Traveling Soul

by Todd Mayfield

  Toni was right. All told, the singles “Freddie’s Dead” and “Superfly” both sold a million copies, and the album went double platinum, grossing $20 million. Just two decades before, young Curtis had listened to his mother cry herself to sleep because she’d given Kenny her last quarter as a birthday present. Now, on the strength of nine songs, he’d generated eighty million quarters. Such fortune boggled the mind of a ghetto child.

  At the Hofstra concert, my father looked like the epitome of early-’70s cool—floppy cap hung rakishly over his ear, wire-rimmed granny glasses perched on the tip of his nose, superfly suit with wide lapels cut perfectly to fit his thin frame, patterned shirt open to the chest, lightning-white Fender Strat slung across his body. Surviving footage shows him leading a band that had become tight as hell—Craig’s wah-wah guitar intertwines seamlessly, Master Henry hunches over his congas like a mad scientist, and Lucky’s wiry frame humps the funk out of his bass. At one point, the camera pans to the audience, where a few black faces dot a sea of white college students, all of them going nuts, dancing whether they want to or not, the rhythm section leaving them no choice. As my father raps about the meaning of “Freddie’s Dead,” it’s clear he’s doing more than performing, he’s delivering his message, perhaps to the people who needed to hear it most. Indeed, the white college students in the audience had most likely never seen a black man proudly singing the word “nigga,” or heard about the real-life Freddies who died every day in the ghetto.

  Dad’s message was as important as it had ever been, as prospects for blacks had become more dismal in Nixon’s America. Almost two decades after Brown, major challenges to desegregation still existed. A busing program, started as an attempt to give black students access to white schools, was met with refusal and violence. Even when the US Supreme Court ordered forty-one southern schools to desegregate, only six complied.

  Meanwhile, 33 percent of blacks struggled below the poverty line, in comparison to 9 percent of whites, and the gains of the movement continued to erode. Nixon won reelection four months after Super Fly’s release, and it seemed the crusade against Jim Crow had officially ended. Nixon spoke of allowing any remaining segregation to go untouched. Statements like that made sure he won only 18 percent of the black vote.

  Though conditions remained dire for the majority of blacks, the gains of the movement also flowered in important ways. Black politicians won elections that would have been impossible even a decade before, including mayoral races in Cleveland, Newark, and Gary. A few months before the Super Fly soundtrack’s release, the first National Black Political Convention met in Gary, bringing together diverse members of the community like Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree. Shirley Chisholm, the first black female member of the US House of Representatives, became the first black woman to run for president in 1972, strengthening the burgeoning feminist movement. In addition, black enrollment in college had nearly tripled since the mid-’60s.

  Despite those triumphs, the movement of the ’50s and ’60s had run out of momentum. The dozing conscience of the nation, which King and company startled awake, fell back into deep slumber. Leaders like Chisholm and Jackson tried to keep pushing in the nonviolent mold of King, while the Panthers tried to expand their influence without losing their edge—but as hard as the new crop of leaders worked, they failed to gain widespread traction. Artists stepped into this leadership void. It seemed they were the only ones left who could unite people around the old movement banner. And of all artists, people expected it and accepted it most from Curtis.

  Even Marvin Gaye couldn’t continue making message music—when he tried to duplicate the success of What’s Going On, releasing a message song called “You’re the Man (Part 1),” it failed to cross over. Gaye worried that he couldn’t count on message songs to sustain his career, and with the exception of “Trouble Man,” from his 1972 blaxploitation soundtrack of the same name, he went back to making pop music.

  Unlike Gaye, Curtis had been a messenger for so long and done it so well, he’d earned special license to keep doing it. As SCLC’s Andrew Young said, “You have to think of Curtis Mayfield as a prophetic visionary teacher of our people and of our time … Martin Luther King was trying to do it legally and morally, but there’s a sense that the music has been more successful than the courts and the church. Even as I say that, I think of Curtis Mayfield as the church.”

  After Super Fly, all of our lives changed forever. Dad became busier than ever before. He was in demand everywhere—in concert, on television, in the Curtom offices, and in the studio to cut with other bands on his roster. As his fame hit its peak, we became more conspicuous as well. Despite the added pressures of fame and his incredible schedule, however, Dad did what he could to include us in his professional life as well as his personal one. Whenever possible, he’d have us backstage at his concerts, where we’d often play chess before or between shows. He’d take us to television appearances and let us hang out in the control room during recording sessions. Watching Dad work, I began to envision myself working with him some day.

  With Super Fly’s success, Dad also dramatically increased his earnings on tour. He began demanding a hefty sum of $12,500 per show plus percentages. Depending on the size of the crowd, he could walk away from a performance with as much as $25,000, and he usually performed three to four times a week. He also appeared on Soul Train—where we often accompanied him—lip-synching a bit awkwardly to “Superfly,” “Pusherman,” and “Freddie’s Dead.”

  The first time Dad took us to a Soul Train taping was when the show was still produced in Chicago. It was great to meet Don Cornelius, and I was fascinated to see how a television show was produced. Dad always had a special relationship with Don. He was one of the first guests to appear on Soul Train, which helped boost early ratings and give the show legitimacy. Later, after the show moved to Los Angeles, we would fly out and view the production in its more famous, glitzy incarnation. On one of Dad’s later appearances, Don asked Tracy, Sharon, and me if we wanted to go on the floor to be on the show with the other dancers. We were all too intimidated and declined the offer. We’d watched enough on TV to know those Soul Train dancers didn’t mess around.

  During an interview segment after the Super Fly performances, an amply Afroed Don offered Dad “personal congratulations on that great score you did,” saying, “After hearing Isaac Hayes’ Shaft score last year, I never thought I’d hear anything as good. And, needless to say, we did hear that in Super Fly this year.” A young man in the audience named Anthony Cole then asked him, “Since Super Fly was a very controversial movie, what type of movie would you like to score next, if you had the opportunity?” “It’s really hard to say,” my father responded. “I didn’t really pick Super Fly. It came to me. I prefer happenings.” He wouldn’t have to wait long for it to happen again.

  As 1972 came to a close, construction began on a sixteen-track studio at the new Curtom location, and Dad began writing a new album. Because of Super Fly’s massive clout, record stores around the world pre-ordered five hundred thousand copies of his new album, sight unseen and sound unheard. In other words, he had a gold album before he made it. He couldn’t fail. That put him in a new and exciting position.

  Of course, success is not always what it seems. My father had already learned that lesson. He had everything he’d always wanted—money, fame, family, a movie score, the most popular album in the country, his own label, complete control over his career, all the material comforts and conveniences possible, and as always, a generous share of women. He was only thirty years old. Yet, Eddie’s warning that he was going to burn himself out was coming true. “I’m working 24 hours a day,” he said. “This business involves mind and imagination. You can’t sit back and enjoy ‘normal’ activity—it always involves work.”

  He had an unbelievable amount of creativity left within him, a deep well of songs that replenished at the same astonishing rate it always had. That well was in no da
nger of running dry, but he didn’t know how long fans would keep coming back to it. In two years, he’d recorded six albums between himself and the Impressions. The four he made for himself—Curtis, Curtis/Live, Roots, and Super Fly—surpassed anything he’d done with the Impressions in terms of commercial success. If this wasn’t the peak, how much higher could he climb? As he sang in “Superfly,” “How long can a good thing last?” These thoughts crept into his mind.

  “You never want to reach the peak,” he said, “because after all, when you’ve gone all the way up, the only way to go is down.”

  11

  Back to the World

  “With such heavy burdens,

  It’s hard for one to think sometimes.”

  —“SWEET EXORCIST”

  Curtom Studio, North Side Chicago, 1973—After running errands with me on a Saturday afternoon, Dad stopped by his new office. Sitting at his desk, he pulled out his stash and rolled a joint. “Did you know your father smokes marijuana?” he asked nonchalantly, firing up the joint. “Yes,” I said, although that wasn’t entirely true. I knew he did something, because I’d smell the smoke and notice the goofy look on his face, but I didn’t know what to call it until then. He occasionally smoked clove cigarettes, too, but he didn’t drink much, and he didn’t have many hobbies outside of music, so weed became a release valve for the ever-building pressure.

  His office at the new North Side Curtom headquarters was the same size as the hovel that once housed his entire family at the White Eagle, but the room he now occupied served a far different function. He sat at the central hub of a humming business with managers, arrangers, artists, engineers, accountants, lawyers, secretaries, publicists, and distributors. The building also boasted a sixteen-track studio (soon upgraded to twenty-four tracks), “two of the juiciest psychedelic lounge areas around,” according to Jet magazine, and several other offices.

  The more Curtom grew, the more the label’s day-to-day operations consumed Dad’s time. Unfortunately, he never excelled at day-to-day operations. With the benefit of hindsight, he’d later admit, “That was probably no good for me, or the company, and for the customer that had so much expectation for me. The whole name of the game was to make money. The investors want to hear one thing—‘I want to make money.’ Probably what people should have done, and I probably should have done myself, was just laid back and kind of watched things for a while.”

  Laying back was never his thing. He was laid-back, sure, but he didn’t lay back. His work ethic, always tremendous, now became superhuman as he entered the busiest phase of his career. “The name of the game is longevity,” he told Jet. “Stars are made to burn out, and I don’t intend to see that happen. And that’s one reason why I try to do as many things and own as much of myself as possible…. Once you’ve become successful, you’ve got to work twice as hard to keep being successful. In other words, if I make a million dollars this year, I’ve got to make two million next year to support ongoing functions that I own.” He didn’t just want money, though. He wanted respect. “This is what makes me want to go higher on the ladder of success,” he said. “I would like all types of people to listen to my music and get something out of my songs.”

  My father set out to gain that respect in unfamiliar territory. Curtom’s new home on the urbane North Side was light years removed from the gritty South Side where he’d lived and worked most of his life. With the change of scenery came a change of personnel. Johnny was gone forever, along with Eddie. Craig joined Aretha Franklin’s band, and only Lucky and Master Henry survived from the original group. Marv beefed up the in-house staff, bringing in a new crop of industry professionals to help with the minutiae of running a business. Leroy Hutson left the Impressions to start a solo career. On top of that, a new form of music began crowding the charts—disco. Despite these shakeups, Curtom stood on the cusp of a big year with album releases from the Impressions and Leroy, as well as my father’s new album and a live recording/ public-television broadcast featuring a retrospective of his entire career.

  Continuing a frustrating trend, however, my father couldn’t quite get out of his own way. Super Fly had earned four Grammy nominations, and Dad received an invitation to perform at the ceremony in early March 1973. Perhaps it was the added pressure of success, or perhaps it was the increased consumption of weed, but whatever the reason, that night his insecurities mushroomed into full-blown paranoia. When the time came for his performance, Dad waited in the wings while his band kicked into “Freddie’s Dead.” A fog machine spread smoky ambiance across the stage as he walked out. When he started singing, it didn’t stop blowing. For the entire performance, billows of fog blocked him from the audience’s view. He felt like a fool in front of his peers, not to mention the people tuning in on TV.

  Then, Super Fly lost in every category, often to songs or albums that didn’t approach its commercial or artistic impact. My father sulked back to his hotel room, crestfallen. Toni got in his ear and convinced him the whole thing was a white conspiracy—Whitey wouldn’t let a guy who sang “Superfly” win. Seething, the smoke machine’s fog still burning in his nostrils, he called Marv and demanded he cancel the college tour William Morris had booked for him.

  Marv warned him, “You’re going to be so caught up in lawsuits, it’s not worth it,” but for a man who changed his mind with such ease, my father could also be immovable as a boulder. Marv enlisted the help of Neil Bogart, and they went to my father’s room to try to dissuade him, but he wouldn’t budge. They cancelled the tour, he got sued and lost a good deal of money, and William Morris refused to work with him again.

  He ran into similar trouble a few weeks after the Grammys at the Academy Awards. “Freddie’s Dead” was nominated for Best Original Song but later deemed ineligible because the movie only features an instrumental version. Dad tried to play off the insult, saying, “I’m glad I was in a position to let everybody see what the Academy Awards are—a personalized social club with exclusive members. I’m from R&B music, so I’d rather lose an Oscar than to lose in the streets.” But his words belied the damage to his ego.

  Perhaps my father can be forgiven for his hasty reaction at the Grammys. After all, racism didn’t end because Super Fly hit the top of the pop chart. Dad still struggled in a world with limited opportunities for black people, even famous ones. His records sold to white audiences as well as black ones, but he couldn’t bridge the gap at concerts. He tried crossing over at the Aragon, a white rock club in Chicago, but received a cool reception. Promoter Jerry Mickelson took an unfortunate lesson from that show. “You learn the market,” he said. “Take Curtis Mayfield. He was hotter than a pistol, and he died in the Aragon. So we learned that you can’t do a black act up there.” The success of black artists like Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone with white rock crowds proved the lie in Mickelson’s statement. Further proving it, Stone played the Aragon in 1974 and killed.

  Even so, the fact remained that after escaping the chitlin’ circuit, forces beyond Curtis’s control still restricted his career. About crossing over, Marv said simply, “It didn’t work. We wanted it, but it didn’t work. His audience at concerts remained mostly black even through the ’70s, but it didn’t bother him. He was a realist and accepted it for what it was.”

  He turned, as he always did, to music. Dad worked on the follow-up to Super Fly first. Like never before, he had the world by the ear. As always, he tried to fill that ear with a meaningful message. On his previous three studio albums, he’d dealt in-depth with many aspects of black life in America, but he hadn’t yet touched the Vietnam War. He’d written peace anthems like “Stop the War” and “We Got to Have Peace,” but these didn’t examine the black experience in Vietnam, and he felt compelled as always to tell the whole story.

  His transition from the movement to the war mirrored the world around him. White liberals had long since shifted their energy from civil rights to war protests, but by 1973, Vietnam consumed the black community, too. The Black Panther new
sletter printed a stark message aimed at black soldiers returning home, and it summed up the issues my father would put to music. “I know you dream about home,” it read. “But when you come home, come home and realize that you have a fight here…. When you get back home, you’re going to see that same oppression. They’re going to promise you a job; but you’re going to be out of a job.”

  Amid the din of war, Dad couldn’t get one phrase out of his head, the one he’d heard the year before while touring army bases—“back to the world.” It gave him an angle to tell his story, and he used it as the title for both the album and its leadoff track.

  With Back to the World, he showed that he still had his finger on the pulse of the ghetto, even though he’d become a rich and famous man, now living in a swanky new condo near the top floor of 4170 North Marine Drive. From his perch atop the city, he wrote about a soldier just returned from war and the malice he faced on his return, much in the mold of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, and much like the real-life experience of Uncle Kenny.

  With Johnny gone, Dad brought in Rich Tufo to provide harmonic backdrops. Tufo served as a sort of utility man at Curtom, sometimes producing or arranging a session, sometimes handling paperwork or publicity. His work ethic rivaled my father’s. “My day runs anywhere from fourteen to fifteen hours a day,” he said. “It’s divided up depending on whether I’m working on any particular project at the time. If I’m not, I may be dealing with publishing, copyright clearances, A&R.”

  My father worked with Tufo in much the same way he worked with Johnny. “Usually, when Curtis is ready to begin a project, he’s already put down in demo form his ideas, songs, whatever,” Tufo said. “Then, I take it from there—put down the rhythm charts. He may come in with a particular selection and we’ll juggle around. Then we go in, do the rhythm tracks, the vocals, then add the sweetening. We usually lock ourselves in for a week. That’s before we actually get into the studio—and we’ll get together either here or at his home.” Tufo’s style was a departure from Johnny’s, but his work helped usher in a new period of success for Dad’s music, both as a solo artist and a writer/producer on multiple film soundtracks.