Happy 50th Anniversary to Curtis Mayfield’s debut solo album Curtis, originally released in September 1970 (specific date N/A).
Fifty years ago, Curtis Mayfield released one of the greatest albums of all time. Although it was his debut as a solo performer, it seems unfair to compare it to other debuts, given that he’d been writing and performing for years with the Impressions. From 1958, as a callow-faced youth, he’d been the major part of the group that lit up the Chicago soul scene and provided a stern test of Motown’s dominance.
The Cabrini Green resident from the north side of Chicago lent his songwriting skills and high tenor/falsetto to an almost unending string of hits for The Impressions—songs so good that if he’d called it a day there, he’d still be considered a genius. But although he penned lush romantic songs, his eyes were increasingly drawn to the injustices and struggles that Black people faced in America.
“Keep On Pushing” would help soundtrack the Civil Rights fight of the mid ‘60s and in 2004, it would be used to introduce Barack Obama’s keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. This song alone is woven into the fabric of Black America, through both the struggles and relative triumphs of the last 60 years. But Curtis went way beyond cementing his place in cultural history, it ushered in a bold new age of artistic expression for both Mayfield and those that followed.
Mayfield himself spoke eloquently about the subject matter that increasingly demanded his attention: “These songs were an example of what has laid in my subconscious for years . . . the issues of what concerned me as a young Black man . . . The musical strands and themes of gospel singers and preachers I’d heard as a child. It wasn’t hard to take notice of segregation and the struggle for equality at this time.”
Yet however vast those problems seemed and however unreachable the solution appeared, Curtis Mayfield never browbeat anyone. His anger, however righteously justified, was always somehow expressed through love—a trait he shared with that other musical genius, Stevie Wonder. Indeed the words of Wonder himself on Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer (2018) sum up both his and Mayfield’s approach: “Even when you’re upset / Use words of love / ‘Cause God is love / Allah is love / Jehovah is love / So, don’t let your expressions / Even of anger / Be confused / Or misconstrued / To unlimited words of expression / They can be understood / By using words of love.”
Alongside his universal lyrical touch that changed minds with barely an angry word, came the unique music that laid the foundations for an entire era of Black music. Jerry Butler, his childhood friend and colleague in The Impressions said that Mayfield liked to play boogie-woogie piano in F sharp—when it came to guitar playing, he tuned his guitar the same way, giving him his unique sound.
Rolling Stone, despite offering a ridiculously ignorant review upon Curtis’ release, included Mayfield in their top 10 guitarists of all time in a later issue and the reasons are writ large on this album. Whereas other notable guitarists on the list offered a flamboyant, posturing bravado, Mayfield’s playing is low-key, subtle and beautifully balanced, whether on rhythm or lead. It may be less showy, but it is precise and deliciously funky.
There is the idea that Mayfield’s musical education was not “formal,” but I’m always hesitant to use that word as it comes loaded with the supremacy of a particular genre, class and color of musician. Those misgivings notwithstanding, it is a part of the beauty of Mayfield’s work that there is a juxtaposition of things not readily seen or heard together at the point when he released Curtis in 1970. Strings, horns and drums more associated with West Africa sit cheek by jowl to create a template for most, if not all, of the soul music that followed it.
That these various elements don’t crowd each other out is testimony to the production of Mayfield himself and the arrangements by Riley Hampton and Gary Slabo. They nestle alongside each other as the best of friends to create patterns and forms that would permeate the soul sounds of the 1970s.
As opening sounds go, the malevolent bassline and reverb heavy opening lyrical salvo of “(Don’t Worry) If There’s Hell Below We’re All Gonna Go” is hard to beat. A sense of doom pervades before erupting into a wah-wah fueled, supercharged disembowelment of racially segregated America. It is not hard to cast Mayfield in the role of preacher throughout the album, but on the opener, it is starker than elsewhere—a man raining fire and brimstone on a society riven with inequity and injustice.
Apart from his lyrical touch, part of the genius of his work is the fact that incendiary lyrics and tales of woe are accompanied by the sweetest of falsettos (and high tenor in some parts)—he is able to cushion the blows so softly without negating the impact of the words themselves. “The Other Side Of Town” is a good example of that. When he sings, “Depression is part of my mind / The sun never shine / On the other side of town . . . My little sister / She hungry for bread to eat / My brother’s hand me down shoes / Is now showing his feet,” he eviscerates the still racially and economically segregated US and though the words hang heavy, they are sweetened by the delivery. The contrast between message and delivery is strong and adds another dimension to the song.
Having talked about his societal commentary, it would be remiss to say the album was one-dimensional in theme. Mavis Staples (who would later record for his Curtom label) has talked about his ability to switch things up lyrically, explaining, “He had a long history of writing wonderful love songs that made you want to dance slow in the basement. And then, all of a sudden, he went and wrote some of the best message songs that could be out there.”
“Makings Of You” is a sublime swooning testament to romantic love that is bliss personified. Its innocence drips from every note and that allied to his gently romantic falsetto creates a love song for the ages—a song so good that the greatest singer of all time, Aretha Franklin, would cover it later. Indeed, Franklin would work with Mayfield later on Sparkle from 1976, amongst other things, and it would be remiss not to share what the legend herself said about Mayfield. She proclaimed, “Curtis Mayfield is to soul music what Bach was to the classic and what Gershwin and Irving Berlin were to pop music; a soul laureate and catalyst and the heart and soul of a song and a people.” From the late musical icon who straddled the worlds of soul, jazz, pop and gospel, this is high praise indeed.
“We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue” showcases further evidence of an acerbic sentiment sculpted into a rallying call for unity in the face of injustice and systemic racism (“We people who are darker than blue / This ain’t no time for segregatin’ / I’m talking ‘bout brown and yellow too / High yellow gal, can’t you tell / You’re just the surface of our dark, deep well”). A gentle pace with muted, restrained horns, plangent piano and mournful strings soothes and pleads understatedly until at the one-minute and fifty-one-second mark, the horns sound a dramatic full stop and the music erupts into a fiery drum led groove that ushers in a change in the tone of Mayfield’s delivery. Gone is the light airy falsetto and in comes a sterner demand to “Get yourself together, learn to know your sign / Shall we commit our own genocide / Before you check out your mind.”
The masterful changes of pace and tone demonstrate his genius, as the song once more slows to reach a crescendo of positivity and the belief in an even brighter day. In just six minutes, he manages to corral an array of complex emotions and ideas about social change and emerge with a hopeful heart. How anyone could fail to be moved, both emotionally and physically, is beyond me.
Following that would seem an impossible task, but Mayfield does it by throwing down one of the greatest songs of all time. “Move On Up” has featured almost relentlessly in films and, even, adverts but its power is undiminished. To add further legend to his reputation, it was used by presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, at their recent joint presentation as they began their assault on the pussy-grabbing racist currently occupying the White House. Curtis Mayfield is indelibly and rightly part and parcel of America’s struggle to rid itself of systemic racism and gross inequality.
From the two drum strokes that open the song, it bristles with an effervescent energy that never lets up, until at just shy of four minutes, it grinds to a halt and time seems to stand still for a split second before the drums take over to lay down a groove that demands movement from every sinew and muscle in the human body. In the perfect union of wholly optimistic lyrical content and undeniably euphoric music, he uplifts and elevates all those with ears to hear and hearts to fill.
Positivity once again oozes from every note on “Miss Black America,” as he demonstrates his love and respect for Black women—it comes so easily to him, yet here we are seeing the treatment handed out to Megan Thee Stallion while row upon row of male artists condone her mistreatment at the hands of her assailant through their silent complicity.
“Wild And Free” is another aspirational piece, simply asking for the freedom that Mayfield and all people crave and deserve but it is, as always, accompanied by a delightful concoction of strings, drums, urgent horn blasts but this time with a harp thrown in for another layer of beauty. Those same ingredients form the musical backbone for album closer “Give It Up” but this strikes a totally different tone lyrically.
This is the sole note of negativity on the whole album as it details the uneasy feeling of a relationship failing: “I really truly love you / And the kids, you must agree / And I never had too much concern / Or interest in Astrology / But as I read, it must be so / The invulnerable word ‘incompatible’ / No matter how much we try / Our indifference would still show.” It hits harder, as it stands as the single moment of negativity or pessimism.
Though many would claim, perhaps rightly, that his later album (among other artists’ albums) Superfly (1972) would create a template for Blaxploitation era music, the foundations of those sounds are created here on his debut first. The dramatic backdrop of funky grooves fueled by wah-wah guitars, cinematic strings and the drums of West Africa are here from note one.
Yet beyond the music lie further reasons to hold Mayfield in the highest of esteem. When he was just 18 years old, he was dissatisfied with the remuneration that he received for his songwriting, so he set about establishing his own publishing company, Curtom Records. Though not the first Black American to do so, it was nonetheless the step of an assured, mature-beyond-his-years artist and provides a (sadly) still necessary example to those starting out in the shark-infested waters of the music industry.
The final words I’ll choose to describe Curtis Mayfield come from the maker of a documentary about Curtis named after “Move On Up.” Andrew Young said, “You have to think of Curtis Mayfield as a prophetic, visionary teacher of our people and our time.”
Just one listen to this album will reveal that truth to you. Just one.
LISTEN: