Happy 50th Anniversary to Curtis Mayfield’s second solo studio album Roots, originally released in October 1971.
When Prince’s Welcome 2 America rolled out in July of this year, the coverage came replete with comparisons to Curtis Mayfield. Much of that was down to the story that circulated about Dr. Cornel West suggesting that his “brother” Prince was a genius and friend, but no Curtis Mayfield when it came to social commentary, thereby prompting the Minnesotan to embark upon recording material of that ilk.
Listening to that album, it was clear why some people could see those similarities, but to me they were purely superficial. Wrapping things up in wah-wah guitar, strings and the occasional blast of horns may appear to be Mayfield-esque but something was missing to my ears to make that comparison valid. And it was only upon listening to Mayfield’s second solo album Roots in preparation for this piece, that it dawned on me what was the missing piece of the puzzle.
That missing piece of the puzzle is also a key ingredient of Mayfield’s best work, which undoubtedly includes Roots: urgency. Urgency in vocal performance, urgency in horn arrangements and urgency in the stringed interventions. Everything, in my opinion, that the aforementioned Prince album lacked. Of course, Welcome 2 America wasn’t helped by the anodyne, insipid production that mired his later works in mediocrity, but that is a topic for another day.
Roots was released in 1971 just five months after his debut solo live album had managed to reach number 21 in the pop albums chart and just over a year after his euphoric debut album Curtis (1970). To say a rich seam was being mined in the early 1970s by the Chicago legend is to understate it dramatically. When you bear in mind that the era-defining, hugely popular and influential Superfly soundtrack followed closely in 1972, it is crystal clear that Mayfield was among the very greatest artists of his (or any) era.
You wouldn’t know that though if you’d read Rolling Stone’s original review of Roots, which paints it as some kind of failure. But Mayfield demonstrates in all of his work the deep-rooted Blackness that became more pronounced in society and other art forms in the aftermath of the tumultuous 1960s, when hope was extinguished over and over again.
As Questlove’s Summer of Soul points out beautifully, the latter part of that decade seemed to herald the end of a brief yet ultimately forlorn hope that racial equality might be achieved, as leader after leader was cut down in their prime. Emerging from the flames of the uprisings across the US, sprang a greater level of Afrocentric thought that spread into music, fashion and art. One of the most obvious ways in which Curtis Mayfield embodied this was through his use of African percussion.
“Master” Henry Gibson was responsible for percussion on Roots (and an estimated 1,200 other albums) and he injects the bongo and conga into the works on the album, writhing and wriggling throughout—a non-stop rhythmic masterclass.
Alongside Gibson were other relatively unsung musical wonders. Joseph ‘Lucky’ Scott contributed bass lines and played a key role in making proceedings as funky as they were with the same percussive techniques that James Brown insisted on in his band (where every instrument was designed to be percussive or rhythmic).
Arrangements came courtesy not just of Mayfield himself but also Johnny Pate who had been a jazz bassist and arranger before working alongside Mayfield when he formed The Impressions. On leaving Curtom (Mayfield’s record label) in 1972, he arranged for B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Peabo Bryson among others, thereby becoming a hugely important line of continuity through the developmental history of music.
The urgency that was (in my opinion, at least) missing from Prince’s record is evident on Roots from the first few seconds of music. After a few seconds of human groans and exertions subside on “Get Down,” a guttural, brooding bassline kicks in, intertwined with Gibson’s thunderous patter and then Mayfield’s dramatic guitar starts to rip, before the punch of the horns rounds things off. Urgency is not in short supply here—in fact, it drives and surges with purpose and funky intent.
Mayfield’s calling cards were many, but his composition of delicately beautiful melodies was ever-present throughout his career. Here it comes courtesy of “Keep On Keeping On,” a dreamy exhortation to continue the work he always valued (including on the masterpiece from Curtis, “Move On Up”). However, for all that Mayfield wrote some of the prettiest melodies around, there always seemed to be space for some grit and “dirt” in amongst his tenderness.
On “Underground” things turn slightly heavier and less convinced of positivity. It opens with a spoken word intro: “We now have to deal with our own self-destruction / We cannot live on the surface of our Earth any longer / There is now pollution in every natural mineral and material taken from the land / We have truly become a vast wasteland,” before the music takes a similarly downbeat turn. The grumpy bassline and the fuzzed-up guitar combine to create a setting worthy of those damning lyrics.
It isn’t long before the sunshine returns though, in the form of “We Got To Have Peace,” which manages to flip the feeling 180 degrees. His comforting falsetto once again urges the listener to “save the children,” whilst the horns add impetus to that notion with their heavyweight punch.
The flourishes of harp that signal the onset of “Beautiful Brother Of Mine” indicate that that brightness continues, but this is actually a perfect example of the melding of his upwardly looking lyrics and the scuzzy funk into one glorious song. The full gamut of his work is contained within the driving funk—the strings (this time given more space to stretch), the rumbling bass and the punchy horns, but this time the impeccable backing vocals and claps add an extra layer of drama to what is already steeped in tension and urgency (there’s that word, again). The final minute of the impeccable groove is given over to those incessant congas and bongos and the beauty of Mayfield’s (massively underrated) guitar playing.
A rare case of heartbreak in Mayfield’s early solo work prompts another beauty in “Now You’re Gone”. Though far from complicated in its lyrical content (“You had a plan / Another man / Went off to hide / I could have died / Now you’re gone”), its low-slung, pendulum bassline provides the perfect backbone for another masterclass in orchestration and arrangement over the course of its near seven-minute running time. The seamless melding of strings, traditional western band instrumentation with dynamic, blaring horns and the incredible percussive flourishes of Gibson is impeccable and still makes its influence felt (along with Charles Stepney’s work with Rotary Connection, etc.) in today’s music.
The gentle shuffle of “Love To Keep You In My Mind” rounds things out with the same style and panache as some of the songs he wrote for The Impressions. Another sweet mix of strings, gentle ripples of percussion and his angelic, loving falsetto underlines the fact that he could balance the intimate scenes of love alongside social commentary songs with ease and expertise.
It is, seemingly, the lot of the Black artist to be perennially ignored or underrated by an industry riddled with the same inequities as society in general. And this means it is our job to negate the past misdirection (I’m looking at you, Rolling Stone) and provide the spotlight that the work demands and deserves. If anyone deserves a little more shine, it is most definitely Curtis Mayfield and Roots is a stellar example of why.
LISTEN: