Curtis (Curtis Mayfield album)

Background

In 1970, Curtis began work on his own self-titled debut album. Although he never intended to leave the Impressions permanently, under recommendation from his business manager Marv Stuart, and the trend for both R&B and rock artists in the seventies was to go solo. Mayfield wouldn't officially leave The Impressions until 1971.

Recording and production

Like with some of his later Impressions work, Mayfield's lyrics reflected the social and political concern rising in black America at the time. Mayfield was one of the earliest artists to speak openly about African-American pride and community struggle. Mayfield reflected upon this time as a "happening era...when people stopped wearing tuxedos...people were getting down a little more."

The album had a more hard edged sound than the Impressions had before. On this new sound Mayfield claimed it was something he "long wanted to do...but were out of category of what was expected of me and the Impressions. What I got off in the Curtis album allowed me to be more personal for myself.". The two singles off the album "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go" and "Move on Up" showcased Mayfield's new funk musical style, while the rest of the tracks were much softer soul based songs. Not having any traditional music lessons, Mayfield claimed his backing band would occasionly comment "gosh, this is a terribly strange key to play in", but still played it accordingly as written. According to Joseph L. Tirabassi of Tiny Mix Tapes, "We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue" exemplified the "gliding soul" and "hard-hitting funk" the rest of the album veered between.

Critical reception

In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, John Wendell was disappointed by Curtis, finding much of Mayfield's music more rhythmic than melodic, "fragmentary, garbled and frustrating to listen to"; he called the lyrics haphazardly written and mealy-mouthed. "He tries to deal with some pretty serious and complex subjects by stringing together phrases that end with the same sound—whether they make sense together or not", Wendell critiqued. "Sure, it's all subjective, but I can't myself see that what we need is 'Respect for the steeple/power to the people.'" Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was also somewhat unmoved by the album's "essentially middle-class guides to black pride" but qualified his judgment as reflecting a certain degree of cultural relativism on his part, making note of African-American audiences having embraced the record.

Christgau revisited Curtis in subsequent years and found it far less middlebrow on further listens, writing in a retrospective review for Rolling Stone, "cut for cut, Mayfield's solo debut is stronger than Superfly". Bruce Eder from AllMusic said Mayfield had "embraced the most progressive soul sounds of the era" on an album that was "practically the Sgt. Pepper's album of '70s soul". In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Geoff Himes wrote that the songs remained irresistibly catchy, even though sometimes Mayfield's messages were oversimplified and the production sounded excessively "ornate".

Track listing

All tracks written by Curtis Mayfield.

All songs written and composed by Curtis Mayfield except where noted.

Personnel

Technical personnel