Music World Mourns Death Of Curtis Mayfield

Jet, Jan 17, 2000

Private services were recently held in Atlanta for legendary singer-song-writer Curtis Mayfield who urged Black Americans to "Keep On Pushing" at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He was 57.

Mayfield died at the North Fulton Regional Hospital in Reswell, GA. The exact cause of death was not available at press time.

The entertainer's widow, Altheida, said in a press statement: "I lost my husband, the father of our children, my best friend and my soul mate. Thank God his music and his legacy will live far beyond today."

Private services were held in H.M. Patterson & Son's Arlington Chapel in Atlanta for Mayfield, who lived in suburban Atlanta. A public memorial service currently is being organized for his fans and admirers, said publicist Karen Lee of Warner Bros. Records.

Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell attended the services and later told JET: "Curtis Mayfield is one of our all-time favorites. He will sorely be missed. We will not see another Curtis Mayfield. He not only entertained us but challenged us. He has chronicled African-American life. It was an extraordinary honor for me having grown up on his songs to bring remarks on behalf of a mourning city."

Mayor Campbell also announced at the services that Mayfield's signature tune, People Get Ready, will be used as Atlanta's Millennium theme song.

"We are honored that he allowed us to use the song," Campbell said. "It best reflects the accomplishment of our city and the challenges of a new century. It was one of the songs of the Civil Rights Movement. It just seems to reflect the progress of Atlanta with civil rights and diversity."

A highlight at the service was when Mayfield's good friends, singers Jerry Butler, Fred Cash and Sam Gooden, who sang with him in The Impressions, sang an emotional, soul-stirring rendition of the group's hit Amen.

Mayfield was loved throughout the world for his songs that preached pride and perseverance.

His life imitated his art when an on-stage accident in 1990 left him a quadriplegic. But Mayfield continued to keep on pushing with his soulful music. He continued to record new songs, even though he had to record lying on his back. His last album was New World Order in 1996.

His classic recordings included People Get Ready, We're A Winner, Choice of Colors, Freddie's Dead and Superfly.

He possessed a rare, smooth, gentle voice that sounded like a pensive philosopher.

"You don't have to break anything over anybody's head, no matter what you're trying to say," he once said. "What's important for me is that it's said in a manner that gives food for thought."

Mayfield was paralyzed when he was struck by a lighting rig that toppled while he performed onstage in Brooklyn, NY. His health deteriorated since that time. Last year, doctors amputated his right leg because of complications that

stemmed from diabetes.

He described the challenges of being a quadriplegic during an interview with the New York Times in 1993. "Being a quadriplegic, it's a life-or-death situation almost every minute of the day."

Born June 3, 1942, in Chicago, Mayfield started singing gospel as a boy at his grandmother's church, Traveling Soul Spiritualists Church. He got his first guitar at age 10 and taught himself to play it by tuning it to the black keys of the piano.

In 1956, he joined church member Jerry Butler, brothers Arthur and Richard Brooks, and Sam Gooden in a group called The Roosters. They later changed their name to The Impressions and recorded the big hit For Your Precious Love.

The group went on to record a string of soul classics, including Gypsy Woman, It's All Right and I'm So Proud.

It was 1964's Keep On Pushing that marked a turning point for Mayfield, and broadened the parameters of Black music. Widely regarded as the first R&B song to rally Blacks behind the Civil Rights Movement, Keep On Pushing became a Top 10 R&B and pop hit.

Mayfield continued to put Black pride and social issues at the forefront in Impressions hits such as We're A Winner, This is My Country and Choice of Colors, which asked, if you had a choice of colors, which one would you choose, my Brother?

He became a solo artist in 1970 and later recorded such hits as Freddie's Dead and Superfly, both from the monumental soundtrack to the 1972 film, Superfly, which won him a Grammy nomination. The Superfly soundtrack sold more than 12 million copies.

Asked about the inspiration of his songs, he once said, "I wrote them for myself. Being a young Black man, observing and sensing the need for race equality and women's fights, I wrote about what was important to me."

He explained, "When I was younger, I went to my grandmother's church. She happened to be the minister of the church, and so I sat through many services. I went to church almost every day, and as a result, I attribute a great deal of that platform--church hymns and her way of speaking--to how I relate with a lot of my music, especially the songs of inspiration."

In a 1993 interview with Chicago Sun-Times columnist Dave Hoekstra, Mayfield revealed the inspiration for three of his most popular songs, It's All Right, Keep On Pushing and People Get Ready.