super groovy delicious bite: curtis

Curtis Mayfield kept on pushin' through to a feeling darker than blue in this socially conscious psychedelic soul symphony. After a dozen albums (The Impressions in 1963, The Never Ending Impressions and Keep on Pushing in 1964, People Get Ready and One by One in 1965, Ridin' High in 1966, The Fabulous Impressions in 1967, We're a Winner and This Is My Country in 1968, The Versatile Impressions and The Young Mods' Forgotten Story in 1969, and Check Out Your Mind! in 1970) with The Impressions, Mayfield was ready to cut a new path to satisfy “a feeling in me that there need to be songs that relate not so much to civil rights but to the way we as all people deal with our lives.”

He had formed Curtom Records in 1968 with the manager of The Impressions Eddie Thomas, which became one of the first record labels owned by an African-American recording artist. Mayfield would express: "I was always in search of knowing how I might own as much of myself as possible, I had heard stories of guys selling songs for twenty-five dollars; [music] publishers were hitting the lottery off of people’s material. Of course, what was considered Black money was a Cadillac and $2,500 in fives, tens, and twenties. Nigger rich. When I started recording, I saw very few people who owned themselves. There were so many fights with record companies. They couldn’t understand it. ‘He wants his publishing!’ they would say to each other. Like it wasn’t mine to have."

His solo debut 'Curtis' was produced by Mayfield at at RCA Studios in Chicago with co-producers Riley Hampton and Gary Slabo and engineers R.J. Anfinson and Tom Flye. The sessions featured musicians Leonard Druss, John Howell, Harold Lepp, Loren Binford, Clifford Davis, Patrick Ferreri, Richard Single, Rudolph Stauber, Donald Simmons, Robert Lewis, Harold Dessent, Ronald Kolber, Harold Klatz, John Ross, Sol Bobrob, Sam Heiman, Elliot Golub, Henry Gibson, Robert Sims, Gary Slabo, and Philip Upchurch.