Curtis Mayfield

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Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942-2004), an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, and one of the most influential musicians behind soul and politically aware African-American music.

He first achieved success and fame with The Impressions during the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and 1960s, and later worked as a solo artist. Mayfield, a Chicago native, began his musical career in a gospel choir.

He moved to the North Side of 1956 and joined the vocal group The Impressions.

Mayfield, a songwriter, was one of the first musicians to incorporate more traditional themes of social consciousness into soul music.

In 1965, he wrote "People Get Ready" for the Impressions, which showcased his more political songwriting.

Ranked at No. 11 in the world rankings. On Rolling Stone's list of the Top Songs of All Time, the artist received numerous other accolades and was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 500 Songs that Inspired Rock and Roll, as well as being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. Mayfield released several albums, including the soundtrack for the 1972 blaxploitation film Super Fly, after leaving the Impressions in 1970 in the pursuit of a solo career.

The soundtrack was praised for its socially conscious themes, with a main focus on inner city minorities such as crime, poverty, and opioid use.

The album debuted at number one in the charts. On Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time, Mayfield was paralyzed from the neck down after lighting equipment crashed on him during a live performance at Wingate Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, on August 13, 1990.

Despite this, he continued his career as a recording artist, debuting his last album, New World Order in 1996.

In 1994, Mayfield received a Grammy Legend Award and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 as a member of the Impressions and then as a solo artist in 1999.

He was also a two-time Grammy Hall of Fame inductee.

On December 26, 1999, he died as a result of type 2 diabetes complications at the age of 57.

Early life

Curtis Lee Mayfield was born in Chicago, Illinois, on Wednesday, June 3, 1942, the son of Marion Washington and Kenneth Mayfield, one of five children. When Curtis was five, his father (and maternal grandmother) moved the family into several Chicago public housing projects before settling in Cabrini-Green during his teen years. Mayfield attended Wells Community Academy High School before dropping out in his second year. His father taught him piano and, along with his grandmother, encouraged him to enjoy gospel music. With the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers, he performed publicly at his aunt's church at the age of seven.

Mayfield was gifted his first guitar when he was ten years old, but later in life, he enjoyed his guitar so much he used to sleep with it. He was a self-taught guitarist, but he grew up idolizing blues singer Muddy Waters and Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia.

When the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers decided to try their luck in downtown Chicago, he formed the Alphatones, but Mayfield stayed behind. "It would have been nice to have him with us," Sam Gooden, a fellow group member, "but of course, your parents have the first name."

He and his brother Arthur and Richard Brooks became brothers Arthur and Richard Brooks in 1956, and Jerry Butler's band The Roosters formed later that year. He wrote and produced songs for this group, which would later become The Impressions.

Personal life

Mayfield was married twice. He had ten children from various families. He had been married to Altheida Mayfield at the time of his death. They had six children together.

Mayfield was paralyzed from the neck down when stage lighting equipment fell on him while he was performing at an outdoor concert at Wingate Field in Brooklyn, New York, on August 13, 1990. He continued to write and perform, although he couldn't play the guitar, but he did a good job by lying down and allowing gravity pull down on his chest and lungs. The New World Order of 1996 was released in this way, with vocals sometimes recording in lines at a time.

In 1994, Mayfield was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Due to diabetes, he had to have his right leg amputated in February 1998. On March 15, 1999, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He was unable to attend the service due to medical conditions, including fellow inductees Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Dusty Springfield, George Martin, George Martin, and the 1970s Curtom signees and labelmates the Staple Singers.

Mayfield's last appearance on stage was with Bran Van 3000 on the song "Astounded" from their 2000 album Discosis, which was released shortly before his death and debuting in 2001. However, his health had steadily deteriorated following his paralysis, so his vocals were not fresh, but rather lifted from archive recordings, including "Move On Up."

On Sunday, December 26, 1999, Mayfield died of type 2 diabetes complications at 7:20 a.m. (12:20 GMT) at the North Fulton Regional Hospital in Roswell, Georgia. He was helped by his mother, Mariam Jackson; ten children; two sisters, Carolyn Falls and Judy Mayfield; and seven grandchildren; Kenneth Mayfield.

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Career

Mayfield's career began in 1956 when he joined the Roosters with Arthur and Richard Brooks and Jerry Butler. The Roosters, now including Sam Gooden, made the Impressions two years ago. Butler had two hit singles with him, "For Your Precious Love" and "Come Back My Love," followed by Butler. Mayfield spent a short time with him, co-writing and performing on Butler's upcoming hit "He Will Break Your Heart," before rejoining the Impressions as a team member of ABC Records and working with the label's Chicago-based producer/A&R manager Johnny Pate.

Butler was replaced by Fred Cash, a former original Roosters fan, and Mayfield became the band's lead singer, with "Gypsy Woman" becoming a Top 20 Pop hit. Their hit "Amen" (Top 10) was included in the soundtrack to the 1963 United Artists film Lilies of the Field, which starred Sidney Poitier. With a series of Mayfield compositions including "Keep On Pushing," "People Get Ready," "It's All Right" (Top ten), and "Man's Got Soul," the Impressions reached the height of their fame in the mid-to-late '60s (Top ten), "Keep On Pushing," "People Get Ready," "It's All Right" (Top 10) and "Woman's Got Soul" (Top 20) and "Wo "People Get Ready" ("It a, including "People Get Message Getting's "Get Ready," "It Get's" (Top Getting Around My Baby" ("Wo" (Top 20) and "Wo" (Top 20) and "Itheiro's, "Wo" (Top 20) and "Wo" ("Man's" (Top 20) and "It'Son...What's" (Top 20) and "People Get Ready" (Top 20) and "Man's, "Get Ready" (Top 20) and "Woa" (Top 20) and "Britix) "Wo" ("Wo"), "Met's" (Top 20) and "Get Ready" (Top 20) and "Woman's, "Wo" (Top 20) and "Becafa) and "Iton Get Ready" (Top 20) and "Mo" (Top 20) and "Woman's, "Wo" (Top 20) and "My Baby" (Top 20) &" (Top 20) and "Woman's Have Afame" (Top 20) and "Wo "Womitting "Maware)

In Chicago, he founded Curtom Records, and the Impressions followed him in their hit "This Is My Country," "Choice Of Colors," and "Check Out Your Mind." Mayfield had written much of the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s, but by the time of the decade, he had emerged as a pioneering voice in the black liberation movement, alongside James Brown and Sly Stone. The last big hit for ABC was Mayfield's "We're a Winner." When it was released in late 1967, it became a anthem of the black power and black pride movements, as well as "Move On Up" and "Becaw" (whose title is quoted in Billboard's pop chart and also in "Move On Up) and "Moment On Up"), as it became a symbol of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.

And outside of his appearance at the Impressions, Mayfield was a prolific songwriter in Chicago, writing and delivering scores of hits for many other artists. He also owned the Mayfield and Windy C labels, which were sold by Cameo-Parkway, and was also a partner in the Curtom (first independent, then Warner Bros, and then RSO and finally Buddah) and Thomas labels (first independent, then Atlantic, and then Buddah).

"He Will Break Your Heart," "Find Another Girl," and "I'm A-Tellin' You" were three of Mayfield's most popular songwriting hits, including three hits he wrote for Jerry Butler on Vee Jay ("He Will Break Your Heart" and "I'm A-Tellin' You." His harmony vocals are extremely popular. "Mama Didn't Lie" was also a hit writer and arranger for Jan Bradley's "Mama Didn't Lie." He was instrumental in writing and arranging for OKeh Records, which included hits by Major Lance like "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um" and "The Monkey Time", as well as Walter Jackson, Billy Butler, and the Artistics, beginning in 1963. This scheme operated from 1965 to 1965.

Mayfield left the Impressions in 1970 and embarked on a solo career. Curtom released many of Mayfield's 1970s recordings, as well as ones from Impressions, Leroy Hutson, the Five Stairsteps, the Staples Singers, Mavis Staples, Linda Clifford, The Notations, and Baby Huey and the Babysitters. Gene Chandler and Major Lance, who had served with Mayfield in the 1960s, also signed for short stays in Curtom. Many of the label's songs were made by Mayfield.

Curtis, Mayfield's first solo album, was released in 1970 and debuted in the top 20, as well as being a critical success. It pre-dated Marvin Gaye's album What's Going On, to which it has been compared in terms of social change. Super Fly, the soundtrack to the blaxploitation Super Fly film, debuted on the Billboard Top LPs chart and sold over 12 million copies, marking his professional and critical peak of his solo career. Mayfield's lyrics were more than the soundtracks to other blaxploitation films (most notably Isaac Hayes' score for Shaft), which glorified the ghetto excesses of the characters, but the story's scripts were based on hard-hitting commentary on the state of affairs in black, urban ghettos at the time, as well as direct critiques of several characters in the film. Bob Donat wrote in Rolling Stone magazine in 1972 that although the film's message "was diluted by schizoid cross-purposes" because it "glamorizes machismo-cocaine consciousness," the anti-drug message on [Mayfield's soundtrack] is much more definite and more definite than in the film." Mayfield's album set this film apart because of the tendency of these blaxploitation films to glorify the criminal lives of dealers and pimps in a predominantly black lower class audience. Mayfield, a song that relies on the death of Freddie, a junkie who was coerced into "push for the man," and "Pusherman," a collection that reveals how many people in the ghetto fell victim to heroin use and became dependent upon their dealers, introduced a darker side of life in the ghetto that these blaxploitation films often failed to address, with songs like "Freddie's Dead" Nevertheless, although Mayfield's soundtrack condemned the glorification of dealers and pimps, he in no way denied that this glorification was occurring. When asked about the subject of these films, he was quoted as saying "I don't see why people are raving about these films" and "the way you clean up the streets is to disinfect them."

This album, as well as What's Going On and Stevie Wonder's Innervisions, heralded a new socially aware, funky style of popular soul music. He was dubbed "The Gentle Genius" by the author. Both "Freddie's Death" and "Super Fly" have sold over one million copies, and the R.I.A. has given them gold discs.

Super Fly achieved a following that culminated in Mayfield's being chosen for additional soundtracks, some of which he wrote and produced, while others performed the vocals. Gladys Knight & the Pips produced Mayfield's soundtrack for Claudine in 1974, while Aretha Franklin produced the Sparkle soundtrack in 1976. Mayfield also worked with The Staples Singers on the soundtrack for the 1975 film Let's Do It Again, and Mavis Staples on the 1977 film soundtrack A Piece of the Play (both films were produced by Poitier and featured Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier's acting and comedic adventures.

Mayfield's anti-war album Back to the World, a concept album that dealt with the human aftermath of the Vietnam War and criticized the US' involvement in wars around the world, released in 1973. "Do Wap is Strong in Here" from his soundtrack to Miguel Pieno's film Short Eyes was one of Mayfield's most popular funk-disco meldings. People Never Give Up, author Peter Burns' biography, Mayfield's People Never Give Up in 2003, noted that Mayfield has 140 songs in the Curtis vaults. Burns said the songs were either already completed or in the process of completion, so they could be released commercially. "The Great Escape," "In The News," "Turn Up the Radio," "What's The Situation," are among the recordings that have been released. Two other albums containing Curtis Mayfield are available in the Curtom vaults, one titled "Live at the Club Chicago" in September 1966 and the Impressions' "Live at the Club Chicago," which includes performances by Mayfield, the Impressions, and Jerry Butler.

Mayfield and his family were able to move to Atlanta in 1982, putting an end to his recording business in Chicago. With the introduction of the main RSO imprint and Curtom as the production company, the label had gradually reduced in size in its last two years or so. Mayfield has appeared on occasion, with the Curtom brand surviving for a few years and then touring around the world. "Don't Worry" by Mayfield has been included as an entrance song on every episode of the drama series The Deuce. The Deuce records the germination of the sex-trade industry in the 1970s in the heart of New York's Times Square. Mayfield's career began to slowed down in the 1980s.

Mayfield's music appeared in the films I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Hollywood Shuffle, Friday (although not on the soundtrack album), Bend It Like Beckham, The Hangover Part II, and Short Eyes, where he appeared as a prisoner.

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