On these first two solo albums, Dad moved his message far beyond what any other artist of the time had done, retaining his crown as the premier social commentator into the new decade. But at almost the exact moment of the release of Curtis/Live!, two developments changed the cultural landscape, outpacing my father and driving him to go further with his music.
In April, as Dad performed with B. B. King and the Last Poets, the film world went through a major shift with Melvin Van Peebles’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, the first so-called blaxploitation film. Blaxploitation movies were the first in Hollywood history made almost entirely by black people. They depicted gripping tales of inner-city life that either glorified drugs and violence or simply showed the world the reality of the ghetto, depending on one’s politics.
Sweetback launched a movement and spoke to black people in a way no movie had before. As actor John Amos said, “[Melvin] went out and made a movie that generated so much revenue against the production dollar spent that it literally made the industry sit up overnight and say, ‘My God, there’s an audience of black people out there that will pay to see movies about black people.’ Now, how they managed to overlook that for all the years since the inception of the business remains to be explained.”
Blaxploitation movies served another important psychological function. They were the first to feature black actors—mostly men—as heroes, central characters, and eventual victors. This marked a major shift. As Huey Newton wrote, “As I suffered through Sambo and the Black Tar Baby story in Brer Rabbit in the early grades, a great weight began to settle on me. It was the weight of ignorance and inferiority imposed by the system. I found myself wanting to identify with the white heroes … and in time I cringed at the mention of Black.” Newton noted that this “gulf of hostility” led to the surge of anger and militancy that had taken over the movement. “We not only accepted ourselves as inferior; we accepted the inferiority as inevitable and inescapable … Rebellion was the only way we knew to cope with the suffocating, repressive atmosphere that undermined our confidence.” That rebellion was at the heart of the blaxploitation genre.
Music was also a major part of that shift. A month after Sweetback, Marvin Gaye dropped his seminal album, What’s Going On, which invented the format of concept-album-as-social-commentary. It one-upped even Curtis in terms of straight truth. My father had never done anything like it, and he knew it. “When I first heard What’s Going On I felt like Marvin had said everything there was to be said,” he said. “The album had such qualities and the timely release was perfect. The clarity with which he expressed himself left you wondering whether there was anything left to write about; it seemed to me that he really had said it all.” Of course, there was plenty left to say. It wasn’t until July brought Gordon Parks’s Shaft that my father began considering just how much.
Shaft became the emblem of the blaxploitation genre and is still the most famous of its ilk. A huge part of its success came from Isaac Hayes’s soundtrack, which won a Grammy Award for Best Original Score (Sweetback also had an excellent score by the then-unknown group, Earth, Wind & Fire). The Grammy legitimized the genre’s commercial pull and created a new business model. Soon, just about every black artist wanted to write a film soundtrack, my father included. He had been interested in working on films ever since he’d been asked to contribute two songs to a disaster of a movie called Krakatoa, East of Java in ’68. Now, he just needed the right movie to score.
Throughout 1971, the band toured sporadically, including my father’s first full solo tour of the United Kingdom, where his popularity with critics still skyrocketed. “A year ago, I’d have been pleading with you to listen to him,” one British journalist wrote. “Now I don’t need to because [he’s] going to take it for [himself].” Part of that surge in popularity came from “Move On Up,” which remained on the charts.
In early July, Dad appeared at the Speakeasy Club in London, and Blues & Soul writer David Nathan painted a convincing picture of his growing popularity. “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 this country,” Nathan wrote. “Historic because it was the first time Mr. Mayfield had played in front of a British audience (albeit a totally unrepresentative one) and historic because it proved that if the term ‘superstar’ still has any meaning … Curtis Mayfield is already there.”
Nathan’s reference to the brief appearance referred to the fact that my father played almost exclusively at army bases overseas, where an American audience familiar with his music greeted him. This was largely a matter of necessity—British audiences still hadn’t come around to his music in significant enough numbers to support a full tour.
Nathan also noted Dad’s lyrical prowess, writing, “Probably the most significant factor about Curtis’ work is his lyrical genius. Apart from his obvious musical talent as a vocalist and guitarist of the first order, his lyrics are profound, honest and never trite.” And Nathan set him atop the pantheon of socially conscious soul men of the era: “It has often been implied that Motown’s Smokey Robinson is ‘the greatest living poet’ (the quote is reputedly from Bob Dylan!), but, when it comes down to dealing with today’s problems, Curtis must come tops.”
Interestingly enough, Nathan also mentioned that the group encored with a new song called “We Got to Have Peace,” and my father told the audience that they’d hear it on an upcoming release. True to form, he already had songs ready for his next album.
They stayed one week in England, where the band grew tighter still. Curtis and Craig made little wagers on who would make the most mistakes during the performances. Everything felt loose, fun, fluid, despite the mood back home in America.
In May, a race riot had exploded in Brooklyn, cops arrested 13,000 antiwar protestors across the country, and Nixon rejected sixty of the Congressional Black Caucus’s demands. June had seen Ed Sullivan’s last broadcast and the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, which detailed a vast campaign of deception by the US government about the Vietnam War. July had found Doors front man and cultural icon Jim Morrison dead in a bathtub in Paris.
The country’s humor soured as hippies entered adulthood to find their heroes dropping as fast as soldiers in Vietnam. Trust in the government hit a critical low point as sordid details from the Pentagon Papers sifted through the news. Perhaps for the first time, even white Americans lost trust in most basic institutions. For much of black America, that trust never existed, nor was it soon to come. In April, the Supreme Court had upheld busing to achieve desegregation in schools, which meant seventeen years after Brown, major challenges to desegregation still existed.
Between tours, the band returned to Chicago to record Roots, Dad’s second solo album. Roots opens with “Get Down,” the most sensual song he’d yet recorded. The Impressions had done love songs galore, but none of them came close to touching the raw sexuality of “Get Down.” Dad wrote the song after hanging out at nightclubs watching people dance. “If you’ve ever walked into a large hall or a place where a lot of kids are dancing and you’re hearing some funky music, there are several things you’ll immediately observe and take in,” he said. “Those are the feelings and the hard breathings of one dancing, and the stomping, and you take all of this and all of a sudden it hits you—everybody’s doing their thing.”
He also tried to ring some hopeful, motivating notes on Roots, especially on the excellent cuts, “We Got to Have Peace” and “Keep On Keeping On.” The former was his first song about the war. In it, he wrote some of his most brilliant poetry and wordplay, especially the lyric, “We got to have peace / To keep the world alive and war deceased,” where he proves a master of inner rhyme, assonance, and alliteration. It is among his most infectious, upbeat songs. “I don’t think we should stop demanding it until we actually get it,” he said about pushing the peace banner even after reality had become so dire. “Though it might be a little repetitious becaus
e so many people have been singing about it, peace is something we really need, and I feel, like love, it should be expressed over and over until everyone gets the message.”
“Keep On Keeping On” boasts one of my father’s best melodies and became one of his most beloved anthems. He felt partial to its message, saying, “If ever you could gather up a bunch of kids, sit them down, and sing just one song, this is it. You would not be there as an entertainer. You would be instilling a message in our young. Within the song is life’s story—the hopefulness … the sweetness—and the bottom line to keep on keeping on.” With four children of his own, Dad felt the need to speak to the next generation.
The song is also fascinating in comparison to his earlier work. It spoke to the times just like its corollary, “Keep On Pushing,” saying, “Many think that we have blown it / But they too will soon admit / That there’s still a lot of love among us / And there’s still a lot of faith, warmth, and trust / When we keep on keeping on.” It was a recognition the movement had faltered, and it represented a subtle and important shift in my father’s message. No longer was he exhorting his people to keep on pushing. With everything that went down since the Impressions’ first message song in 1964, simple survival now became his main message.
With good reason, too. Darkness and confusion ruled the day, which my father dealt with powerfully in “Underground,” a song that plays like a love letter to What’s Going On. The song also expressed an expanding notion of the world’s problems and a determination to go beyond race into issues like the environment. “Everyone knows we have a pollution problem and knows it’s going to get worse, this is what brought the whole idea of the song ‘Underground’ to life,” he said. “The song speaks in terms of what might just happen if the pollution got so bad that everyone had to live underground; it gives my impression of how it would be in the dark down there; we wouldn’t be able to see who is black and who is white so there wouldn’t be any discrimination. As the song says, ‘We’ll all turn black, so who’s to know, as a matter of fact color, creed and race must go.’”
One of the most surprising songs on the album was a sultry blues number called “Now You’re Gone,” which Dad wrote with Lucky. Though he grew up in the home of electric blues, my father had taken his music down a different path from the beginning. But with “Now You’re Gone” he paid homage to the greats like Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. “I was never crazy about my ability to sing the blues,” he said. “Even though I could write it, I think other people could sing it better. The music and the arrangement were much stronger than the vocals. It needed someone with a growl! I tried it, but I always understood that every song I write isn’t meant for me.”
While such honest self-criticism was laudable, my father might have been too hard on himself. He gives a fine vocal performance, perhaps spurred on by his failed relationship with my mother. Like everything else about him, though, his love life was never just one thing, which he proved on the closing track, “Love to Keep You in My Mind.” “I was in love with this particular lady,” he said, “so that song came easily.” The lady in question was Toni, a woman my father met in Cleveland. Rolling Stone would mistakenly identify her as his wife the next year.
Overall, Roots is a continuation of the sounds explored on Curtis. Cuts like “Beautiful Brother of Mine” and “Get Down” could have fit right next to “Hell Below.” The album sold well on its release in October, hitting number six on the R&B charts. Dad’s decision to go solo had now produced three of the biggest records of his entire career. “I believe my vocal is stronger and certainly that the material is better than anything I’ve written,” he said of Roots. “I must admit, I wanted to change the name at the last minute but Buddah had already printed 50,000 sleeves, so I was too late.” The cover photo featured him sitting in front of an upturned tree in Chicago. My father liked the image because he felt his own roots were in Chicago. Five years later, writer Alex Haley would pen a hugely successful book and TV miniseries of the same name, giving the concept of roots a deeper meaning in black culture.
Though my father had a different image in mind when he called the album Roots, his songs were just as focused on the black experience. He continued to speak about that increasing focus in his songs, saying, “I think my music is aimed at a general audience. However, at home, the biggest concerns that I express are mainly those of the black community. The community in which I grew up.”
At the same time, my father’s white audience had never been bigger, and he knew it. “Those concerns are not just black problems,” he said. “Most of my songs are songs that I’m sure relate to the majority of people’s everyday life. But attitudes in the world are constantly changing. The subjects and moods of my songs reflect what concerns me, what I am currently thinking about. My songs attempt to break it down—communicate my theories to people of all kinds. I’m very happy if my songs hit home with a wider audience—as they seem to be doing right now.”
As soon as the album hit the streets, so did he. The band played the usual places, including a date at the Apollo in September. They also did something my father had never done before—perform with a live orchestra. At a show in Dallas, the seventy-piece Dallas Symphony backed him, providing what must have been a jaw-dropping performance.
He also toured Europe again with John’s help. Throughout the trip he exchanged letters with my mother, and he found himself in the agonizing position of trying to save his relationship from across the sea. Though he’d gotten serious with his new girlfriend Toni, he still hadn’t accepted losing Diane.
Preparing to come home, he composed one final letter to my mother. In it, he poured his passion into beautifully poetic passages; he made passive aggressive threats, then backed off with conciliatory words; he played the part of a spurned lover, though he never remained faithful; he slipped in guilt trips. Then, as if unsure that his message had gotten through, he added a passive aggressive ultimatum, signed with only his initials. In all, he sounded like a desperate man trying every tactic he can think of to keep his woman by his side—which he was. He wrote:
Dearest,
Tho I slept well last night all the way thru until about six my mind was once again fallen to the thought of yourself and I. I want so badly to call you but realizing it to be late you wouldn’t understand … Not seeing you as I would like to, I am afraid that we are now entirely beyond each other. I have seen nothing more than friendly gestures of intention toward me as you would do any male friend … At this moment I am very tense partly from fear that your tender statements of love to me in the past week may truly be what you want, feeling that it is right. And yet you still seem resistant as in what you really want. You have said these things many times before. I have found you not to be sure really as to what you want where I may be concerned. As you have always said, actions speak louder than words …
I am very happy that you won’t receive this letter until you have come back from your trip. Altho this is very intimate to me I am sure you will find reasons to share this letter with your companion. It is good to know that you have someone whom you enjoy spending your life and time with. I wish not to interfere, just unhappy that I don’t play a part of such confidence and intimacy of you two. But maybe this is a blessing to both of us in disguise. In the letter prior to this one I tried not to be too mushy with words of love knowing that is really not your bag and not wanting to sound like I’m rapping.
I have been very sincere with my feelings for you and of you, and have often said times before that I want you and ours together. That has not been the wish of both of us and decisions have been most permanent and clearly stated. Have you come to change your mind? How do you come to say your love when you often stated having no feelings at all as well as having clearly shown me that I am not needed? How do you look upon me? Diane, surely not as a companion, lover, buddy, nor really a friend. Then what am I needed for in your life? What is there you want that I may be able to give you other than financial support?
>
Without love there can be nothing else, although through loving you I have wanted to give of myself in every possible way but you have turned me out to deal with my needs and desires of love, only from the streets. I am sorry to say that Mrs. Diane Mayfield has truly become Miss Diane Mayfield as to your preference. But I have no love from the latter. It is not in me anymore to have to buy of love, companion[ship], and intimacy. The price is much too high. As always love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. It is not necessary for you to come to Atlanta as I do not wish to be part of your summer fun tour only to see it die come fall when the need of warmth shall truly prove upon us. Before there is anything more let us truly find the respect that has been lost. Only then can there be a true happiness …
Always,
Curtis
This is my final proposal of love and life with the two of us. As the years are rapidly moving I am eager to build all that has been torn down with or without—CM.
He’d have to go without. It stung, but like always, he had piles of work waiting for him when he got home in December. He planned on producing two new Curtom artists—Patty Miller and Ruby Jones—and he also had begun writing the next Impressions album.
Curtom also had its sights on the singer, playwright, musical writer, actor, and movement activist Oscar Brown Jr. Dad kicked around the idea of writing a musical with him. It never happened—Dad was over-committed already, including an upcoming trip to Europe in January to appear at the MIDEM Festival in Cannes, France. “With me running cross country we figured we might be overloading,” he said.
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