In Pursuit of Curtis Mayfield's America

I never feel as American as I do when I listen to Curtis Mayfield’s music. I think it’s because believing in his music means believing that there’s anything here in America worth salvaging and continuing to fight for. Given the state of the country when he was coming of age, it took an extraordinary amount of faith for him to feel that way. One would think that living in a world of routine domestic terrorism directed at people who looked like you would drain you of any optimism, but Curtis was an unusual man.

If you look through his discography with the Impressions in the 60’s, it’s kind of funny – the song titles themselves explain what was happening at that point in time in the struggle for equality. “Keep on Pushing” with the freedom rides, “People Get Ready” with the March on Washington and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “We’re a Winner” with Black Pride becoming a mainstream movement in the late 60’s. He hit it on the nose pretty much every time. Martin Luther King Jr. even went as far as to deem “People Get Ready” the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.

Curtis eventually left the Impressions and went solo, but he didn’t stop using his voice to call out what he felt troubled by in the world. On songs like, “We’ve Got to Have Peace”, he expanded his range of topics to include the Vietnam War. Superfly still stands as perhaps the greatest soundtrack ever made in popular music and it holds a powerful message as well. The album focused on the urban decay that swept much of America’s inner cities in the 70’s amidst white flight. Again, here he was able to weave social commentary into irresistible music. The Superfly soundtrack hit number one on the Billboard pop charts. 

Music poured out of this guy. He started his own label and released 13 solo albums in the 70’s. When he wasn’t making his own music he spent the decade writing entire albums for Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and The Staple Singers. In the 80’s his music wasn’t bringing him the commercial success he previously enjoyed but that didn’t phase him. He would never dare to change his music, that was his voice. In the 1980s, He released albums titled Something to Believe In, Love is the Place, Honesty, &  We Come In Peace. The message was simply in his DNA: “Make people feel that they should do right. It doesn’t really matter what they’re into or what their bag is, if you can just smile toward another, we can all be saved.”

In 1990, his life took a tragic turn. During a soundcheck for one of his shows, lighting equipment fell on him and crushed his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. He found that he could still sing if he laid on his back and let gravity put pressure on his chest and lungs. With all this, he still went on and recorded an album, a Grammy-nominated album nonetheless. Don’t let the falsetto fool you - the man was fighter. 

When I think about his catalog, the first thing that strikes me is how ironic it is that music created in times of such brutality could be so warm and sweet. The Curtis Mayfield songbook is angelic. These are to date some of the most beautiful songs ever written. They’re not aggressive or violent — almost all of them are simply about finding joy in existence and experiencing love. Once you begin to understand that these too were considered radical acts is when you can begin to comprehend the environment from which these songs emerged. And that was the beauty and magic of Curtis Mayfield.

I believe Curtis continued to center his songwriting on love because it’s what makes us human. That’s why I think of him and his contemporaries from the Civil Rights era as superheroes – they simply possessed so much more humanity than those who stood against them. It was a struggle of good vs. evil beyond anything Marvel Comics could ever script. To be black in America you must be an alchemist. For centuries in this country, black people have had to snatch joy from the jaws of terror just to survive. This tradition is solely responsible for me being able to have rights in this land today. I am nothing without it.

Although he’s been gone for 25 years, it feels like Curtis Mayfield is still here because his music still resonates so clearly. These songs emerged out of, and in opposition to, a crisis of empathy. We’ve made a couple steps here and there but we haven’t even come close to solving it. Wealth inequality is staggering. Police brutality is still routine post-2020. As I write this, our government is directly enabling ethnic cleansing in Palestine with a casualness that is mind-blowing. Just like in Curtis’ time, the people running this country exhibit a blatant disregard for humanity. As always, the responsibility has fallen to everyday people to hold their feet to the fire and demand change. Curtis did it through his music and inspired millions. I don’t think I need to state that we cannot in fact all be Curtis Mayfield. But he didn’t want us to be. His message was for us to work to be the best versions of ourselves as we moved through the world and to speak up for those being done wrong. For us to reclaim the beauty of life from darkness and protect it. We may never truly arrive at the version of America he yearned for, but it doesn’t mean we should stop trying.

Keep on pushing.