[Today: The gospel according to Johnny and Curtis...]
Johnny Cash sang about poor white people. Curtis Mayfield sang about poor black people. Both were deeply religious, both loved their country, and both were unafraid to speak directly to the overwhelming problems facing those on the other side of the tracks or down in the ghetto. Both were regularly upbeat and believed in the power of the human spirit to overcome obstacles. Both were identifiable by a simple first name. Both were musical titans who found themselves without recording contracts in the late 80’s. Both were rock solid morally and spiritually. Both grew up in musical households, and attended gospel churches in their youth. Both made music that was heavily influenced by their upbringing.
Johnny Cash: “My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don’t ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father.”
Curtis Mayfield: “I used to sleep a lot in church, cos I was very young then, but I’m sure unconsciously I adopted a lot of my grandmother’s style of laying things down. She was a very strong image to me, a strong woman way before women’s liberation.”
Songs Of Our Soil is a loose concept album about the troubles of the American heartland, featuring flood victims, failing sharecroppers, aged Apaches, and a cemetery caretaker. Superfly is a loose concept album about inner-city violence, featuring drug pushers, pimps, junkies, and whores. Both albums take a nuanced view of human interaction, and build song-by-song cases that our lives are intertwined in ways we don’t fully understand, and when we cause suffering in others, we ultimately cause grief for ourselves.
Listen: The Man On The Hill [Johnny Cash]
Listen: Pusherman [Curtis Mayfield]
Tags: Curtis Mayfield, Johnny Cash, Songs Of Our Soil, Superfly
