Mayfield was born June 3, 1942, in Chicago, and as a boy went on to sing gospel and teach himself guitar. He dropped out of high school early to become lead singer and songwriter for The Impressions, then went on to a successful solo career. He was among the first of a new wave of mainstream African-American R&B performing artists and composers who injected social commentary into their work.This "message music" became extremely popular during the period of political ferment and social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s.
Mayfield's career began in 1956 when he joined The Roosters with Arthur and Richard Brooks and Jerry Butler. Two years later The Roosters, now including also Sam Gooden, became The Impressions. The band had one big hit with "For Your Precious Love". After Butler left the group and was replaced with Fred Cash, Mayfield became lead singer, frequently composing for the band, as well, starting with "Gypsy Woman". Their hit "Amen," an updated version of an old gospel tune, was included in the soundtrack of the 1963 MGM film Lilies of the Field. The Impressions reached the height of their popularity in the mid to late 1960s, with a string of Mayfield compositions that included "Keep On Pushin'," "People Get Ready," "Choice of Colors," "Fool For You," "This is My Country" and "Check Out Your Mind." Mayfield had written much of the soundtrack of the civil rights movement alongside Bob Dylan and others in the early 1960s, but by the end of the decade he was a pioneering voice in the black pride movement, in the company of James Brown and Sly Stone ("say it loud , i'm black and i'm proud"). Mayfield's "We're a Winner" became an anthem of the black power and black pride movements when it was released in late 1967, much as his earlier "Keep on Pushing" (whose title is quoted in the lyrics of "We're a Winner") had been an anthem for Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
Independent from his work with The Impressions, Mayfield became a songwriting powerhouse in Chicago, writing and producing scores of hits for other artists. 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, founding the independent record label Curtom Records. Curtom would go on to release most of Mayfield's landmark 1970s records, as well as records by the Impressions, Leroy Hutson, The Staple Singers, and Mavis Staples, and Baby Huey and the Babysitters, a group which at the time included Chaka Khan. Many of these records were also produced by Mayfield. His first solo 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.
The commercial and critical peak of Mayfields solo career came with his 1972 album Superfly, the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film of the same name, and one of the most influential albums in history. Mayfield's lyrics consisted of hard-hitting commentary on the state of affairs in black, urban ghettos at the time, as well as direct criticisms of several characters in the film. Superfly's success resulted in Mayfield being tapped for additional soundtracks, some of which he wrote and produced while having others perform the vocals. At this point Mayfield, along with Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, was the foremost exponent of a new level of compelling auteurism in soul. Maintaing the standards of Superfly proved impossible in the years to come.. 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. 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. This tragedy 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 whilst lying on his back.
His death, on Dec. 26 99, at 57, was attributed to complications related to diabetes, which had taken his leg the year before, having been a quadriplegic since the accident 1990. Mayfield is remembered for his introduction of social consciousness into R&B and for pioneering the funk style in the 1970s. Many of his recordings with the Impressions became anthems of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and his most famous album, Superfly, is regarded as an all-time great that influenced many and truly invented a new style of modern black music. Jamaican music too, starting with rocksteady, was profoundly influenced by Curtis Mayfield's body of work. The Techniques, The Uniques, Bob Marley and the Wailers, and many other early vocal groups in Jamaica were deeply influenced by the songwriting, vocal harmonies, and black consciousness that appear as hallmarks on Impressions recordings from the early to mid 1960s. Many of the Wailers early ska recordings are Impressions covers. One of Marley's most well known songs, 'One Love' (Studio 1 - 1965), is in fact a take on 'People Get Ready'.
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Curtis Mayfield - Curtis (70 ^ 97mb)
Mayfields first solo album was practically the "Sgt. Pepper's" album of '70s soul, helping with its content and its success to open the whole genre to much bigger, richer musical canvases than artists had previously worked with. All of Mayfield's years of experience of life, music, and people were pulled together into a rich, powerful, topical musical statement that reflected not only the most up-to-date soul sounds of its period, finely produced by Mayfield himself, and the immediacy of the times and their political and social concerns, but also embraced the most elegant R&B sounds out of the past.
As a producer, Mayfield embraced the most progressive soul sounds of the era, stretching them out compellingly on numbers like "Move on Up," but also drew on orchestral sounds (especially harps), to achieve some striking musical timbres (check out "Wild and Free"), and wove all of these influences, plus the topical nature of the songs, into a neat, amazingly lean whole. There was only one hit single off of this record, but the album as a whole was a single entity and really had to be heard that way. In the fall of 2000, Rhino Records reissued Curtis with upgraded sound and nine bonus tracks that extended its running time to over 70 minutes.
01 - (Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below We're All Going To Go (7:43)
02 - The Other Side Of Town (3:59)
03 - The Makings Of You (3:41)
04 - We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue (5:55)
05 - Move On Up (8:45)
06 - Miss Black America (2:55)
07 - Wild And Free (3:11)
08 - Give It Up (3:40)
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Curtis Mayfield - Super Fly (72 ^ 94mb)
Superfly is widely considered a classic of 1970s soul/funk, a nearly immediate hit. Its sales were bolstered by two million-selling singles, "Freddie's Dead" and the title track. It's one of the few soundtracks to out-gross the film it accompanied.
Superfly, was one of the pioneering soul concept albums, with its then-unique socially aware lyrics about poverty and drug abuse making the album stand out. The film and the soundtrack may be perceived as dissonant, since the Superfly film holds rather ambiguous - some will say sympathetic - views on drug dealers, whereas Curtis Mayfield's position is far more critical.
Due to its success, Mayfield was tapped for several film soundtracks over the course of the decade.
Track number two, "Pusherman", has been selected among The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.In 2003, the album was ranked number 69 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
01 - Little Child Running Wild (5:22)
02 - Pusherman (5:00)
03 - Freddie's Dead (5:24)
04 - Junkie Chase (Instrumental) (1:35)
05 - Give Me Your Love (Love Song) (4:15)
06 - Eddie You Should Know Better (2:15)
07 - No Thing On Me (Cocaine Song) (4:52)
08 - Think (Instrumental) (3:42)
09 - Superfly (3:48)
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2 comments:
Thanks for the Curtis -- Sweet stuff indeed! I always have to laugh when I go to the local food co-op: There's a brand of whole-grain bread here called Freddie's Bread . . .
Thanks for the great post on Curtis Mayfield. Curtis was one of the most influential artists of the 60s and 70s along with James Brown and Sly Stone. I write about Curtis and James Brown in my book about Sly where I discuss Sly's place in funk and R&B music as well his influence on the next generation of artists, most notably, Prince. Check it out at http://www.lulu.com/content/1412956.
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