During this period, Mayfield’s lyrics became more politically and culturally conscious, and such songs as “We’re a Winner,” “Choice of Colors,” “Mighty Mighty (Spade and Whitey),” and “People Get Ready” are identified with the civil rights movement. The loss of two members didn’t stop the group, however, and the Impressions continued to produce albums and hit singles like “Keep On Pushing” and “People Get Ready” as a trio. In spite of their success, rifts in the band developed that led to several lineup changes. By 1961 Mayfield had reformed the Impressions, and they signed a five-year contract with ABC-Paramount, a relationship that produced twenty-two hit singles and twelve hit albums on the rhythm-and-blues charts. Due to the inactivity of the group, former-Impression Jerry Butler asked Mayfield to join him on a sold-out tour as his guitarist, and Mayfield continued to write and cowrite songs for Butler and the Impressions.Īngered by receiving so little money for his songs, Mayfield founded his own music publishing business, Curtom, in 1960. The Impressions had difficulty duplicating the success of their debut, and they disbanded after Vee Jay chose not to renew their contract. Mayfield was sixteen years old when the Impressions sold out New York’s Apollo Theater in Harlem for a week. The Impressions signed their first record contract with a subsidiary of Vee Jay records in 1958 and recorded their first single, “For Your Precious Love,” which sold 150,000 copies in two weeks. He teamed up with the Roosters, a vocal group from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the group soon changed their name to the Impressions. Mayfield sang in several short-lived gospel groups before quitting high school after tenth grade to focus on music. The result was a distinctive open F-sharp tuning (F sharp, A sharp, C sharp, F sharp, A sharp, F sharp), which he used throughout his career.
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Mayfield taught himself how to play guitar, and by instinct he tuned the guitar to the black keys of the piano. At his grandmother’s storefront church, Mayfield heard different styles of gospel music performed and joined the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers, a gospel vocal quintet, at age seven. At home, his mother played gospel records, listened to popular music on the radio, and taught her son to play piano at an early age.
Mayfield’s family moved a lot before settling in the city’s Cabrini-Green public housing project when he was a teenager. His father abandoned the family when Mayfield was five years old. A pioneer of 1960s soul music and 1970s funk music, Curtis Mayfield was a founding member of the Impressions and a successful solo musician.Ĭurtis Lee Mayfield was born on June 3, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, to Marion Washington and Kenneth Mayfield.
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