One of the things I like most about the Midnight Special show was how it often had different musical acts perform together. But I never would have expected Curtis Mayfield and Canned Heat to perform a song together. Yet they did here, with show host Wolfman Jack singing on it too. And it appears to have been a song made up just for the occasion, as you can tell by the title Mayfield gave to it when he introduced it: "A Little Midnight Special Boogie on You."
At the time, Mayfield was a very big star. He had led the band the Impressions for most of the 1960s. Then as a solo star, he had a massive success with the soundtrack to the movie "Super Fly." The album went to Number One in the U.S. album chart, and actually made more money than the movie it was supporting. Two songs from it, "Superfly" and "Freddie's Dead," made the Top Ten singles chart. Then, in May 1973, Mayfield released the album "Future Shock."
Mayfield was on the show a good number of times in 1973 and 1974, though he usually didn't play many songs each time. He hosted the show for the June 8, 1973 episode, and that makes up the bulk of the music here. He hosted it again in 1974, and that will be the focus of another album I plan on posting. But I've also worked in songs from two other episodes. "Freddie's Dead" comes from the February 23, 1973 episode. And "Future Shock" and "Right On for the Darkness" come from the September 14, 1973 episode. Between those three episodes, we get four songs from the "Future Shock" album ("Future Shock," "Right On for the Darkness," "If I Were Only a Child Again," and "Back to the World"), plus the two big hits from "Superfly."
Also, there are the Canned Heat songs. At the time, that band was on the decline. Earlier in 1973, they released their seventh album, "The New Age." It was their first one to not even make the Top 100 album chart in the U.S. One problem was that musical tastes were changing, and the band's boogie and blues was going out of style for a while. Another problem was the band was in a mess. One original member had died and two more had just left, leaving only two, plus replacements. And some band members were deep into drug addictions.
Despite all that, they put on a good performance here. "Harley Davidson Blues" was a song from their latest album. "Let's Work Together" was one of their earlier hits. Then there's the collaborative song with Mayfield and Wolfman Jack mentioned above.
As usual with these Midnight Special albums, I had to do a lot of editing to make it flow well. I patched in extra applause to the ends of most every song, for instance. I also left out a lot of music to keep a coherent focus. In case you're curious, the other musical acts on the main episode featured here were the Spinners, Jose Feliciano, Tufano-Giammarese, Ravi Shankar, and Leroy Hutson.
This album is 34 minutes long.
01 Superfly (Curtis Mayfield)
02 talk (Curtis Mayfield)
03 Let's Work Together (Canned Heat)
04 Freddie's Dead (Curtis Mayfield)
05 Harley Davidson Blues (Canned Heat)
06 If I Were Only a Child Again (Curtis Mayfield)
07 Back to the World (Curtis Mayfield)
08 talk (Curtis Mayfield)
09 A Little Midnight Special Boogie on You (Canned Heat, Curtis Mayfield & Wolfman Jack)
10 Future Shock (Curtis Mayfield)
11 Right On for the Darkness (Curtis Mayfield)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/xjMHAzJK
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/oLmTgxOys7sLTt1/file
The cover image is a screenshot I took from a YouTube video of this exact concert. From left to right: Curtis Mayfield, Bob Hite of Canned Heat, and Wolfman Jack.
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