The 100 best musicians of all time: Curtis Mayfield – Essay from Boz Scaggs
Anyone who visited the magical place on the middle wave radio in the late fifties and early sixties, where the wonderful rhythms and sounds of the African -American Soul existed, met sooner or later also Curtis Mayfield. Many of us first heard him second voice behind Jerry Butler at the impressions.
Later should Curtis Mayfield focus more often. He sang the first voice in “Gypsy Woman”. After the text line “She danced around and round to a guitar melody”, he fires a volley on his guitar that did not go out of our ears for years. If you hear “Little Wing” by Jimi Hendrix, you can guess that Hendrix must also have listened well.
But it was above all his voice that reached light heights. She burned with the devotion of a bluesser and an almost feminine longing, determined and sensitive at the same time. Women in particular felt instinctively attracted to this sentiment. When he sang “The Wonder of You”, his empathy, his passion was tangible. What was initially an appeal with religious undertones – “Get on Board, Get Ready, I Know You Can Make IT” – Get a social component over the years: Mayfield addressed the focal points in the everyday life of black, grofly town and asked “What’s’s going on? ” – a question that should also ask Marvin Gaye. The whole spectrum of his commitment, its compressed energy, was reflected in “Superfly”. Musically it was an alternating pool of feelings: dynamic rhythms, underpinned with brass and strings, changed with radio.
He was a gripping performer until he was tied to the wheelchair in 1990 by a stage accident. I only met him once after a show in San Francisco. He had a wonderful smile and an engaging personality – a true person and gentleman.