23 Jun 2020

The work of Curtis Mayfield with Simon Sweetman

From Afternoons, 2:20 pm on 23 June 2020

Politically-conscious soul singer Curtis Mayfield was just as important, if not more so, than other legendary performers like James Brown and Otis Redding, according to music journalist and writer Simon Sweetman.

He tells Jesse Mulligan the Chicago-born singer-song writer was one of the most influential figures behind soul and socially-awakened African-American music and that this influence has been under-appreciated.

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Curtis Mayfield Photo: curtismayfield.com

With Black Lives Matter protests sweeping across the world the artist's songs, encompassing themes of black pride and gritty social realism, remain vital and relevant.

He first achieved success with The Impressions during 1960s civil rights movement, and later worked as a solo artist, having hits like Move On Up in 1970. He won acclaim for the soundtrack to the movie Super Fly in 1972.  

Sweetman says the performer’s sheer volume of work and impact on other singers makes him a stand-out within the music industry.

“I’m interested in him because…he’s done a whole lot more than you possibly could have realised and has written songs for other people, produced records for other people, helped careers really flourish and had significant success. Some people may recognise the name straight away, but they don’t know straight-away the breadth of talent and the hits.”

His 1970 solo album Curtis heralded a new, more raw, innovative sound for Mayfield. During the previous decade he had been involved with vocal group The Impressions, where he became famous for his lead falsetto voice and his poetic song-writing.

“It started off as a vocal trio," Sweetman says. "He grew up in Chicago and grew up in a poor, broken-down family – kind of the usual story for blues and soul singers. His big hero was Muddy Waters, the big Chicago bluesman and he got hooked on the gospel sound of the church, that’s where he learned to sing."

Curtis Mayfield pictured in 1984. He was a highly-influencial black music artist and his politically-charged songs resonate deeply in the US today, as Black Lives Matter protests rage.

Curtis Mayfield pictured in 1984. He was a highly-influencial black music artist and his politically-charged songs resonate deeply in the US today, as Black Lives Matter protests rage. Photo: AFP

During this era Mayfield was noted as one of the first musicians to bring more prevalent themes of social awareness into soul music. In 1965, he wrote People Get Ready, which promoted black unity, faith and the civil rights struggle, to critical acclaim.

“As the music progresses through the ‘60s in becomes a little more psychedelic, very political. Curtis was a key figure in writing songs for protest movements for civil rights. He was one of the great voices in that movement.”

Mayfield’s lyrical appeal and musical style was already being widely felt, even reaching the shores of Jamaica.

“The Impressions are a really influential vocal group and one of the people that they inspired hugely is Bob Marley," he says.

"The original Wailers were a vocal trio essentially formed around the idea of what The Impressions were doing and obviously Bob Marley covered People Get Ready and incorporated it into his Three Little Birds song. He covered a lot of The Impressions songs."

After leaving The Impressions in 1970, Mayfield went on to release several solo albums, including Curtis. He established his own label Curtom Records and signed his old group The Impressions, who he continued to write songs for.

“He is, I think, the first black artist to own his own label and be a musician on it. So he’s a pioneer in that sense. You can see how he becomes an influence on Terrence Trent D'Arby, Lenny Kravitz, Prince – these multi-instrumentalists that have a control-freak tendency about them.

More acclaimed songs followed, including Right On For The Darkness and We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue.

His next significant move was into cinematic scores, composing the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film Super Fly in 1972, which sold 12 million copies.

“It wasn’t a great movie. These films were low budget, I guess it’s a cult-classic… It’s a murky, messy film but these tales were important because they had black actors in the lead, they told urban stories, black stories and Superfly concerns itself with a whole drug underworld,” Sweetman says.

The soundtrack was noted for addressing problems surrounding inner city 'minorities' such as violence, poverty and addiction.

Unlike other blaxploitation soundtracks, which glorified street hustle or 'the game', Mayfield's lyrics were a searing commentary on the dysfunction of urban ghettos, as well as an appeal for self-love, most directly in Freddie’s Dead and Billy Jack.

“Curtis took his socially-conscious, poetic style and wrote songs that criticised some of the characters in the film. He didn’t want to celebrate them, but he did want to tell the story, he knew the importance of black stories.”

Mayfield continued making albums, including Back to the World, a 1973 concept album that dealt with the social aftermath of the Vietnam War and criticised US involvement in wars across the planet.

“He was a huge figure in the Black Lives Matter movement of its time,” Sweetman says.

As well as writing songs for other artists, including those signed to his record label like Baby Huey, he worked on more movie scores. He wrote and produced the soundtrack for the 1974 movie Claudine, selflessly bringing in Gladys Knight and the Pips to perform the songs.

He also wrote the hit comeback song for Aretha Franklin, a title track to the movie Sparkle. Mayfield became known for championing and supporting female voices.

One of Mayfield's most successful soundtrack songs is 1977 hit Do Do Wap is Strong in Here, which features in a movie based on the play Short Eyes, written by ex-prisoner and playwright Miguel Piñero. It exposed the reality of incarceration for blacks and Latinos in the US.

That was the pinnacle of his creative and commercial success.

“Like a lot of artists of his era I think he struggled to make a dent in the 1980s. He kept making music but it’s almost like the 1980s just baffled all of those guys.”

Mayfield became an icon of early hip hop, with people like Ice-T, Lauren Hill and the Beastie Boys heavily sampling his tracks. His old musical style began to mesh well with new, emerging soul and hip hop sounds of the 1990s.

While making a solid comeback, touring with an new live album, Mayfield was paralyzed from the neck down after lighting equipment fell on him during a live performance at Wingate Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, on August 13,1990. 

“He instantly can’t play the guitar any more, he can’t perform. It essentially takes his life from him. It’s a heart-breaking story. Across the next few years there’s major rehabilitation and adjustment to even want to cope with the depression of that."

It doesn’t stop him from recording completely.

“He does make one last album, in 1996. The stories of this album are unbelievable. He is strapped to a gurney lying on his back to record… He covers the music... he had to record each line and then he needed to have a breath and pause, so line-by-line he recorded the vocals.”

He is a double inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a two-time Grammy Hall of Fame inductee. He died from complications of type 2 diabetes at 57 on December 26, 1999.

“He’s up there with Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Bill Withers and in some ways he’s more important, or at least as important,” Sweetman says.