In 1970, Curtis Mayfield left his band, the Impressions. It wasn't that much of a change, since he did all the lead vocals, songwriting, and production for the Impressions already. But it coincided with a shift from writing mostly about romance to addressing social and political concerns more overtly than before. This culminated in his his hugely successful soundtrack from the movie "Superfly" in 1972.
You can see that shift in focus here. However, it isn't as evident as it might be, because some of the covers of his big hits from this period that I picked weren't recorded until much later, so they don't appear until Volumes 3 or 4.
Most of the songs here were originally done by Mayfield himself. But he continued to successfully write some hit songs for others, such as "On and On," "Let's Do It Again," and "Something He Can Feel."
This album is 50 minutes long.
01 [Don't Worry] If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go (East of Underground)
02 Stone Junkie (Ruby Jones)
03 Running (Baby Huey)
04 Stop the War (Impressions)
05 Ain't No Love Lost (Patti Jo)
06 I've Been Trying (Heptones)
07 Eddie You Should Know Better (Natural Four)
08 Make Me Believe in You (Patti Jo)
09 On and On (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 Let's Do It Again (Staple Singers)
11 Look into Your Heart (Aretha Franklin)
12 Something He Can Feel (Aretha Franklin)
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Although the early 1970s was the peak of Mayfield's popularity, I had a surprisingly difficult time finding a good color photo of him. Most of them have his head tilted this way or that, and in this series I like ones with the musician staring straight ahead. I finally found one from 1973, though I'm not happy with his hand by his head. And in this one, he was looking to the side, so I adjusted his eyes to (hopefully) make it look like he's staring straight ahead. I also removed the background because I found it distracting. If anyone knows of a better photo of him from this time, please let me know.
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