How incredible was the Superfly soundtrack? 45 years after its 1972 release, it still stands as a masterpiece.
Curtis Mayfield – Superfly
http://curtismayfield.com/ Singer, guitarist, songwriter and producer, born 3 June 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, USA, died 26 December 1999 in Roswell, Georgia, USA. Co-founder of R&B vocal group The Impressions in the late 1950’s. He left The Impressions in 1970 to embark on a solo career and founded his record label Curtom.
Arranged and produced by Curtis Mayfield, the album is one of the rare soundtracks that actually out-grossed the film. Mayfield’s monumental achievement offered a biting critique of the fast life with piercing street smarts and sensitivity, delivering a message so powerful that it continues to astound.
The 1972 film revolved around a Harlem cocaine dealer and his dreams of getting out of the game after one huge final score. Mayfield’s soulful accompaniment reflected both the lure and tragedy of a lifestyle that has tragically claimed too many victims over the years.
Curtis Mayfield – Give Me Your Love (1972)
Super Fly is the third studio album by American soul and funk musician Curtis Mayfield, released in July 1972 on Curtom Records. It was released as the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film of the same name. Widely considered a classic of 1970s soul and funk music, Super Fly was a nearly immediate hit.
In naming it as one of the greatest soundtracks of all time, Rolling Stone wrote, “Sure, the title track all slithering groove and Curtis Mayfield’s sublime, psychologically-incisive vocals is a stone classic, as is the famous blaxploitation soundtrack’s other hit, the wah-wah-laced “Freddie’s Dead.” But “Pusherman” (sampled by rappers from Ice-T to Eminem) is a masterpiece of first-person narrative funk-fiction. And the big-band-noir instrumentals showed Mayfield, long revered as one of R&B’s greatest singer-songwriters, to be one of its most gifted composers and arrangers as well.”
Curtis Mayfield – Little Child Running Wild
http://curtismayfield.com/ Singer, guitarist, songwriter and producer, born 3 June 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, USA, died 26 December 1999 in Roswell, Georgia, USA. Co-founder of R&B vocal group The Impressions in the late 1950’s. He left The Impressions in 1970 to embark on a solo career and founded his record label Curtom.
The film, directed by Gordon Parks and starring Ron O’Neal as Youngblood Priest, veers toward celebrating the culture of drugs and crime that Priest is immersed in.
But Mayfield’s vision runs counter to the film’s convivial take, and through his phenomenal musicianship and storytelling, he delivers a thought-provoking and honest portrayal of the plague that the drug culture has unleashed on urban America.
Super Fly (1972) Official Trailer – Ron O’Neal, Sheila Frazier Movie HD
Subscribe to CLASSIC TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u43jDe Subscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6h Subscribe to COMING SOON: http://bit.ly/H2vZUn Like us on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/1QyRMsE Follow us on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/1ghOWmt Super Fly (1972) Official Trailer – Ron O’Neal, Sheila Frazier Movie HD Super Fly is a cocaine dealer who begins to realize that his life will soon end with either prison or his death.
Mayfield’s uncompromising and vivacious work inspired the direction of music for generations to come, with modern Hip Hop’s top griots like Nas, Jay-Z, KRS-One, Snoop and Chuck D owing him a debt of gratitude that can never fully be repaid.
He pulled no punches with his candor, and while others were exalting the furs, cars, clothes, jewelry and cash, Mayfield took us down the real path of the game which was littered with heartache, incarceration, pain, addiction and death.
Curtis Mayfield – Pusherman
http://curtismayfield.com/ Singer, guitarist, songwriter and producer, born 3 June 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, USA, died 26 December 1999 in Roswell, Georgia, USA. Co-founder of R&B vocal group The Impressions in the late 1950’s. He left The Impressions in 1970 to embark on a solo career and founded his record label Curtom.
Superfly, the soundtrack, was and remains an ode to the game’s victims, and it will forever exist as one of the realest and most incredible musical accomplishments of our lifetime.
