courtesy of The Buddah Group
Listen to the PowerhouseRadio.com production of The Curtis Mayfield Story featuring Curtis
10 minutes, 13 seconds
In 1970, after twelve years with The Impressions, Curtis decided to leave the group (Fred Cash, Sam Gooden and himself as lead singer) and concentrate his energies on songwriting, production work, his Chicago based record company, Curtom, with its related publishing firms and his growing family.
Although he hadn't planned on making a solo move, Curtis didn't want to retire from singing and eventually put together an album of his own, "My concern was the music and the songs themselves more so than 'Here's another big artist' -- after ten or twelve years, the ego trip is over." The album was called, appropriately enough, "Curtis."
The album represented a definite progression in Mayfield's music "I don't feel I've changed," he commented.
"I feel that the only difference is that just being me, by myself, I'm able to express myself on a wider range -- in other words, I can really come out and say what I had wanted to say all the time but I had other people involved.
I just wanted to record an album and express myself and hope that people could pick up on the message and understand the actual insight of what was being said."
Continued
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