[Today: Curtis Mayfield tells it like it was...]
Curtis Mayfield’s music bridges the spiritual divide between John Lennon and NWA. At once hopeful and outraged, his songs strive for answers, blast away at politicians, and are forever and ever funky. In spite of the bitter core within much of his music, Mayfield was (to borrow a phrase) a uniter, not a divider. He was the rarest of musicians who could sing the words ‘nigger’ and ‘whitey’ and get away with it because his message was such an authentic artistic expression (again like Lennon). He is both a towering and underappreciated figure in the history of popular music.
Mayfield will forever and rightfully be known for his soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Superfly, but Curtis/Live! is the album that captures the full emotional spectrum of his music. It was recorded at The Bitter End – a small jazz/folk club in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village – in January of 1971, and the ambience of the sound makes the album. It’s full of audience participation that lends it the feeling of a revival meeting, and Mayfield’s between-songs commentaries stitch it all together with warmth and humor. “Trying not to offend anyone, but basically telling it like it is” he says, neatly summarizing his musical philosophy.
Mayfield had recently split from the legendary Chicago soul group The Impressions, and had but one solo album under his belt, but he already displays the deft touch of a seasoned bandleader. His reading of The Carpenter’s ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ assumes the stirrings of a civil rights anthem, while ‘Stare And Stare’ practically defines the term ‘wah-wah’. He describes his band as “wonderful and beautiful musicians” and expresses his love for them during one of the spoken segues. A natural reaction, really.
Listen: Stare And Stare
Tags: Curtis Mayfield, Curtis/Live!, funk, John Lennon, NWA
1 November 2007 at 9:24 pm |
Sweet Curtis! Did you know he tuned the guitar to the black keys of the piano? Political statement or desired tuning? discuss amongst yourselves…
There’s No Place Like America Today, from 1975, also rules supreme.
24 October 2008 at 12:18 pm |
You afro racist swine. I am looking forward to you turning Amerika into a third world garbage heap. Maybe then there will be a white revolution to drive your evil hordes back to africa.
Obama is a wimp and so are you.
Bring it on !
24 October 2008 at 12:58 pm |
Hey Jack,
I just banged your Mother. She loved it.
24 October 2008 at 1:03 pm |
Alright children, let’s clean it up before I’m forced to get out the bar of soap.
Mr. Sigil, I invite you to comment with a little more civility, or take your confederate dunce act somewhere else…
24 October 2008 at 3:28 pm |
Exactly how many inches is that bar of soap?
24 October 2008 at 4:47 pm |
I’m not sure I even understand sigil’s message.
Do you know you spelled ‘America’ wrong?
24 October 2008 at 4:49 pm |
I think where homey lives it’s actually spelled Amerikkka…
24 October 2008 at 5:16 pm |
It’s racist chumps like jack sigil that are turning this country into a rotting corpse.
Political views are one thing, but racism is another.
Let’s all get together and make sure scum like this NEVER take over again…
Power to the people (of all colors).
24 October 2008 at 9:50 pm |
Apparently Mr. Sigil is longing for the genteel days of the confederacy:
I wanna go back to Dixie,
Take me back to dear ol’ Dixie,
That’s the only li’l ol’ place for li’l ol’ me.
Old times there are not forgotten,
Whuppin’ slaves and sellin’ cotton,
And waitin’ for the Robert E. Lee.
(It was never there on time.)
I’ll go back to the Suwannee,
Where pellagra makes you scrawny,
And the honeysuckle clutters up the vine
I really am a-fixin’
To go home and start a-mixin’
Down below that Mason-Dixon line.
Oh, poll tax,
How I love ya, how I love ya,
My dear ol’ poll tax.
Won’tcha come with me to Alabammy,
Back to the arms of my dear ol’ Mammy,
Her cookin’s lousy and her hands are clammy,
But what the hell, it’s home.
Yes, for paradise the Southland is my nominee.
Jes’ give me a ham hock and a grit of hominy.
I wanna go back to Dixie,
I wanna be a Dixie pixie
And eat corn pone till it’s comin’ outta my ears
I wanna talk with Southern gentlemen
And put that white sheet on again,
I ain’t seen one good lynchin’ in years.
The land of the boll weevil,
Where the laws are medieval,
Is callin’ me to come and nevermore roam.
I wanna go back to the Southland,
That “y’all” and “shet-ma-mouth” land,
Be it ever so decadent,
There’s no place like home.
24 October 2008 at 9:53 pm |
jack sigil is a non-factor.
25 October 2008 at 12:14 am |
(Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below We’re All Gonna Go!
“Sisters!
Niggers!
Whities!
Jews!
Crackers!
Don’t worry, If there’s a Hell below, we’re all gonna go!”
Don’t worry Mr. Jack-Ass Sigil (A Google Certified Right-Wing Nut Job) is just trying to get you all worked up.
He and many like him are starting to get really scared that this election won’t be stolen again and they are beginning to panic.
Why even post that here on a music blog of all places, when there are tons of venues for him to spread his hate?
He’s desperate, pathetic and weak and just trying to bait y’all.
-Dirty D.
25 October 2008 at 8:59 am |
Just to be safe, I banged his mother again this morning,
27 October 2008 at 1:37 pm |
DK you may want to pass along Mr Sigil’s wisdom and writings to the ATF who apparently within the last three hours broke up a skinhead cell that intended to assinate the Senator from Ill. I know this stuff seems silly but it is not.
27 October 2008 at 5:55 pm |
There are three intelligent, aware Americans for every “JACK SIGIL” out there.
Just wait and see on Nov. 4th!
2 November 2008 at 4:41 am |
Dear Redneck Dick the Red Stater…
Secession isn’t just for racists like you. In fact, we blue staters intend to form our own country — one made of just blue states, one where people like you would either be locked up or sent to one of the red states where you might belong..
Since you’re probably too stupid to own a map, dick sigil, those blue states include Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
This year, we’re even taking Iowa, so if you’re going to stay obese, you’ll have to find your own source of corn syrup.
We’re also nabbing New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota and the entire West Coast, so you have no place to go on vacation — assuming you still have a job.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.
We get 85 percent of America ‘s venture capital and entrepreneurs.
You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80%
of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 % of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 % of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 %of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal
Tech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with
88 % of all obese Americans (and their projected health care
costs), 92 % of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the
tornadoes, 90 % of the hurricanes, 99 % of all Southern
Baptists, virtually 100 % of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh,
Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite , thank you.
Additionally, 38 % of those in the Red states believe Jonah was
actually swallowed by a whale, 62 % believe life is sacred unless
we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 %say that
evolution is only a theory, 53 %that Saddam was involved in 9/11,
and 61 % of you crazy b ** ***ds believe you are people with
higher morals then we lefties.
By the way, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.
However, Canada is completely off limits to the likes of you, dick sigil.
Peace out,
Blue States
20 August 2009 at 11:05 am |
[...] Fire, would prefigure the rise of disco, while heavier artists, who reported from the streets, like Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes, set the wheels in motion for gangsta rap. But before all that, Funk was party [...]