow’ in February ’87.

After the ripple of interest that the Impressions Ripete ‘Something Said Love’ single caused in ‘89, they went into the studio with producer Jerry Michaels and cut two or three albums (30 tracks) worth of material. The group still contained

51

the two veteran members Sam Gooden and Fred Cash with Vandy Hampton, who had been in the line up since ‘82 and Ralph Johnson who had returned to replace Nate Evans. Twenty of these cuts were updated versions of the Impressions back catalogue, written by Curtis and re-recorded to appeal to a new generation of fans unaware of the group’s long history. Johnson led the new songs like ‘Draw The Line’, ‘In The Middle’, ‘Winning Combination’, and ‘I Can Make It Go Away’ whilst Hampton handled the Mayfield songs and ‘What A Feeling’, ‘I Found You’. In the spring of 2000 Edel Records issued The Impressions - A tribute to the memory of Curtis Mayfield. Meanwhile the Impressions were about to tour South Africa and record with Eric Clapton on his next album. In July ‘01 Ideal Music put together Remembering Curtis by the Impressions that gained UK release later in the year. This album contains 20 Mayfield songs beautifully reinterpreted by the Impressions as only they can. UK labels have reissued almost all their recorded product. Ace issued all their ABC albums on four great 2fer CDs plus their Rarities album that mops up all the other tracks available. Sequel issued all the Curtom albums in a similar fashion plus the two ChiSound albums on one 2fer.

“A marriage of

influences with a timely conscience”

gospel and pop

53

After spending most of their adult lives based in Chicago, Sam and Fred both returned home to their roots in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the city where they both grew up during the 40s and early 50s. They had lived with their families in Atlanta, Georgia in the early nineties but by ‘97 they’d returned to Chattanooga. Willie Kitchens Jr a fellow Chattanoogan joined their line up and in late 2000 Eric Clapton invited their partici-pation on his Reptile album. They appeared with Clapton on selected tour dates and at the Albert Hall.

These days the Impressions, now back to a trio since Vandy’s departure tour for about six months of the year they are currently looking for a record deal and have recently been appearing in Las Vegas with Jerry Butler.

In the mid-1960s, The Impressions, were compared with Motown acts such as The Temptations, The Miracles, and The Four Tops. After 1965’s “Woman’s Got Soul”, and the #7 pop hit “Amen”, The Impressions failed to reach the R&B Top Ten for three more years, finally scoring in 1968 with the #9 “I Loved and Lost”. “We’re a Winner”, which hit #1 on the R&B charts that same year, represented a new level of social awareness in Mayfield’s music. Mayfield created his own label, Curtom, and moved The Impressions to the label.


Over the next two years, more Impressions message tracks, including the #1 R&B hit “Choice of Colors” (1969) and the #3 “Check Out Your Mind” (1970), became big hits for the group.

It should also be noted that ‘The Impressions’ were a huge influence on Bob Marley and The Wailers and other ska/rock-steady groups in Jamaica: The Wailers modelled their singing/ harmony style on them and in part borrowed their look, too. There are many covers of Impressions songs by The Wailers, including ‘Keep On Moving’, ‘Long Long Winter’ and ‘Just Another Dance’. Pat Kelly covered ‘Soulful Love’ and The Heptones covered ‘I’ve Been Trying’. No doubt the social consciousness of Curtis Mayfield’s lyrics appealed as well as the spectacular harmonies.

After the release of the Check Out Your Mind LP in 1970, Mayfield left the group and began a successful solo career, the highlight of which was writing and producing the Super Fly soundtrack. He continued to write and produce for The Impressions, who remained on Curtom. Leroy Hutson was the first new lead singer for the group following his departure.

• PART TWO •

move on up

can’t stop now: move on up

• CHAPTER FOUR •

Mayfield announced his departure from the Impressions in

August of 1970. He began his solo career in 1971, offering “a

biting commentary of the American scene and impressions of oppressed

people,” according to Billboard. A New York Times music critic said of his

first solo album, Curtis: “Mayfield himself continues to be a kind of

contemporary preacher-through-music. He sings in a breathlessly high,

pure voice, breaking his phrases into speech-like patterns, his rhythms

pushed by the urgency of his thought… He is not a lyrical singer, and his

message seems as important to him as his melody.” Including songs of

up to ten minutes in length, Curtis established Mayfield as an album

rather than a singles artist.

Mayfield began a successful career writing soundtracks for films with

the 1972 movie, Superfly. Somewhat controversial, the film glorified the

curtis

59

life of a drug pusher and was part of a popular genre of “blaxploitation”

films. According to a New York Times review, “Mayfield’s music is more

specifically anti-drugs than the philosophical content of the movie, and

it is also considerably more stylish in design and execution.” Two top-ten

hit singles resulted from the soundtrack: “Freddie’s Dead” and “Superfly.”

Throughout the 1970s, Mayfield continued to write soundtracks for

several films and solidified his reputation as a solo artist. Mayfield’s solo

career featured harder sounding songs than he wrote for the Impressions,

with didactic lyrics and social commentary. In spite of adverse criticism,

Pruter assessed Mayfield’s 1970s output positively, writing, “Some of

the very best black popular music of the 1970s came from Mayfield,

who despite the many misses during the decade was one of the creative

leaders in establishing a new contemporary style of rhythm and blues.


The Impressions regrouped in 1983 for a reunion tour. The original

members Butler, Mayfield, Gooden, and Cash performed the 1960s hits

of the Impressions along with the solo hits of Butler and Mayfield. As

reviewed by Robert Palmer in the New York Times, the performances

“amounted to a capsule history of recent black popular music, from the

slick doo-wop and grittier gospel-based vocal group styles of the 1950s

to Mr. Butler’s urbane pop-soul, Curtis Mayfield’s soul message songs

and later funk, and the styles the Impressions have tackled as a group.”

Palmer continued: “The Impressions were one of the two top rhythm-

and-blues vocal groups of the 1960s; the other was the Temptations.

Both were rooted in the rich traditions of black gospel music.”

Mayfield’s influence on a new generation of listeners was evident in

many ways. His 1960s compositions for the Impressions have enjoyed

61

numerous cover versions from a wide range of popular singers. Some

critics have suggested that his anti-drug messages, most emphatically

expressed in the songs for Superfly, fit well with the new films created by

young black filmmakers. Popular rap singer and actor Ice-T, who sang

on “Superfly 1990” with Mayfield, said in tribute to the artist, “There’s only

been a couple of people I’ve met [in the music business] that to me are

really heavy. Curtis is one of them.”

Curtis Mayfield is among an elite few members of the Rock and Roll

Hall of Fame who have been inducted more than once. Mayfield was first

inducted with the Impressions in 1991 and then as a solo artist in 1999.

His solo career, which began in 1970, is significant for the forthright way

in which he addressed issues of black identity and self-awareness. He

has been cited as an influence by such latter-day performers as Lenny

“Mayfield’s ability to voice hard truths through funky,

has rendered him one of the great soul icons.”

uplifting music


Kravitz, Public Enemy and Arrested Development. Mayfield’s ability to

voice hard truths through funky, uplifting music has rendered him one of

the great soul icons.

In 1968, while still with the Impressions, Mayfield launched the Curtom

label (his third, after the Mayfield and Windy C imprints). Two years later,

his solo debut, Curtis, appeared. It contained one of his most forthright

message songs, “Don’t Worry (If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going

to Go),” and was the first of eleven albums that he released in the

Seventies. Whereas his Sixties work both with the Impressions and as a

songwriter-producer defined Chicago soul-a regional scene comparable

to Motown in Detroit and Stax in Memphis-Mayfield left his imprint on the

Seventies by couching social commentary and keenly observed black-

culture archetypes in funky, danceable rhythms. He explained the shift

Just move on up

Now child

and dont you cry

Your folks might

understand you by and by

Just move on up

Toward your destinationThough you may find

From time to time complications

Bite your lipAnd take the trip

For there may be rough road aheadAnd you cannot slip

Just move on upA n d k e e p o n w i s h i n g

Remember your dream is your only schemeSo keep on pushing

Take nothing lessBut the supreme best

Do not obey rumors people sayYou can pass the test

Just move on upTo a greater day

With just a little faithIf you put your mind to it

You can surely do it

Hush

65

in subject matter as “a feeling in me that there need to be songs that

relate not so much to civil rights but to the way we as all people deal

with our lives.”

Working on a seemingly parallel track with Marvin Gaye circa What’s

Going On, Mayfield’s second solo album, Roots (1971), sounded urgent

pleas for peace and brotherhood over extended, cinematic soul-funk

tracks that laid out a fresh musical agenda for the new decade.

Mayfield’s solo career found him giving freer reign to his guitar playing,

a choppy, rhythm-based style that owed much to his Chicago blues

heritage and a self-devised tuning based on the black keys of the

piano. His most popular and lasting work was Superfly, a film soundtrack

in which he painted a gritty portrait of black life in America’s inner cities.

Mayfield struck a creative and commercial motherlode with Superfly‘s

Your folks might

Bite your lip


“There need to be songs that relate not so much to civil rights but to the way we as all people

smoldering rock-disco grooves and pointed social commentary. The

soundtrack album yielded massive crossover hits in “Freddie’s Dead”

and “Superfly.” Against a hypnotic backdrop of conga drums, strings and

wah-wah guitar, Mayfield sang of a high-rolling ghetto drug dealer’s life-

style in a sweet, stinging falsetto. As an aural document, Mayfield’s music

for this classic “blaxploitation” film anticipated the reality-based rap and

hip-hop of the Nineties.

Throughout his career Mayfield also shone brightly as a producer

and songwriter for other artists, including soul and R&B giants like Jerry

Butler and Major Lance (in the Sixties) and Aretha Franklin, the Staple

Singers, and Gladys Knight and the Pips (in the Seventies). As a solo

artist, he continued to score R&B hits into the mid-Eighties, many of them

in a disco vein.

deal with our lives.”

67

A freakish onstage accident in August 1990 left Mayfield paralyzed

from the neck down. However, this tragedy did not diminish his spirit or

end his career. In 1996, he released his 25th solo album, New World

Order. In his own words: “How many 54-year-old quadriplegics are

putting albums out? You just have to deal with what you got, try to

sustain yourself as best you can, and look to the things that you can do.”

Despite his positive attitude, Mayfield’s health steadily deteriorated. He

lost a leg to diabetes in 1998 and died a year later at age 57. On that

day, the music world lost a man of great talent and conscience. In the

words of Aretha Franklin, “Curtis Mayfield is to soul music what Bach

was to the classics and Gershwin and Irving Berlin were to pop music.”

Curtis Mayfield was an early comer to the world of music. When he

was barely ten years old he was already writing music, and by the time

69

he was fifteen he was invited to join the group the Impressions, a group

that would come to be known world-wide for its rhythm and blues sound

found in such songs as “Gypsy Woman,” the song for which the group

was eventually honored with a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Mayfield went on to an incredibly successful solo career during which he

became famous for popular songs like “Superfly” and “Freddie’s Dead.”

He was a political man, many of whose songs, such as “We’re a Winner,”

“I’m So Proud,” and “People Get Ready,” were unofficially assocated

with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In 1990 Mayfield was

injured during a concert rehearsal and paralyzed. He didn’t let that stop

him, however, and before his death in 1999 Mayfield wrote more music

and was admitted as a solo artist into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.




numerous cover versions from a wide range of popular singers. And some



young black filmmakers. Popular rap singer and actor Ice-T, who sang on

“Superfly 1990” with Mayfield, said in tribute to the artist, “There’s only been

a couple of people I’ve met in the music business that to me are really

heavy. Curtis is one of them.”


• CHAPTER FIVE •

Curtis Mayfield was known for introducing social consciousness

into African American music as well as R&B and wrote songs

protesting social and political equality. He had written and recorded

most of the anthemic soundtracks during the Civil Rights Movement of

the 1960’s and the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly with

The Impressions. Super Fly is regarded as an all-time great record that

influenced many and truly shaped a new style of modern black music.

Just as the Civil Rights Act passed into law in 1964, his group The

Impressions produced music that became the soundtrack to a summer

of revolution. Black students sang their songs as they marched to jail

or protested outside their universities, while King often marched to the

peaceful sounds of Mayfield’s Keep On Pushing, People Get Ready

and We’re A Winner. Mayfield had quickly become a civil rights hero.

blaxploitation

73

Mayfield, along with several other soul and funk musicians, spread

messages of hope in the face of oppression, pride in being a member of

the black race and gave courage to a generation who were demanding

their human rights. Mayfield has been compared to of Martin Luther

King Jr arguably for making a greater lasting impact in the civil rights

struggle with his music. By the end of the decade he was a pioneering

voice in the black pride movement along with James Brown and Sly

Stone. Paving the way for future generations of rebel thinkers, Mayfield

paid the price, artistically and commercially, for his politically charged

music. Irrespective of the persistent radio bans and loss of revenue,

Mayfield continued his quest for equality right until his death. His lyrics

on racial injustice, poverty and drugs became the poetry for a genera-

tion. Mayfield was also a descriptive social commentator. As the influx


of drugs ravaged through black America in the late 1960s and 1970s

his bittersweet descriptions of the ghetto would serve as warnings

to the impressionable. Determined to warn all about the perils of drugs,

Freddie’s Dead remains one of the most graphic tales of street life.

After hearing the Rev. Martin Luther King deliver his “I Have a Dream”

speech that August day in 1963, the crowd of 250,000 sang “We Shall

Overcome.” In 1965, another gospel song emerged–People Get Ready

by Mayfield and the Impressions. Keep On Pushing and People Get

Ready were two songs that became embedded in the national move-

ment for civil and social rights, heard at all the rallies and marches,

songs-as-inspiration. His song “People Get Ready” was written in the

year after the march on Washington’s. For many, it captured the spirit

of the march–racial and religious redemption and forgiveness.

75

“Mayfield left his imprint on the Seventies by couching social

commentary and keenly observed

in funky, danceable rhythms.”

Mayfield produced many of the songs that helped shape and define

the Black Power Movement, exemplifies the workings of music in the

BPM and their 1967 song ‘We’re a Winner’ can be seen as one defining

element of the movement. Mayfield’s uncompromising look at racism

and his calls for black pride and economic determinism place him firmly

within the BPM. Significantly, when he and his friend Eddie Thomas

founded the Custom record label to protect black artists from the

exploitation that they often suffered with other record labels, not only

was the BPM ideal of black entrepreneurship realized but also the BPM

had a record label that was synonymous with Black Power. Empowered

in part by the ownership of his own label and in part by his affiliations

with other artists, Mayfield presented a crucial look at American racism

in ‘This is My Country’ with lyrics that spoke of ‘three hundred years

black-culture archetypes


of slave driving, sweat and welts on my ‘We’re a Winner’ conveys the

essential ideological message of the BPM. By the time We’re a Winner

was recorded, the BPM was a powerful, complex movement that

incorporated politics, capitalism, internationalism and the arts that had

its roots in the social circumstances and political opportunities of the

post-World War II era. The title itself was a strong statement against

inferiority complexes historically propagated among blacks by power

brokers representing white social and cultural values, but the lyrics

offer more than a critique–they offer an affirmative view of black

culture that could foster mobilization and sustain political action

under even threatening circumstances. Music, as exemplified by Curtis

Mayfield, was to foster mobilization by presenting the political ideology

of Black Power that enforced notions of black pride, but it also offered

Is do or die

Had a mind wasn’t dumbBut a weakness was shown

Cause his hustle was wrongHis mind was his own

But the man lived a l o n eThe games he plays he plays for keeps

Hustling times in ghetto streetsTaking all that he can take

Gambling with the odds of fateTrying to get over

The aim of his roleWas to move a lot of blow

Ask him his dream what does it meanHe wouldn’t know

Can’t be like the restIs the most he’ll confess

But the t i m e ’ s r u n n i n g o u tAnd there’s no happiness s u p e r f l y

You’re gonna make your fortune by and byBut if you lose

don’t ask no question whyThe only game you know

This cat of the slum

But a hell of a man

Hard to understand

The dudes have envied him for so long

Has an air of great power

The man of the hourA lot of things going on

There’s a set going strong

With the moon shinning bright

Darkest of night

79

a venue for the creation of black culture not defined by the dominant

white culture. Curtis Mayfield is among an elite few members of the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who have been inducted more than once.

Mayfield was first inducted with the Impressions in 1991 and then as a

solo artist in 1999. His solo career, which began in 1970, is significant

for the forthright way in which he addressed issues of black identity

and self-awareness. He has been cited as an influence by such latter-

day performers as Lenny Kravitz, Ice-T, Public Enemy and Arrested

Development. Mayfield’s ability to voice hard truths through funky,

uplifting music has rendered him one of the great soul icons.

In 1968, while with the Impressions, Mayfield launched the Curtom

label (his third, after the Mayfield and Windy C imprints). Two years

later, his solo debut, Curtis, appeared. It contained one of his most

Gambling with the odds of fate


“Urgent pleas for peace and brotherhood over extended, cinematic

that laid out a fresh musical agenda for the new decade.”

forthright message songs, “Don’t Worry (If There’s a Hell Below We’re

All Going to Go),” and was the first of eleven albums that he released

in the Seventies. Whereas his Sixties work both with the Impressions

and as a songwriter-producer defined Chicago soul-a regional scene

comparable to Motown in Detroit and Stax in Memphis-Mayfield left his

imprint on the Seventies by couching social commentary and keenly

observed black-culture archetypes in funky, danceable rhythms. He

explained the shift in subject matter as “a feeling in me that there need

to be songs that relate not so much to civil rights but to the way we as

all people deal with our lives.”




soul-funk tracks

81


Mayfield’s solo career found him giving freer reign to his guitar playing,

a choppy, rhythm-based style that owed much to his Chicago blues

heritage and a self-devised tuning based on the black keys of the

piano. His most popular and lasting work was Superfly, a film soundtrack

in which he painted a gritty portrait of black life in America’s inner cities.


smoldering rock-disco grooves and pointed social commentary The


and “Superfly.” Mayfield sang of a high-rolling ghetto drug dealer’s

lifestyle in a sweet, stinging falsetto. As an aural document, Mayfield’s

music for this classic “blaxploitation” film anticipated the reality-

based rap and hip-hop of the Nineties.

83





artist, he continued to score R&B hits into the mid-Eighties, many of

them in a disco vein. Getting back to his roots, Mayfield joined the

Impressions in 1983 for a reunion tour and revived his dormant Curtom

label in 1990.

Throughout the 1970s Mayfield continued to write soundtracks and

solidify his reputation as a solo artist. His solo compositions featured a

more intense style than was expressed in those he had written for the

Impressions; instructive lyrics and social commentary were the norm.

Bucking pervasive negative criticism, Pruter assessed Mayfield’s 1970s


output positively, writing, “Some of the very best black popular music

of the 1970s came from Mayfield, who despite the many misses during

the decade was one of the creative leaders in establishing a new

contemporary style of rhythm and blues, one with a militant, harder

edge.” Mayfield’s characteristic falsetto and innovative guitar work—

the latter a clear inspiration to guitar colossus Jimi Hendrix—helped

set a new standard for contemporary music. And critics have pointed

out that his anti-drug messages echoed in the films of the young black

filmmakers who gained prominence in the late 1980s.


• CHAPTER SIX •

In addition to composing, singing, and playing the guitar, Mayfield

was also interested in setting up his own record label. In 1960, at the

age of 21, he made the unprecedented move of establishing his own

music publishing company, Curtom, while recording at Vee Jay. Mayfield

began developing two labels in 1966, Mayfield and Windy C., but it was

in 1968 that he founded his most successful label, also called Curtom.

The budding entrepreneur took The Impressions away from ABC and

also recorded and produced other acts. Mayfield’s songwriting and

producing abilities were a key factor in the label’s success.

In August of 1970 Curtis Mayfield announced his departure from the

Impressions. He began his solo career the following year, offering

“a biting commentary of the American scene and impressions of oppr-

essed people,” according to a review in Billboard. A New York Times

curtom records

87

music critic said of his first solo album: “Mayfield himself continues

to be a kind of contemporary preacher-through-music. He sings in a

breathlessly high, pure voice, breaking his phrases into speech-like

patterns, his rhythms pushed by the urgency of his thoughts… His

message seems as important to him as his melody.” Including songs of

up to ten minutes, Curtis established Mayfield as an album rather than

a singles artist.

Mayfield began a successful career writing soundtracks for films

with the 1972 movie Superfly. The controversial film depicted the life of

a drug dealer and was part of the then-popular genre of “blaxploitation”

films. According to a New York Times review, “Mayfield’s music is more

specifically anti-drugs than the philosophical content of the movie, and

it is also considerably more stylish in design and execution.”







output positively, writing, “Some of the very best black popular music of

the 1970s came from Mayfield, who despite the many misses during


contemporary style of rhythm and blues, with a militant, harder edge.”

Mayfield joined the Impressions in 1983 for a reunion tour. Original

members Butler, Mayfield, Gooden, and Cash performed the 1960s

hits of the Impressions along with Butler and Mayfield’s more popular

solo efforts. According to Robert Palmer of the New York Times, the

89

performances “amounted to a capsule history of recent black popular

music, from the slick doo-wop and grittier gospel-based vocal group

styles of the 1950s to Mr. Butler’s urbane pop-soul, Curtis Mayfield’s

soul message songs and later funk, and the styles the Impressions

have tackled as a group.”

Mayfield’s influence on a new generation of performers is widely

evident. His 1960s compositions for the Impressions have enjoyed nu-

merous cover versions from a wide range of popular singers. Mayfield’s

characteristic falsetto and innovative guitar work—the latter a clear

inspiration to guitar colossus Jimi Hendrix—helped set a new standard

for contemporary music. And critics have pointed out that his anti-drug

messages, most emphatically expressed in the songs for Superfly,

are echoed in the films of the young black filmmakers who gained

“One of the first ever record labels owned by an

recording artist.”African-American


prominence in the late 1980s. Controversial rap singer and actor Ice-T,

who lent vocals to “Superfly 1990,” said in tribute to the artist, “There’s

only been a couple of people I’ve met in the music business that to me

are really heavy. Curtis is one of them.”

In 1968, while still with the Impressions, Mayfield launched the

Curtom label (his third, after the Mayfield and Windy C imprints). Two

years later, his solo debut, Curtis, appeared. It contained one of his

most forthright message songs, “Don’t Worry (If There’s a Hell Below

We’re All Going to Go),” and was the first of eleven albums that he

released in the Seventies. Whereas his Sixties work both with the

Impressions and as a songwriter-producer defined Chicago soul-a

regional scene comparable to Motown in Detroit and Stax in Memphis

Mayfield left his imprint on the Seventies through couching social

I’ll see you when you get there

Dictate the lawThat’s partly flaw

Cat calling love ballingfussing and cussing

Top billing now is killingFor peace no one is willing

Kind of make you get that feelingEverybody smoke,

Use the pill and the dopeEducated fools

From uneducated schoolsPimping people is the rule

Everybody’s prayingAnd everybody’s saying,

But when it comes time to do,Everybody’s laying

But they don’t knowThere can be no show

and if there’s hell below,We’re all gonna go

While the judge and his juries

People running from their worries

HurryThey’re all p o l i t i c a l a c t o r s

Police and their backers

Blacks and the crackers

and the whities,

brothersSisters

93

commentary and keenly observed black-culture archetypes in funky,

danceable rhythms. He explained the shift in subject matter as “a feeling

in me that there need to be songs that relate not so much to civil rights

but to the way we as all people deal with our lives.”




tracks that laid out a fresh musical agenda for the new decade. Mayfield’s

solo career found him giving freer reign to his guitar playing, a choppy,

rhythm-based style that owed much to his Chicago blues heritage

and a self-devised tuning based on the black keys of the piano.

His most popular and lasting work was Superfly, a film soundtrack in

which he painted a gritty portrait of black life in America’s inner cities.


“Most of the acts on Curtom’s roster were either produced by Mayfield himself, or by his style.”


smoldering rock-disco grooves and pointed social commentary. The


and “Superfly.” Against a hypnotic backdrop of conga drums, strings

and wah-wah guitar, Mayfield sang of a high-rolling ghetto drug dealer’s

lifestyle in a sweet, stinging falsetto. As an aural document, Mayfield’s

music for this classic “blaxploitation” film anticipated the reality-based

rap and hip-hop of the Nineties.


and songwriter for other artists, including soul and R&B giants like

Jerry Butler and Major Lance (in the Sixties) and Aretha Franklin, the

Staple Singers, and Gladys Knight and the Pips (in the Seventies). As a

solo artist, he continued to score R&B hits into the mid-Eighties, many

heavily influenced

95

of them in a disco vein. Getting back to his roots, Mayfield joined the

Impressions in 1983 for a reunion tour and revived his dormant Curtom

label in 1990. Mayfield worked with Mavis Staples on the 1977 sound-

track for the film A Piece of the Action. He was in danger of overreaching

himself being writer, producer, performer, arranger, and businessman

but seemed to cope and still produce a remarkable output.





artist, he continued to score hits into the mid-Eighties, many of them in a

disco vein. Getting back to his roots, Mayfield joined the Impressions in

1983 for a reunion tour and revived his dormant Curtom label in 1990.

97










output positively, writing, “Some of the very best black popular music

of the 1970s came from Mayfield, who despite the many misses during


contemporary style of rhythm and blues, one with a militant, harder edge.”




numerous cover versions from a wide range of popular singers. And some



young black filmmakers. Popular rap singer and actor Ice-T, who sang on

“Superfly 1990” with Mayfield, said in tribute to the artist, “There’s only been

a couple of people I’ve met in the music business that to me are really

heavy. Curtis is one of them.”

• PART THREE •

can’t stop now

can’t stop now: can’t stop now

• CHAPTER SEVEN •

Native Chicagoan, Curtis Mayfield was enjoying the best comeback

year of his career in 1990. His soul vocal group the Impressions,

was nominated for a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and a successful

cover version of their 1961 hit “Gypsy Woman,” was recorded by Santana.

Take It to the Streets, Mayfield’s first album in more than five years, was

released in early 1990, and he toured the United States, Europe, and Japan

to promote it. Capitol Records was set to release the soundtrack to The

Return of Superfly, a rap sampler featuring four original songs written and

performed by Mayfield.

Then tragedy struck. On a windy summer night in August of 1990, Mayfield

was getting set to start a concert at Wingate Field in Brooklyn. As he was

plugging in his guitar, a gust of wind toppled a light tower near the stage,

paralysis

103

striking him in the head. The accident resulted in three broken vertebrae

and paralysis for Mayfield from the neck down. After spending a week in a

Brooklyn hospital, he was transferred to the Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta.

Keeping his spirits up, Mayfield began physical therapy in September of 1990

and made his first public appearance in February of 1991, when he donated

$100,000 to set up the Curtis Mayfield Research Fund at the Miami Project to

Cure Paralysis in Florida. His family was reportedly hopeful that his physical

therapy will enable him to make at least a partial recovery.

Mayfield might have been severly injured, but he wasn’t forgotten. Various

artists got together in 1994 to put out a tribute album in honor of the great

Curtis Mayfield, including Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Stevie Wonder, Whitney

Houston, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, Lenny Kravitz, the Isley Brothers, and


Bruce Springsteen. Mayfield himself got back into the recording studio to do

“All Men Are Brothers” for the album. He told Guitar Player magazine that

the album meant a lot to him. “I was just overwhelmed. It brought tears to my

eyes. As they would record them, they would send me copies of each. I’d play

them over and over, and there wasn’t a song I didn’t like. It just goes to show

you that no matter how bad things might get, there’s always room for

something good to happen.”

And Mayfield’s music stayed alive. Rhino Records came out with a three-

CD boxed set of Mayfield’s music in 1996. It included music from his days with

the Impressions through to his later solo career. In 1997 Mayfield released

the new album New World Order. When asked how his music writing had

changed since his accident, Mayfield told People Weekly, “It’s difficult

105

simply because when an idea hits me, I can’t just up and grab a guitar or

recorder or a pencil and write it down… But I’m happy to know I can still lock

in lyrics, and I have enough voice and strength in my lungs to sing a song.”

As an even greater tribute to the man and his music, Mayfield was inducted

into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 for his solo recordings.



pleas for peace and brotherhood over extended, cinematic soul-funk tracks

that laid out a fresh musical agenda for the new decade. Mayfield’s solo

career found him giving freer reign to his guitar playing, a choppy, rhythm-

based style that owed much to his Chicago blues heritage and a self

devised tuning based on the black keys of the piano. His most popular and

“No matter how bad things might get,

for something good to happen.”there’s always room


lasting work was Superfly, a film soundtrack in which he painted a gritty

portrait of black life in America’s inner cities. Mayfield struck a creative and

commercial motherlode with Superfly‘s smoldering rock-disco grooves and

pointed social commentary. The soundtrack album yielded massive cross-

over hits in “Freddie’s Dead” and “Superfly.” Against a hypnotic backdrop of

conga drums, strings and wah-wah guitar, Mayfield sang of a high-rolling

ghetto drug dealer’s lifestyle in a sweet, stinging falsetto. As an aural

document, Mayfield’s music for this classic “blaxploitation” film anticipated

the reality-based rap and hip-hop of the Nineties.

Throughout his career Mayfield also shone brightly as a producer and

songwriter for other artists, including soul and R&B giants like Jerry Butler

and Major Lance (in the Sixties) and Aretha Franklin, the Staple Singers,

Whole lot of love among us

Tomorrow seems twice as badBut don’t you give up

Your life isn’t overLook to the good side

it could be twice as badAnd if comes another day

And I know there will some wayThere’ll be a whole lot of love

Whole lot of love among usWithout even trying

When I look into your eyesThere are beautiful things

But don’t you give upYour life isn’t over

Keep on keeping onSee what the love can bring

And if comes another dayAnd I know there will some way

There’ll be a whole lot of love

Rough times and

Things are so bad

so hard

life is

Sometimes

109

But don’t you give up

And if comes another day

When I look into your eyes

Things are so bad

life is

and Gladys Knight and the Pips (in the Seventies). As a solo artist, he

continued to score R&B hits into the mid-Eighties, many of them in a disco

vein. Getting back to his roots, Mayfield joined the Impressions in 1983 for a

reunion tour and revived his dormant Curtom label in 1990.

A freakish onstage accident in August 1990 left Mayfield paralyzed from

the neck down. However, this tragedy did not diminish his spirit or end his

career. In 1996, he released his 25th solo album, New World Order. In his

own words: “How many 54-year-old quadriplegics are putting albums out?

You just have to deal with what you got, try to sustain yourself as best you

can, and look to the things that you can do.” Despite his positive attitude,

Mayfield’s health steadily deteriorated. He lost a leg to diabetes in 1998 and

died a year later at age 57. On that day, the music world lost a man of great


“I was just

It brought tears to my eyes.”

talent and conscience. In the words of Aretha Franklin, “Curtis Mayfield is

to soul music what Bach was to the classics and Gershwin and Irving Berlin

were to pop music.”

Mayfield was heavily steeped in gospel music before he entered the pop

arena, and gospel, as well as doo wop, influences would figure prominently

in most of his ‘60s work. Mayfield wasn’t a staunch traditionalist, however.

He and the Impressions may have often worked the call-and-response

gospel style, but his songs (romantic and otherwise) were often veiled or

unveiled messages of black pride, reflecting the increased confidence and

self-determination of the African-American community. Musically he was an

innovator as well, using arrangements that employed the punchy, blaring

horns and Latin-influenced rhythms that came to be trademark flourishes of

overwhelmed.

111

Chicago soul. As the staff producer for the OKeh label, Mayfield was also

instrumental in lending his talents to the work of other Chi-town soul singers

who went on to national success. With Mayfield singing lead and playing

guitar, the Impressions had 14 Top 40 hits in the 1960s (five made the Top

20 in 1964 alone), and released some above-average albums during that

period as well.

Given Mayfield’s prodigious talents, it was perhaps inevitable that he

would eventually leave the Impressions to begin a solo career, as he did

in 1970. His first few singles boasted a harder, more funk-driven sound;

singles like “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Gonna Go”

found him confronting ghetto life with a realism that had rarely been heard

on record. He really didn’t hit his artistic or commercial stride as a solo

113

artist, though, until Superfly, his soundtrack to a 1972 blaxploitation film.

Drug deals, ghetto shootings, the death of young black men before their

time: all were described in penetrating detail. Yet Mayfield’s irrepressible

falsetto vocals, uplifting melodies, and fabulous funk pop arrangements

gave the oft-moralizing material a graceful strength that few others could

have achieved. For all the glory of his past work, Superfly stands as his

crowning achievement, not to mention a much-needed counterpoint to the

sensationalistic portrayals of the film itself.

At this point Mayfield, along with Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, was

the foremost exponent of a new level of compelling auteurism in soul. His

failure to maintain the standards of Superfly qualifies as one of the great

disappointments in the history of black popular music. Perhaps he’d simply


reached his peak after a long climb, but the rest of his ‘70s work didn’t match

the musical brilliance and lyrical subtleties of Superfly, although he had a

few large R&B hits in a much more conventional vein, such as “Kung Fu,”

“So in Love,” and “Only You Babe.” Mayfield had a couple of hits in the early

‘80s, but the decade generally found his commercial fortunes in a steady

downward spiral, despite some intermittent albums.

In the mid-’90s, a couple of tribute albums consisting of Mayfield

covers appeared, with contributions by such superstars as Eric Clapton,

Bruce Springsteen, and Gladys Knight. Though no substitute for the man

himself, these tributes served as an indication of the enormous regard in

which Mayfield was still held by his peers.


• CHAPTER EIGHT •

Several years after drawing deeply on his spiritual reserves, Mayfield

regained strength slowly, until an uplifting experience in 1994, when

an all-star cast of artists assembled to pay tribute to this great songwriter

and entertainer. Warner Brothers Records organized the recording of the

album, All Men Are Brothers: A Tribute To Curtis Mayfield, featuring all star

performers including Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, Bruce

Springsteen. John Mellencamp, Rod Stewart, B.B. King, Elton John, Gladys

Knight and Aretha Franklin, among others, all singing vintage Curtis Mayfield

material, and highlighted by a rendition of “Let’s Do It Again,” by Mayfield

himself, marking his first performance in the four years since the accident.

Inspired by this eventful album, Mayfield entered the studio on his own

again, two years later in 1996 where he produced a new album of original

new world order

117

material, New World Order, which became one of the most acclaimed

productions of his entire career. Both Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples

appeared as guests on the album. This album was nominated for 3 Grammys.

Mayfield had a couple of hits in the early ‘80s, but the decade generally

found his commercial fortunes in a steady downward spiral, despite some

intermittent albums. On August 14, 1990, he became paralyzed from the

neck down when a lighting rig fell on top of him at a concert in Brooklyn,

NY. In the mid-’90s, a couple of tribute albums consisting of Mayfield

covers appeared, with contributions by such superstars as Eric Clapton,

Bruce Springsteen, and Gladys Knight. Though no substitute for the man

himself, these tributes served as an indication of the enormous regard in

which Mayfield was still held by his peers.


By the time he was in high school, his family had settled in the Cabrini-

Green projects on Chicago’s North Side. Mayfield’s strongest early musical

influence came from his membership in a local gospel group called the North-

ern Jubilee Gospel Singers, which included three cousins and Jerry Butler.

But young Mayfield was also interested in his own music. As Mayfield told

the Detroit News in 1974, “I was writing music when I was 10 or 11 years old.”

Mayfield’s grandmother was a preacher in the Traveling Souls Spiritualist

Church, and traces of church and gospel music are evident in many of his

compositions. Mayfield attended Wells High School on Chicago’s North

Side along with another popular singer, Major Lance, but he left when he

was in the tenth grade to begin performing with the Impressions.

119

The Impressions began playing around 1956 as the Roosters in

Chattanooga, Tennessee, with Fred Cash, Sam Gooden, Emanuel Thomas,

and the brothers Richard and Arthur Brooks. Seeking to advance their

musical careers, Gooden and the Brooks brothers went north to Chicago in

1957 and moved to the North Side in the Cabrini-Green projects. Jerry Butler

was a senior in high school at the time, and he acted as a replacement

for the vocalists who had stayed in Tennessee. Butler encouraged Mayfield

to join them, saying they needed someone “who could play an instrument

and who could help us get our harmony together,” as quoted by Robert

Pruter in Chicago Soul. By this time, Mayfield was writing gospel-influenced

songs and had learned how to play the guitar.

“It’s difficult simply because when an idea hits me,

I can’t just up and grab a guitar or recorder or a

pencil and write it down...”


The group made some early recordings for the Bandera label and were

then discovered by Eddie Thomas of Vee Jay records, who became their

manager and changed their name to the Impressions. Vee Jay and Chess

records were two of Chicago’s major rhythm and blues labels of the time,

and the Impressions made their first record for Vee Jay about six months

after Mayfield joined the group. Released on the company’s subsidiary label,

Falcon, “For Your Precious Love” featured Jerry Butler’s lead vocals. Its first

issue sold over nine hundred thousand copies. Vee Jay’s A&R man Calvin

Carter signed them immediately after hearing the song, which he reportedly

liked for its spiritual feel, a departure from the doo-wop harmonies of the day.

Vee Jay promoted the group as “Jerry Butler and the Impressions” and

developed Butler as a solo artist. After three singles, Butler left the group

We’re a winner

No more tears do we cryAnd we have finally dried our eyes

And we’re moving on upLord have mercy

We’re moving on upWe’re living proofAnd all’s alert

That we’re too fromThe good black dirt

And we’re a winnerEverybody knows it too

We just keep on pushingLike your leaders tell you to

At last that blessed day has comeAnd I don’t care where you come from

We’re all moving on upLord have mercy

I don’t mind leaving hereTo show the world we have no fear

Cause a feeble mind is in your way

Boy you can’t make it

anybody say

and never let

winnerWe’re a

we’re moving on up

123

And all’s alert

The good black dirt

We’re all moving on up

anybody say

to go out on his own. As Mayfield told Pruter, “When Jerry left… it allowed

me to generate and pull out my own talents as a writer and a vocalist.”

Mayfield’s soprano singing contrasted with Butler’s baritone leads. The

group released a few singles with Mayfield as leader and then was dropped

by Vee Jay. From 1959 to 1961, the Impressions temporarily split up, and

Mayfield began writing songs and playing guitar for Butler in 1960.

By 1961 Mayfield had saved enough money–about a thousand dollars

to regroup the Impressions and take them to New York for a recording

session. In July they recorded “Gypsy Woman” for ABC-Paramount.

Mayfield was only 18 when the group signed with ABC-Paramount, and it

was the beginning of a seven-year string of popular and rhythm and blues hits

that were all composed by Mayfield. Mayfield, Sam Gooden, Fred Cash, and


“How many 54-year-old quadriplegics are

putting albums out?”

Arthur and Richard Brooks sang on “Gypsy Woman.” The Brooks brothers

left the Impressions in 1962, and the remaining members continued as a trio

throughout the 1960s.

Mayfield, along with several other soul and funk musicians, spread

messages of hope in the face of oppression, pride in being a member of

the black race and gave courage to a generation who were demanding

their human rights. Mayfield has been compared to of Martin Luther King Jr

arguably for making a greater lasting impact in the civil rights struggle with

his music. By the end of the decade he was a pioneering voice in the black

pride movement along with James Brown and Sly Stone. Paving the way

for a future generation of rebel thinkers, Mayfield paid the price, artistically

and commercially, for his politically charged music. Irrespective of the per-

125

sistent radio bans and loss of revenue, Mayfield continued his quest for

equality right until his death. His lyrics on racial injustice, poverty and drugs

became the poetry for a generation. Mayfield was also a descriptive social

commentator. As the influx of drugs ravaged through black America in the

late 1960s and 1970s his bittersweet descriptions of the ghetto would serve

as warnings to the impressionable. Determined to warn all about the perils

of drugs, Freddie’s Dead remains one of the most graphic tales of street

life. After hearing the Rev. Martin Luther King deliver his “I Have a Dream”

speech that August day in 1963, the crowd of 250,000 sang “We Shall

Overcome.” In 1965, another gospel song emerged -- People Get Ready by

Mayfield and the Impressions. Keep On Pushing and People Get Ready

were two songs that became embedded in the national movement for civil

127

and social rights, heard at all the rallies and marches, songs-as-inspiration.

His song “People Get Ready” was written in the year after the march on

Washington’s. For many, it captured the spirit of the march–the song

reaches across racial and religious lines to offer a message of redemption

and forgiveness.

Mayfield produced many of the songs that helped shape and define the

Black Power Movement, exemplifies the workings of music in the BPM and

their 1967 song ‘We’re a Winner’ can be seen as one defining element of

the movement. Mayfield’s uncompromising look at racism and his calls for

black pride and economic determinism place him firmly within the BPM.

Significantly, when he and his friend Eddie Thomas founded the Custom

record label to protect black artists from the exploitation that they often


suffered with other record labels, not only was the BPM ideal of black

entrepreneurship realized but also the BPM had a record label that was

synonymous with Black Power. Empowered in part by the ownership

of his own label and in part by his affiliations with other artists, Mayfield

presented a crucial look at American racism in ‘This is My Country’ with

lyrics that spoke of ‘three hundred years of slave driving, sweat and welts

on my ‘We’re a Winner’ conveys the essential ideological message of the

BPM. By the time We’re a Winner was recorded, the BPM was a powerful,

complex movement that incorporated politics, capitalism, internationalism

and the arts that had its roots in the social circumstances and political

opportunities of the post-World War II era.


• CHAPTER NINE •

Curtis Mayfield is among an elite few members of the Rock and Roll

Hall of Fame who have been inducted more than once. Mayfield was

first inducted with the Impressions in 1991 and then as a solo artist in 1999.

His solo career, which began in 1970, is significant for the forthright way in

which he addressed issues of black identity and self-awareness. He has

been cited as an influence by such latter-day performers as Lenny Kravitz,

Ice-T, Public Enemy and Arrested Development. Mayfield’s ability to voice

hard truths through funky, uplifting music has rendered him one of the great

soul icons.

In 1968, while still with the Impressions, Mayfield launched the Curtom

label (his third, after the Mayfield and Windy C imprints). Two years later,

his solo debut, Curtis, appeared. It contained one of his most forthright

keep on pushing

131

message songs, “Don’t Worry (If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going to

Go),” and was the first of eleven albums that he released in the Seventies.

Whereas his Sixties work both with the Impressions and as a songwriter

producer defined Chicago soul-a regional scene comparable to Motown in

Detroit and Stax in Memphis-Mayfield left his imprint on the Seventies by

couching social commentary and keenly observed black-culture archetypes

in funky, danceable rhythms. He explained the shift in subject matter as “a

feeling in me that there need to be songs that relate not so much to civil

rights but to the way we as all people deal with our lives.”



pleas for peace and brotherhood over extended, cinematic soul-funk tracks


that laid out a fresh musical agenda for the new decade. Mayfield’s solo

career found him giving freer reign to his guitar playing, a choppy, rhythm-

based style that owed much to his Chicago blues heritage and a self

devised tuning based on the black keys of the piano. His most popular and

lasting work was Superfly, a film soundtrack in which he painted a gritty

portrait of black life in America’s inner cities. Mayfield struck a creative and

commercial motherlode with Superfly‘s smoldering rock-disco grooves and

pointed social commentary. The soundtrack album yielded massive cross-

over hits in “Freddie’s Dead” and “Superfly.” Against a hypnotic backdrop of

conga drums, strings and wah-wah guitar, Mayfield sang of a high-rolling

ghetto drug dealer’s lifestyle in a sweet, stinging falsetto. As an aural

document, Mayfield’s music for this classic “blaxploitation” film antici-

133

pated the reality-based rap and hip-hop of the Nineties. Throughout his

career Mayfield also shone brightly as a producer and songwriter for

other artists, including soul and R&B giants like Jerry Butler and Major

Lance (in the Sixties) and Aretha Franklin, the Staple Singers, and Gladys

Knight and the Pips (in the Seventies). As a solo artist, he continued to score

R&B hits into the mid-Eighties, many of them in a disco vein. Getting back

to his roots, Mayfield joined the Impressions in 1983 for a reunion tour and

revived his dormant Curtom label in 1990.

Throughout his career Mayfield also shone brightly as a producer and

songwriter for other artists, including soul and R&B giants like Jerry Butler

and Major Lance (in the Sixties) and Aretha Franklin, the Staple Singers,

and Gladys Knight and the Pips (in the Seventies). As a solo artist, he

“You just have to deal with what you got,

try to sustain yourself as best you can, and look to the

things that you can do.”


continued to score R&B hits into the mid-Eighties, many of them in a disco

vein. Getting back to his roots, Mayfield joined the Impressions in 1983 for a

reunion tour and revived his dormant Curtom label in 1990.

A freakish onstage accident in August 1990 left Mayfield paralyzed from

the neck down. However, this tragedy did not diminish his spirit or end his

career. In 1996, he released his 25th solo album, New World Order. In his

own words: “How many 54-year-old quadriplegics are putting albums out?

You just have to deal with what you got, try to sustain yourself as best you

can, and look to the things that you can do.” Despite his positive attitude,

Mayfield’s health steadily deteriorated. He lost a leg to diabetes in 1998 and

died a year later at age 57. On that day, the music world lost a man of great

talent and conscience. In the words of Aretha Franklin, “Curtis Mayfield is

K e e p o n p u s h i n ’

I’ve got to

I can’t stop now

Move up a l i t t l e h i g h e r

Some way, somehow

‘Cause I’ve got my strength And it don’t make sense

Not to keep on pushin’ Hallelujah, hallelujah

Keep on pushin’ Now maybe some day

I’ll reach that h i g h e r g o a l I know that I can make it

With just a little bit of soul ‘Cause I’ve got my strength

And it don’t make sense Not to keep on pushin’

Now look-a lookA-look-a yonder

What’s that I see A great big stone wall

Stands there ahead of me But I’ve got my pride

And I’ll move on aside And keep on pushin’

Hallelujah, hallelujah

keep on pushing

137

to soul music what Bach was to the classics and Gershwin and Irving Berlin

were to pop music.” Mayfield received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement

Award in 1995. In February, 1998, he had to have his right leg amputated

due to diabetes. Mayfield was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

on March 15, 1999. Health reasons prevented him from attending the

ceremony, which included fellow inductees Paul McCartney, Billy Joel,

Bruce Springsteen, Dusty Springfield, George Martin, and 1970s Curtom

signee and labelmate The Staple Singers.

Mayfield was active throughout the 1970s and 1980s, though he had a

somewhat lower public profile in the 1980s. On August 13, 1990, Mayfield

was paralyzed from the neck down after stage lighting equipment fell on him

at an outdoor concert at Wingate Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York.


The accident set him back, but Mayfield forged ahead. He was unable to

play guitar, but he wrote, sang, and directed the recording of his last album,

New World Order. Mayfield’s vocals were painstakingly recorded, usually

line-by-line while lying on his back.

Mayfield received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. In

February, 1998, he had to have his right leg amputated due to diabetes.

Mayfield was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 15,

1999. Health reasons prevented him from attending the ceremony, which

included fellow inductees Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen,

Dusty Springfield, George Martin, and labelmate The Staple Singers.

139

Throughout his career, Mayfield’s willingness to give voice to the truth

and the simultaneously dignified and funky ways in which he’s musically

cast forthright sentiments - have made him one of the great soul icons of the

age. Mayfield was paralyzed from the neck down in a 1990 accident when

a lighting tower fell on him prior to a show in New York. However, this tragic

setback has not diminished his spirit or his career. In 1996, he released his

25th solo album, New World Order. In his own words: “How many 54-year-

old quadriplegics are putting albums out? You just have to deal with what

you got, try to sustain yourself as best you can, and look to the things that

you can do.”


In his own words: “How many 54-year-old quadriplegics are putting

albums out? You just have to deal with what you got, try to sustain yourself

as best you can, and look to the things that you can do.” Despite his positive

attitude, Mayfield’s health steadily deteriorated. He lost a leg to diabetes

in 1998 and died a year later at age 57. On that day, the music world lost a

man of great talent and conscience. In the words of Aretha Franklin, “Curtis

Mayfield is to soul music what Bach was to the classics and Gershwin and

Irving Berlin were to pop music.”

references

Burns, P. (2003). Curtis Mayfield. (1st ed.) Sanctuary Publishing.

Mayfield, C. (1996). Poetic license. (1st ed.). Beverly Hills: Penguin USA.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. (2010). Curtis Mayfield. Retrieved from http://rockhall.com/inductees/curtis-mayfield/

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. (2010). The Impressions. Retrieved from http://rockhall.com/inductees/the-impressions/

Songwriters Hall of Fame. (2011). Songwriters hall of fame: Curtis may-field exhibit. Retrieved from http://songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C169

Werner, C. (2004). Higher ground. (1st ed.). New York: Crown Publishers.

In order of appearance:

Dread Scott; 17, 22Jean de Segonzac; 25Suncan Stone; 31Ted Leong; 36Andrze Banas; 39Gilles Petard; 45KENT Soul; 50, 53Curtom Records; 61,66, 69, 75, 95, 119, 132Warner Bros.; 80, 83, 124OM Electronics; 89,97Joseph O’Brien; 113Matthew Allen; 105CurtisMayfield.com; 110, 139

All image copyright belongs to their respective owners.

image credits

With a distinctive, highly recognizable tenor voice, an unparalleled catalog of enduring pop and soul classics and an honored place in the

pantheon of American music, Curtis Mayfield is without question one of the most influential and beloved artist and songwriter of his time. From his rough beginnings to his tragic end, Mayfield always kept his head held high and kept pushing on. His legacy of empowerment and hope has been passed down many generations. The movement continues… it can’t stop now.

MM PUBLISHING

“No matter how bad things might get,

for something good to happen.”there’s always room

–CURTIS MAYFIELD

can't stop now: the curtis mayfield legacy

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