Movin' On Up" The Music and Message of Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions
Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions
The story of the Impressions is really the story of two R&B singers, Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield, who met in a Chicago church choir in the late Fifties. Realizing even then that they wanted to sing secular music, they joined the local doo-wop group the Roosters in 1957.The group was founded by Chattanooga, Tennessee natives Sam Gooden, Richard Brooks, and Arthur Brooks, who moved to Chicago and added Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield By the next year, they'd become Jerry Butler and the Impressions, and with their contacts at the local Vee-Jay label, scored a huge R&B hit with Mayfield's "For Your Precious Love." After just one followup, however, Butler left to go solo, although Curtis continued to write and even gig with him immediately afterwards. By 1962, Butler and the Brookses had departed, and after switching to ABC-Paramount Records, Mayfield, Gooden, and new Impression Fred Cash collectively became a top-selling soul act.
Although "For Your Precious Love" and its ultra-reverent style were a harbinger of the soul movement to come, the most endearing form of the Impressions music wasn't to take shape until 1961 and the hit "Gypsy Woman." Utilizing three-part gospel harmony and backed by an easygoing, lightweight, uplifting groove, the new Impressions (now a trio) scored massive hits throughout the Sixties. Mayfield soon began to incorporate coded messages of encouragement to the black race during the civil-rights movement, culminating in outright solidarity with late-Sixties hits like "We're A Winner" and "This Is Our Country."
Born on June 3, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, Mayfield was the son of Marion Washington and Kenneth Mayfield. Mayfield's father abandoned the family when Mayfield was five and his mother moved Curtis and his siblings into various Chicago projects before settling at the Cabrini green projects when Mayfield reached teenage. Mayfield attended Wells High School. He dropped out of high school early to become lead singer and songwriter for The Impressions, then went on to a successful solo career. Perhaps most notably, Mayfield was among the first of a new wave of mainstream African-American R&B performing artists and composers injecting social commentary into their work. This "message music" became extremely popular during the 1960s and 1970s.
Mayfield had several distinctions to his style of playing and singing, adding to the uniqueness of his music. When he taught himself how to play guitar, he tuned the guitar to the black keys of the piano, giving him an open F-sharp tuning — F#, A#, C#, F#, A#, F# — that he used throughout his career.Also, he sang most of his lines in falsetto (not unique in itself, but other singers in his time mostly sang tenor), adding another flavor to his music.
The Impressions - This Is My Country
The Impressions - We're A Winner
The Impressions- It's Alright (1963)
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