Curtis Mayfield: Classic or Dud?

Kind of simple, a lot of reggae singers HAVE TRIED TO SOUND LIKE CURTIS MAYFIELD... duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

and his particular sort of phrasing can be traced to people like Sam Cooke (and other gospel singers before him).

Wrong. His phrasing is one of the most distinctive features of his singing, and it's one that singers who like Curtis Mayfield's voice and are trying to sound a bit like Curtis Mayfield will try to approximate

"i cant believe titchy has reached the point of meaningless pedantry that he's arguing 'people get ready' drags the train metaphor on 'a bit too long'"

it does though.

um, CLASSIC, at least until Short Eyes, which was about 1977-78. his entire oeuvre up to then is better (IMO) than the better-known 70s heavyweights like stevie wonder or marvin gaye or donny hathaway. i don't buy a lot of soul albums on vinyl because they're always to spotty, but anything by curtis from that period is just amazing wherever you drop the needle.

his albums after short eyes are all pretty rough though, with only a few standout tracks in total. hard to believe someone so strong fell off so fast as the decades changed.

check out "love me, love me now" from "Something to Believe In": it's an amazingly deep soul-cum-disco burner. moodymann drops this in his sets all the time and it just goes off something nice...

super classic -- my fave is "Curtis Live!" which may well be my fave live album ever. A great, warm vibe. Still a lot I haven't heard, but I love everything I've gotten my hands on.

He's my favorite male vocalist, one of my favorite guitar players, and obviously one of the best, if not the best, songwriter in the realm of funk/soul. So obviously he's classic, and yes I do think he deserves godlike status. "There's No Place Like America Today" is so brilliant!

It always upsets me when I think about how those stage lights fell on and paralyzed him.

Tom D is right; three-man reggae harmony group singing--including virtually all roots reggae ever recorded--would have been inconceivable without the Impressions' influence. Try listening to a classic well-known example like the Wailers' Burnin', for instance.

I still don't understand why Marvin Gaye and Barry White are still more popular in the collective subconcious.

uh way more hits?

hey tuomas: http://www.jr.com/product/music/pm/_357438/

JA singers idolized Mayfield more than any other singer. There's a preponderance of Mayfield covers that is out of proportion to Mayfield's popularity in other locales, including America.

extra classic for all the weird low-key extra-curricular curtom stuff, writing songs for the fascinations (girls are out to get you &c) and stuff.

The Honesty album is pretty good from the 80s. Dirty Laundry and What you Gawn Do are nice picks.
70s stuff classic of course

JA singers idolized Mayfield more than any other singer. There's a preponderance of Mayfield covers that is out of proportion to Mayfield's popularity in other locales, including America.

Thanks for the info, I guess I was being way too dismissive upthread.

As for Mayfield vs. White or Gaye, I think the quality Mayfield's recorded output started to become quite uneven in the mid-70s (despite singular gems hidden in almost all of his albums), and he never managed to make a proper comeback later on, like Gaye and White did. Also - and in no way am I dismissing Gay or White here - I think Mayfield was less interested or less capable of composing obvious hit material. If you listen to his 70s solo albums, most of the tunes on them are rather complex both musically and lyrically, with not that many clear hit tunes on them. I guess he did try a more populist approach in the late 70s and early 80s, but by then he was pretty much behind his time already.

In a cafe in Glasgow recently, I heard a long version of Crutis Mayfield's "Give me your love", which was great, but I don't know where it comes from. Does anyone have any idea?

i know that danny krivit did a long edit of sisters love doing 'give me your love'

barbara mason did a version too that was probably disco-length

(video above is not the krivit edit obv)

oh and mayfield did produce the sisters love version

Hmm, maybe what I wrote above is a bit too simple. Obviously he was able to write hits in the 60s, when he was still with the Impressionns. But during the 70s his hit potential seems to have grdually waned, either by conscious artistic decision or for other reasons. I would say, though, that not too many of his 70s tunes are as immediately catchy as "People Get Ready", "Choice of Colors", "Keep on Pushing", "We're a Winner", "This Is My Country", etc. (And I don't mean to say that his 70s output is either better or worse than the Impressions stuff, just different.)

Deej, whilst there are a long list of things that are amazing about that clip, it's not the thing I heard, which really did just sound like Crutis Mayfield himself, but longer. I do wonder though, as I can't find any reference to it. A disco version sounds great though. I will have to look for that.

x-post

The first three solo albums- Curtis/ Live! and Roots are flawless. From here Superfly was patchy and i haven't heard anything else from the 70's. Is there anything else from this era which is also good? He also wore cool clothes. He managed to be 'conscious' and 'organic' without being yukky. I think he just had the knack for writing good songs which combined with that voice made for heaven. The Impressions were just as good. I think the reason he wasn't as big as Al Green
/ Barry White/ Marvin Gaye was because he didn't sell himself as 'sex' like the others did- and he wore glasses. Not to take anything away from the Reverend and Mr Gaye.. (but maybe just to take a little away from Barry White who I thought was all husk and no song.)

all husk and no song.

all rong

Back to the World, Got to Find a Way, and Sweet Exorcist are all good albums. BTTW is probably my favorite of the 3.

but shit man if you think Superfly was patchy, who knows what you'll like.

Back to the World has a brilliant A side, but the B side is kinda weak compared to that.

"Back to the World" is great, so much so that the guy i gave a loan of it to ten years ago still hasn't given me it back!

http://www.discogs.com/release/800885

Would you think getting this collection is a good choice? I already have more than third of the songs on various albums, but it's on sale for 25 euros, which doesn't sound that expensive for a 4 CD collection, and I'm not sure if I want to buy all of Mayfield's late 70s and 80s albums just because they may contain one or two great songs.

http://www.discogs.com/release/507590

Also, has anyone heard this remix album? Is it any good?

Usually I'm not at all puritanical about this things, but it does seem kinda blasphemous to do a Club Remix of "People Get Ready".

but shit man if you think Superfly was patchy, who knows what you'll like.

There's No Place Like America Today is my (as well as a few friends') favorite Mayfield album. "So in Love"!!!

Curtis, Curtis Live, Roots & Superfly is a heck of a run of albums. I spent the weekend listening to all four a few times and they are just perfect. Curtis Mayfield had just about the perfect sound, it was funky, fuzzy and driving yet laid back, lovely and melodic at the same time. That is not an easy combination to pull off.

Curtis Live is probably one of the top ten live albums ever -- so good.

The Impressions, "The Young Mod's Forgotten Story" is CLASSIC.

Mods'

Does he deserve the "god-like" status attributed to him

Curtis does (he's up there with Ellington as far as I'm concerned), and so does his bassist, who I've gathered was Joseph "Lucky" Scott, no?

This thread made me very happy.

Can't understand how anyone could diss Curtis Mayfield. I even like his 80s stuff, like Dirty Laundry

Good lord, who could dislike Curtis Mayfield??

Me, I love most of it - but Curtis and '75's There's No Place Like America Today are my favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvSfeanNFIM

Curtis, Curtis Live, Roots & Superfly is a heck of a run of albums. I spent the weekend listening to all four a few times and they are just perfect. Curtis Mayfield had just about the perfect sound, it was funky, fuzzy and driving yet laid back, lovely and melodic at the same time. That is not an easy combination to pull off.

― earlnash, Sunday, June 13, 2010 10:24 PM (1 year ago)

Is there a concert length video of him from the early 70s anywhere? I've only come across isolated single tracks from OGWT and a couple of US various artists shows.

Plus Curtis Live is the only live audio full length that I've come across from the 70s. think a couple of 90s shows have appeared but I prefer the original era.

To add to comment earlier in the thread I thought he was in the middle of a major comeback when a lighting rig fell on him. The Wag Club type crowd of 80s/90s hipster/mod types (I'm thinking Acid Jazz-type folks) seemed to really like him and I think it was crossing over a bit more mainstream if I remember rightly.

There is a pretty good bio dvd on him called Movin On Up which is interspersed with performance videos. Must rewatch it. But from what I can recall of looking at it before you can't isolate the performances from the narrative and I don't think they're full performances. Hope rewatching proves that wrong though.

I could be wrong but I think many of the performances are lip synchs fromn memory - hence disappointing.

I liked him live when I saw him in the old 930 Club on F St in DC, in hmmm, the 80s or 90s.

are those Impressions albums worth picking up, or should I just stick with a comp? there are so many of them and I imagine many of them are just vehicles for the singles. but, maybe I'll be surprised?

The Young Mods' Forgotten Story is beautiful. Get it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_9Xy2JF1vo

if you're not doing anything else today you might listen to There's No Place Like America Today and groove the fuck out to a genius piece of music

So in Love is incredible.

Yeah that whole album is perfect, my second of his favourite after the debut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuytQvycLag

if you're not doing anything else today you might listen to There's No Place Like America Today and groove the fuck out to a genius piece of music

― cosi fan whitford (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, May 25, 2012 2:28 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes! been doing this a lot lately

Curtis, Curtis Live, Roots & Superfly is a heck of a run of albums. I spent the weekend listening to all four a few times and they are just perfect. Curtis Mayfield had just about the perfect sound, it was funky, fuzzy and driving yet laid back, lovely and melodic at the same time. That is not an easy combination to pull off.

― earlnash, Sunday, June 13, 2010 10:24 PM (1 year ago)

This is totally otm.

― Only the RONG Survive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, February 12, 2012

Was listening to these on a long car ride this weekend. Great stuff