Music that makes you cry...
Someone asked elsewhere about music that makes you cry...
The day before soul-funk great Curtis Mayfield's near fatal accident that paralyzed him from the neck down, he played a free show in a downtown amphitheater in my adopted home town of Long Beach.
I'd been working on some (now forgotten) recording project all day long and kept putting off stopping and leaving to get down to meet friends at the amphitheater.
When I finally got there, there were only two songs to go, but the crowd was in near-ecstasy and the band was absolutely cooking. The songs got extended with some great grooves and solos by a number of the players. I was simultaneously 100% in the groove still kicking myself for being late to the groove when they brought the main program to a glorious close. The crowd clapped just about forever and it was clear they were coming back for an encore. I don't remember the first encore number except that it grabbed the audience back in and started taking them back up.
And then, for the last song, they did "Move On Up."
Now, I knew the song and liked it OK but it had never really cut a big swathe in my consciousness. But this version started with a slow build and just kept building... winding the audience and the players up together in a big upward groove spiral, the back line laying down a thunderous, galloping groove and the front line latin percussion just smokin'... higher and higher... until finally... it was over and everyone just sort of collapsed... a moment of silence and then a thunder of applause while the band finally left the stage.
The next day, a lighting stand blew over in a heavy wind at the prep for a show (in New Jersey, I think) and it hit Curtis and basically broke his back. Paralyzed from the neck down, it looke like he might not survive. Certainly, few thought he'd be able to continue to make music. But, through what must have been sheer force of will, "sipping" from an oxygen tank in between punched vocal lines, Mayfield managed to continue recording.
The day his death was announced, I put on the album version of "Move On Up" in my old project studio and cranked it. For those minutes -- and they seemed to stretch a supernatural amount of time -- I was transported, memory of that last performance flashing in my mind, the ever-tightening groove of the record sweeping me along... 2/3 of the way through the song I realized there were hot tears streaming down my face... I was grinning like an idiot, all but dancing in my sweetspot, crying like a baby, joy, grief, everything swirling around in a vortex of groove...
Curtis Mayfield was a pretty deep guy in a lot of ways. Like many black artists of his generation, he got his start in church music.
When he was picked to create the soundtrack for the story of a super-fly, super pimp gangster, he somehow managed to create in the Superfly soundtrack a body of music that both celebrated this new, grittily urban version of the classic American outlaw -- but which also -- like a chorus in a Greek tragedy -- kept up a running moral commentary that ultimately underlined the classic notion that the film's anti-hero had sewn the seeds of his own fate and ultimate demise. All while laying down some of the funkiest grooves of the 70s or any era since.
A hell of a musician, role model, and mentor-by-example.
I love Curtis Mayfield. May he rest in peace.
The day before soul-funk great Curtis Mayfield's near fatal accident that paralyzed him from the neck down, he played a free show in a downtown amphitheater in my adopted home town of Long Beach.
I'd been working on some (now forgotten) recording project all day long and kept putting off stopping and leaving to get down to meet friends at the amphitheater.
When I finally got there, there were only two songs to go, but the crowd was in near-ecstasy and the band was absolutely cooking. The songs got extended with some great grooves and solos by a number of the players. I was simultaneously 100% in the groove still kicking myself for being late to the groove when they brought the main program to a glorious close. The crowd clapped just about forever and it was clear they were coming back for an encore. I don't remember the first encore number except that it grabbed the audience back in and started taking them back up.
And then, for the last song, they did "Move On Up."
Now, I knew the song and liked it OK but it had never really cut a big swathe in my consciousness. But this version started with a slow build and just kept building... winding the audience and the players up together in a big upward groove spiral, the back line laying down a thunderous, galloping groove and the front line latin percussion just smokin'... higher and higher... until finally... it was over and everyone just sort of collapsed... a moment of silence and then a thunder of applause while the band finally left the stage.
The next day, a lighting stand blew over in a heavy wind at the prep for a show (in New Jersey, I think) and it hit Curtis and basically broke his back. Paralyzed from the neck down, it looke like he might not survive. Certainly, few thought he'd be able to continue to make music. But, through what must have been sheer force of will, "sipping" from an oxygen tank in between punched vocal lines, Mayfield managed to continue recording.
The day his death was announced, I put on the album version of "Move On Up" in my old project studio and cranked it. For those minutes -- and they seemed to stretch a supernatural amount of time -- I was transported, memory of that last performance flashing in my mind, the ever-tightening groove of the record sweeping me along... 2/3 of the way through the song I realized there were hot tears streaming down my face... I was grinning like an idiot, all but dancing in my sweetspot, crying like a baby, joy, grief, everything swirling around in a vortex of groove...
Curtis Mayfield was a pretty deep guy in a lot of ways. Like many black artists of his generation, he got his start in church music.
When he was picked to create the soundtrack for the story of a super-fly, super pimp gangster, he somehow managed to create in the Superfly soundtrack a body of music that both celebrated this new, grittily urban version of the classic American outlaw -- but which also -- like a chorus in a Greek tragedy -- kept up a running moral commentary that ultimately underlined the classic notion that the film's anti-hero had sewn the seeds of his own fate and ultimate demise. All while laying down some of the funkiest grooves of the 70s or any era since.
A hell of a musician, role model, and mentor-by-example.
I love Curtis Mayfield. May he rest in peace.
posted by TK Major at
12:33 PM
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