Curtis Mayfield's "Curtis" poll.

Ooh, hard. Maybe "We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue"? But hard to argue with "Hell Below"

"Move on Up" is obviously the most likely to win, but personally I have to go for "The Makings of You", possibly the most beautiful ballad ever made.

(x-post)

The moment in "Darker Than Blue" where the slow mid-section ends and the groove kicks in is so wonderfully dramatic one could vote the song just for that.

Also, we could discuss whether or not this is the best soul LP ever made? Because I haven't come across any other album that would compare to it, the only ones that come close enough are Donny Hathaway's Everything Is Everything and Roberta Flack's First Take.

(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go by a million miles

Btw, does that song have the first usage of the word "nigger" (and also "cracker") by a mainstream black artist? Can't think of any earlier example...

On second thought, Sly Stone's "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" came out a year before, didn't it?

'Move On Up', one of my top 15 or so favourite songs ever. That bassline!

http://joshreads.com/images/07/02/i070206curtis.jpg

I demand to be able to vote for "The Syrup Chapter"!

He had his own comic?

Can't see past 'Move on Up' I'm afraid, though there's not a duffer on the album.

Listening to it again, I'm convinced that it's likely to be the first drum and bass record, some of the fills sound like a tramen break to my untrained ear.

Also, we could discuss whether or not this is the best soul LP ever made?

It isn't, cause Roots is better!

man this is tough. the only one it definitely isnt is "wild and free," and that one still rulz

All the shifts in "Darker Than Blue" never fail to....wau.

THE DEMO VERSION OF Miss Black America WITHOUT THE TALKING INTRO IS MUCH BETTER

You know, I'd be really freaked out if my dad referred to me as "my lovechild."

"Move On Up" although I admit I haven't listened too much to the rest.

Geir, you NEED to listen to "The Makings of You" right now.

I dunno about Roots, it sounds just as good as Curtis, but the actual set of songs on Curtis is simply stronger. There's nothing like "The Makings of You" on Roots. Also, in the end I think it gets kinda boring how Mayfield settled to the same sound for so many years, as fresh as it sounds here in the beginning. When you get to Got to Find a Way, his still doing same stomping soul with sweeping string arrangements, except that the songs aren't half as good. That's why I find some of his critically dismissed disco records more interesting, at least he updated his sound for those.

Bump.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Final chance to vote!

Gotta be "(Dont Worry) If There's A Hell..." for me. That intro, that baseline, those string swells!

We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue

i also think Curtis is much better than Roots.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

how did i not vote in this

I did not vote here because I am a lameo who has only heard one real CM record - "Superfly" and the rest from comps.

move on up > hell

glass is half full

Now that's a great result! I would've been happy if 1st place had been a tie though.
I thought I had done a best Curtis Mayfield albums poll before but I can't find it, so maybe it was my imagination.

Because I'm feeling nerdish at the moment:

1, We the People...
2. The Makings of You
3. If There's a Hell Below...
4. The Other Side of Town
5. Move On Up
6. Miss Black America
7. Give It Up
8. Wild and Free

Gutted to see no love for The Other Side of Town. I probably would've voted Darker Than Blue though.

lol old Rolling Stone reviews be amusing

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/curtismayfield/albums/album/117246/review/5943699/curtis

http://www.avclub.com/articles/curtis-mayfield-dont-worry-if-theres-a-hell-below,73235/

Here's a Curtis Mayfield (of the Impressions) solo album; so far as I know, the first. Most of the eight cuts are distinctly Impressionistic, and one, "Miss Black America," includes Sam and Fred singing choruses. There are really no surprises in this album. It's just eight more Mayfield tunes, sweet music to Mayfield maybe, but not what I'd call the best demonstration of the man's talents.

For the past year or so, a lot of Mayfield's tunes have seemed die-cast and lacking in character. He appears to be unable to develop either a musical or lyrical theme to fullness these days, and many of his songs are fragmentary, garbled and frustrating to listen to. Lyrically, his songs are a whole lot more rhyme than reason; which isn't so uncommon, except that he tries to deal with some pretty serious and complex subjects by stringing together phrases that end with the same sound—whether they make sense together or not. Sure, it's all subjective, but I can't myself see that what we need is "Respect for the steeple/power to the people."

The arrangements are all pretty uninspired, a little bit halfhearted—maybe largely because there's so little melodic meat to most of the tunes. A few of the songs move well, mainly on the backs of the conga, bass and guitar men; but the long tracks (six to eight minutes) are a mighty long way for three men to try and carry all that weight.

Five of these cuts may get some airplay and popularity, for one or more of three reasons: because they were written by Curtis Mayfield of Impressions' fame; because they have a good dance beat; or because they deal with "social issues" in a nice, bland, inoffensive, inconclusive way. "(Don't Worry) If there's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go" is a pretty good example. It's jumpy, it's got words like "nigger" and "cracker," "hell" and "Nixon," and it says no more than the title. "The Other Side of Town" presents a grim view of a black man's life and feelings in the ghetto. "We the People Who Are Darker than Blue" is the only song on the album that does some gear-shifting, rhythm-wise; but it doesn't go anywhere, messagewise. "Move On Up" has some life to it, but not eight minutes and 50 seconds' worth. "Miss Black America" strikes me as a good musical commemorative stamp, complete with an authentic black girlchild saying she wants to be a sex-object when she grows up.

Mayfield has written good material in the past. I'm hoping that he's just in a slump, and that he'll soon be writing tunes with real life in them again. This album, though, is pretty much just disjointed skeletons.(RS 71)

WENDILL JOHN

I'm boggling at that RS review again.

Unforgettable.

Love this album so much. That first side is just unfuckwithable.