Curtis Mayfield
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Curtis Mayfield: Where He's Been And Where He's Going
Profile and Interview by Roger St. Pierre, Let It Rock, October 1972
AFTER SUCH COMMITTED, socially conscious compositions as 'This Is My Country', 'Mighty Mighty, Spade and Whitey' and 'Choice Of Colours' Curtis Mayfield believes the time ...
Curtis Mayfield: People Get Ready!
Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, March 1996
THE LAST FIVE YEARS HAVE SEEN THE BOX-setting of James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Bob Marley and a fair few other giants of black ...
List of articles in the library
Curtis Mayfield: Life With The Impressions
Interview by Jim Delehant, Hit Parader, June 1969
As told to Jim Delehant ...
Curtis Mayfield: Curtis (Curtom); Joe Cocker: Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen (A&M)
Review by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 1 September 1970
Mayfield, Solo, Comes on Strong ...
Curtis Mayfield: Curtis; The Impressions: Check Out Your Mind
Review by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 25 September 1970
Curtis Mayfield: Curtis (Curtom) ...
Curtis Mayfield: No Longer An Impression
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 25 September 1970
AS EXCLUSIVELY reported in Blues & Soul some 4 months ago, Curtis Mayfield has officially left the Impressions after 12 years. When we finally tracked ...
Curtis Mayfield: The Bitter End, NYC
Live Review by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 5 February 1971
Curtis Mayfield's Solo Debut ...
Curtis Mayfield: Harding Theater, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 22 February 1971
Curtis Mayfield Warms The Harding Theater ...
Curtis Mayfield: The Gentle Genius
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 9 July 1971
FEW – IF ANY – people have contributed as much to the progression of what is generally regarded as Soul music as has Curtis Mayfield, ...
Curtis Mayfield: The Speakeasy, London
Live Review by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 9 July 1971
THE ALL-too-brief, spur-of-the-moment appearance of Curtis Mayfield at London's Speakeasy club must surely rank as a historic event in the history of soul music in ...
It's third time lucky for the Fascinations
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 9 July 1971
IT'S ONE of the strange things about the music world when a record that is five years old and is making its third bid for ...
Curtis Mayfield talks to B&S about his new album
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 24 September 1971
IT IS, indeed, very rare for an American artist to make a short visit to this country and immediately score a hit single in the ...
Curtis Mayfield: Roots (Curtom)
Review by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 19 November 1971
A PREVIEW OF CURTIS MAYFIELD'S SECOND STUDIO-RECORDED SOLO ALBUM ...
Curtis Mayfield: Soul Music's Elusive Dynamo
Interview by Phil Symes, Disc and Music Echo, 4 December 1971
CURTIS MAYFIELD is a hard man to catch these days. If he's not locked away in a studio all night recording himself, the Impressions, or ...
Isaac Hayes' Black Moses and other albums
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Oz, 1972
TO CLAIM to have found a representative selection of black music on four records is patently absurd, but as a random cross-section of what’s approximately ...
Curtis Mayfield, Bloodstone: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 29 January 1972
CURTIS LOSES BUT WINS ...
Curtis Mayfield, Bloodstone: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Roger St. Pierre, New Musical Express, 29 January 1972
WITH THE Curtis Mayfield/Bloodstone show, the Rainbow Theatre proved conclusively that the Albert Hall has lost its place as the capital city of bad acoustics. ...
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 4 February 1972
SINCE EMERGING as an important solo entertainer, Curtis Mayfield has also emerged as the president of a successful record company, due mainly to his basic ...
Curtis Mayfield, Bloodstone: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 4 February 1972
CONFUSION OVER the starting time of the first Curtis Mayfield performance at a British theatre did not auger well for the evening and the additional ...
Curtis Mayfield In The Talk-In
Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 5 February 1972
WHEN YOU first used strings on your early work with the Impressions it was something of a breakthrough in soul music. Did you find any ...
Dionne Warwicke, Curtis Mayfield: Circle Star, San Carlos CA
Live Review by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 22 March 1972
Dionne Warwicke Sings to the Rescue ...
Curtis Mayfield: Super Fly (Curtom)
Review by Robin Katz, Disc, 12 August 1972
MAYFIELD'S MOVING MESSAGE... ...
Curtis Mayfield: Superfly (Buddah Super 2318.065 £2.25) *****
Review by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 20 October 1972
CURTIS, THE Gentle Genius, joins the ranks of Black music-men who have supplied their musical talents towards film scores. However, Curtis surpasses all of them, ...
Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 18 November 1972
FIGHTING A DRUG MENACE IN AMERICAN GHETTOES ...
Things Go Better With Coke: Curtis Mayfield's Superfly soundtrack
Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 3 March 1973
Charles Shaar Murray previews SUPERFLY ...
Curtis Mayfield, Taj Mahal: Philharmonic Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Ian Dove, The New York Times, 9 April 1973
Curtis Mayfeld's Soul Singing Displays His Fluency in Argot ...
Comment by Dave Marsh, Let It Rock, May 1973
SOMETIME LAST fall, John Percy Boyd, Mark Bethune and Michael Brown, a trio of black college students in Detroit, decided to put an end to ...
Curtis Mayfield: Back To The World (Curtom)
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 19 July 1973
WITH ALL courtesy to the self-proclaimed Black Caesar, Curtis Mayfield's Superfly was the musical equivalent to Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather. Both were nearly as ...
Curtis Mayfield: Back To The World (Buddah Super 2318.085 £2.15)
Review by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 31 August 1973
THE INSTANTLY recognisable voice and music of Curtis Mayfield has successfully carried him once more to the top of the American charts with this somewhat ...
Gladys Knight: Claudine (Original Soundtrack)
Review by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 22 June 1974
IT MUST have seemed a good idea. Amalgamating the talents of Buddah stablemates Gladys Knight and Curtis Mayfield for the sound-track of Claudine. ...
Curtis Mayfield: Sweet Exorcist (Buddah); Move On Up — The Best Of Curtis Mayfield (Buddah)
Review by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 19 October 1974
IF CURTIS Mayfield had started out with the intention of riding squarely astride every bandwagon that was rolling he couldn't have done better than 'Sweet ...
Curtis Mayfield: Got to Find a Way (Curtom CRS 8604)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 27 February 1975
CURTIS MAYFIELD'S dilemma remains the same with each album. Each of his albums since Superfly has seemed uninspired, static, overreaching, an attempt to make a ...
Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions: Big Sixteen
Review by Bob Fisher, New Musical Express, March 1975
IT'S PLEASING to see Anchor pushing out this classic compilation, as it's been unavailable for several years. It was originally issued on the old HMV ...
Curtis Mayfield: Love To The People
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 10 June 1975
I ADMIT THAT I always eagerly look forward to the bi-annual interview time with Curtis Mayfield because it never quite seems like an interview. ...
Curtis Mayfield: America Today
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 June 1975
THREE YEARS AGO, Curtis Mayfield was one of the golden boys of New Wave soul, having broken with marketing formats (The Impressions) and joined the ...
The Impressions: Sooner or later and right now!
Profile and Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 22 July 1975
WITHOUT OVERSTATING the fact, you could justifiably say that The Impressions have come a long way! ...
The Staple Singers: doin' it again with Mister Mayfield
Profile and Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 13 April 1976
ONE OF the most welcome sights of recent months has been the re-appearance in the pop and R&B charts of that much-loved and extra-soulful family ...
Aretha Franklin: Sparkle (Atlantic)****
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 16 October 1976
SUBTITLED 'Music From The Motion Picture', Sparkle is a soundtrack album, that plays like a record. It doesn't, unlike most of the genre, hang limply ...
Curtis Mayfield: The Creative Mastermind
Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, December 1976
TO TRY and describe Curtis Mayfield's enormous contribution to the music world would take far more adjectives than we have at our disposal. ...
Curtis Mayfield: Heartbeat (RSO)
Review by Fred Dellar, New Musical Express, 1 September 1979
IT'S ALWAYS been my contention that Curtis Mayfield doesn't really sing but rather squeezes his voice out over a song. And because I'm a squeeze ...
Curtis Mayfield: Commonwealth Institute, London
Live Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 27 June 1983
A TRIUMPH OF experience over environment, Curtis Mayfield's return to London on Friday night was a tribute to the enduring worth of the generation of ...
Curtis Mayfield: So Proud — The Moral Standard of Soul
Interview by Paolo Hewitt, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
Regarded by many people as the first conscience of American Black music, CURTIS MAYFIELD's illustrious career now spans 20 years — from being a teenager ...
Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler & The Impressions: Greek Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 16 July 1983
FEW THINGS in this amorphous and inchoate universe are so perfect as ‘I’m So Proud’ or ‘Woman’s Got Soul’ – or very nearly any of ...
Keep On Pushing: Curtis Mayfield
Interview by Chris Salewicz, The Face, August 1983
They were still calling it ‘race music’ when Curtis Mayfield started singing in the late ‘50s. An influential and innovative artist, Mayfield gave a stirring ...
Curtis Mayfield: Piccadilly Theatre, London
Live Review by Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 25 October 1986
PAUL WELLER knows his place. Despite meaning a lot of things to a lot of people, he was more than reluctant to share the stage ...
The Blow Monkeys, Curtis Mayfield: Rejoice!
Interview by Michele Kirsch, New Musical Express, 9 May 1987
Surgery's open, and here's busy Doctor Robert of THE BLOW MONKEYS: banned by the BBC, co-singing with Chicago soul legend CURTIS MAYFIELD and activating with ...
Now More Than Ever: Curtis Mayfield
Profile and Interview by Simon Witter, i-D, September 1987
Curtis Mayfield is the music world’s most talented unsigned superstar. A working musician since the age of eight, Mayfield’s inimitable work with the Impressions and ...
Curtis Mayfield: The Palomino, Los Angeles
Live Review by Don Waller, Los Angeles Times, 23 October 1989
Mayfield Performs Cream of His Crop of Hits ...
Comment by Dave Marsh, Vox, November 1990
WHEN SINEAD O'Connor refused to allow 'The Star Spangled Banner' to be performed at her late August concert at the Garden State Arts Center in ...
Comment by Dave Marsh, Vox, November 1990
WHEN SINEAD O'CONNOR refused to allow 'The Star Spangled Banner' to be performed at her late August concert at the Garden State Arts Center in ...
Curtis Mayfield: The Anthology 1961-1977
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, 4 February 1993
CURTIS MAYFIELD and the Impressions: The Anthology, a two-CD, forty-song set, is a remarkable document. Lovingly assembled by Chicago-soul authority Robert Pruter, this collection connects ...
Interview by Robert Gordon, Q, July 1993
Curtis Mayfield is a full-scale genius. First with the Impressions, and afterwards with his solo stuff, he defined, then redefined, the sound of black America. ...
No Sad Songs For Curtis Mayfield
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 6 March 1994
ANYONE CAN HAVE a paralyzing, life-diminishing accident at anytime - bad things happen to good people just as often as good things. You just accept ...
Curtis Mayfield: Mighty Mighty
Profile and Interview by Michael A. Gonzales, Vibe, April 1996
From the Impressions to Superfly, he's left an indelible mark on American music. Now, six years after a paralyzing accident, Curtis Mayfield is down but not out. ...
Curtis Mayfield: New World Order
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Request, December 1996
SIX YEARS AFTER the freak onstage accident that paralyzed him from the neck down, Curtis Mayfield, one of soul music's true titans, makes his debut ...
Curtis Mayfield: New World Order (Warner Bros/All formats)
Review by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 25 January 1997
HE SAW his people endure hard times and dedicated his life to evangelising alternative paths. He was a soul singer, a streetwise prophet, one of ...
Resurrection of Mayfield's soul
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Daily Telegraph, 25 January 1997
Vivien Goldman meets a legend of black music — back at last after his tragic accident ...
Interview by Craig Werner, Goldmine, 4 July 1997
CURTIS MAYFIELD’S voice sinks to a whisper as he recalls the lyrics from one of his greatest songs: "I’ve got my strength and it don’t ...
Curtis Mayfield: Superfly (Two-CD Special Edition)
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, September 1998
ORIGINALLY RELEASED in 1972, Curtis Mayfield's album of music for one of the most notorious blaxploitation films of the Seventies is typically compassionate, melancholic, and ...
Curtis Mayfield - A Gently Sensitive Observer
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 1998
SIX MAYFIELD albums on three CDs, from the great to the grottyCurtisGot To Find A WayRootsSweet ExorcistBack To The WorldLove ...
Guide by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 29 January 1999
1 Nick Drake Bryter Layter (Island, 1970) ...
The Soul of Soul: Curtis Mayfield 1942–1999
Obituary by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, 3 February 2000
"EVERYTHING WAS A SONG," Curtis Mayfield once said. "Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love ... if you ...
Obituary by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, March 2000
With his high, pure tenor and songs of peace, love and empowerment, Curtis Mayfield was a soul revolutionary whose influence spanned four decades. Ben Edmonds ...
Retrospective by Bill Brewster, bbc.co.uk, 2001
CHICAGO SOUL MUSIC, that weird conflation of gospel, rhythm and blues, latin rhythms and bass-heavy horn riffing, was somewhat overshadowed by its more well-known brothers ...
Curtis Mayfield and Superfly: No Exit
Retrospective by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, June 2002
"THESE GUYS WERE LIKE outlaws, the real cowboys," says Phillip Fenty of the street characters who inspired his screenplay of Superfly. ...
Curtis Mayfield: Soul Brother No. 1
Retrospective by Nick Hasted, Uncut, August 2005
Ghetto-funk pioneer, civil rights activist, blaxploitation soundtrack master — the late Curits Mayfield is one of the all-time soul greats ...
Curtis Mayfield: Gangster Boogie
Retrospective and Interview by Michael A. Gonzales, Wax Poetics, December 2009
Curtis Mayfield injected his own cultural commentary into the Super Fly legacy ...
Curtis Mayfield and the Black Rock Connection
Retrospective by Michael A. Gonzales, Bold As Love, 14 January 2010
With only a few days to go before the BRC Orchestra spends two nights performing the Civil Rights songbook of Curtis Mayfield, Michael Gonzales reflects ...
Revisiting Curtis Mayfield's There's No Place Like America Today
Retrospective by David Bennun, The Quietus, 16 April 2015
NOTE: This article was adapted by its author from a piece in the 1995 Melody Maker book Unknown Pleasures. ...
Curtis Mayfield: 10 of the best
Guide by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 5 August 2015
Deploying sweet soul and blistering funk – and pouring his gorgeous, honeyed falsetto over it all – Curtis Mayfield veered between breezy optimism and hard-edged ...
Take The Power Back: Black Artist-Owned Labels
Retrospective by Michael A. Gonzales, Red Bull Academy Magazine, 25 January 2016
At the height of their careers, Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, George Clinton and Prince all formed their own imprints. Michael Gonzales tells the ...
Why the early '70s was the greatest period for live soul albums
Guide by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, December 2016
JAMES BROWN invented the modern live soul album with the release of Live at the Apollo in 1963, and Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, and Etta ...
Beautiful Brother: The Gentle Genius Of Curtis Mayfield, Part One
Retrospective by Kris Needs, Shindig, February 2017
How a poor boy from Chicago became the voice of the civil rights movement in soul's greatest vocal group, defined the black pride anthem and ...
Move On Up: Curtis Mayfield Part 2
Retrospective by Kris Needs, Shindig, March 2017
VASTLY EXCEEDING his hopes when it was released that September, Curtis was greeted as the most exciting soul album since Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul ...
Richard Russell: Rich Pickings
Interview by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, March 2018
As Richard Russell's collaborative album, Everything Is Recorded, is released, RC's Jamie Atkins meets him to talk about the recording and the music that led ...
see also Impressions, The
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