Curtis is the debut studio album by American soul musician Curtis Mayfield, released in September 1970. Produced by Mayfield, it was released on his own label Curtom Records. The musical styles of Curtis moved further away from the pop-soul sounds of Mayfield's previous group The Impressions and featured more of a funk and psychedelic-influenced sound. The album's subject matter incorporates political and social concerns of the time.

Curtis sold well at the time charting at number one on the Billboard Black albums (for five nonconsecutive weeks) and number nineteen on the Billboard Pop albums charts. Only the single "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go" charted in the United States; however, an edited version of "Move On Up" would spend 10 weeks in the top 50 of the UK Singles Chart.

In 2020, the album was ranked at number 275 on Rolling Stones 500 greatest albums of all time list.

Background

Mayfield began work on his own self-titled album in 1970. Although he never intended to leave the Impressions permanently, he would officially leave them in 1971, under recommendation from his business manager Marv Stuart and given the trend for both R&B and rock artists to go solo.

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."

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.'" The 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. 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), Geoffrey Himes wrote that the songs remained irresistibly catchy, even though sometimes Mayfield's messages were oversimplified and the production sounded excessively "ornate". Treblezine names it among the 10 essential albums of psychedelic soul.

Awards

In 1972, Mayfield won the Prix Otis Redding (best R&B album) from the Académie du Jazz for Curtis.

Cover

The song "We People Who Are Darker Than Blue" has been covered by the British rock band Babe Ruth on their third album Babe Ruth.

Track listing

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

Charts

{| class="wikitable"

!Chart (1970)

!Peak<br />position

|-

|US Billboard Top Pop LPs

|align="center"|19

|-

|US Billboard Top Soul LPs

! width="40"| US R&B<br />

|-

| 1970

| align="left"| "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go"

| 29

| 3

| &mdash;

|-

| 1971

| align="left"| "Move On Up"

| &mdash;

| &mdash;

| 12

|-

|}

Personnel

  • Musicians – Leonard Druss, John Howell, Harold Lepp, Loren Binford, Clifford Davis, Patrick Ferreri, Richard Single, Rudolph Stauber, Donald Simmons, Robert Lewis, Harold Dessent, Ronald Kolber, Harold Klatz, John Ross, Sol Bobrob, Sam Heiman, Elliot Golub, Henry Gibson, Robert Sims, Gary Slabo, Philip Upchurch

;Technical personnel

  • Riley Hampton and Gary Slabo – producer, mixer
  • R.J. Anfinson and Tom Flye – recording engineer
  • Curtis Mayfield – producer

See also

  • List of number-one R&B albums of 1971 (U.S.)

References

Notes

Sources