096: Curtis Mayfield - Super Fly (1972)
“I didn't have to leave my neighborhood to be surrounded by the things that Super Fly is about. It was easier than most scripts because it was about an environment that I knew.”
—Curtis Mayfield
It somehow took us 96 episodes for Discord & Rhyme’s first movie soundtrack, so we’re rectifying this with possibly the greatest movie soundtrack of all time. In 1972, Curtis Mayfield had just capped off a career writing legendary civil rights anthems with the Impressions and defining the sound of Chicago soul by launching what would prove to be an equally legendary solo career. For his soundtrack to the classic blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield served as both the film’s Greek chorus and its conscience, subtly critiquing the film as a “cocaine infomercial” while acknowledging that this was the only life path available to its protagonists. And it’s a truly musically groundbreaking work, paving the way for both the musical language and verbal iconography of the hip-hop genre. Rich will be your pusherman this week, so join him as our hosts run wild and give a stellar soundtrack all of their love.
Miscellany
As of this episode’s release, Super Fly is available for HBO Max subscribers, and available to rent on all of the major streaming platforms, including Apple, Amazon, Google Play, and YouTube.
Curtis Mayfield, on the sampling of his music in hip-hop: “It’s not that they can’t create; they’ve made a whole new way of creating by sampling. These are new ways of putting music together, which is fantastic. It’s as if you put together a collage of pictures into a pattern, so you look at it from afar and say ‘Wow look at that,’ and then you come up close, and these are pictures that you are familiar with put together in a different manner.”
The two instrumental tracks on this album were also unfortunately the beginning of the end for Mayfield’s partnership with Johnny Pate. Even though Pate was responsible for most of the music on “Junkie Chase” and “Think,” the credit for these songs on the sleeve read “Successfully arranged and orchestrated from the original dictations of Curtis Mayfield by Johnny Pate.” Pate complained about this to a reporter, and Mayfield responded by filing a lawsuit to declare himself the sole author of both songs, and seeking one million dollars’ worth of damages from Pate for defamation of character. The two never worked together again.
Another staff songwriter and producer at Curtom Records who worked on the late Impressions and early solo Mayfield albums was the legendary Donny Hathaway, whose all-too-short solo career is amazing and worth hearing in its entirety.
The identities of the orchestra members who perform throughout Super Fly unfortunately seem to have been lost to time, as is the case with so many session musicians on classic soul albums.
Questlove of the Roots wrote an excellent primer on the blaxploitation genre in his book Music as History, excerpted here by Smithsonian Magazine.
The Super Fly soundtrack was added to the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in 2018, with an accompanying essay written by Josiah Howard.
“Give Me Your Love (Love Song)” was covered in 1998 by the alt-country band Lambchop on their album What Another Man Spills. It’s an extremely faithful cover, and the primary appeal of listening to it is that it sounds absolutely nothing like your typical Lambchop song.
Just to be clear, John was suggesting King Crimson might have been influenced by Super Fly, not the other way around.
John hasn't actually reviewed Super Fly on his site yet, but it would get a much higher grade than the square root of 11.
Other links
The official Curtis Mayfield website (curtismayfield.com)
Todd Mayfield's Traveling Soul (Chicago Review Press)
Discord & Rhyme’s Super Fly playlist (Spotify)
Discord & Rhyme Roll Call
Rich Bunnell (host)
Mike DeFabio (moderator)
Ben Marlin
John McFerrin
Super Fly tracklist
Little Child Runnin’ Wild
Pusherman
Freddie’s Dead
Junkie Chase
Give Me Your Love (Love Song)
Eddie You Should Know Better
No Thing on Me (Cocaine Song)
Think
Superfly
Other clips used
Curtis Mayfield:
Future Shock
Move on Up
Get Down
Don’t Worry (If There’s Hell Below We’re All Gonna Go)
New World Order
The Makings of You (Curtis/Live! version)
We Got to Have Peace
The Impressions:
For Your Precious Love (with Jerry Butler)
Gypsy Woman
It’s All Right
Keep On Pushing
People Get Ready
We're a Winner
This Is My Country
We Must Be in Love
Others:
Sylvester - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
Marvin Gaye - Got to Give It Up
Al Green - I'm Still in Love with You
Tiny Tim - Tiptoe Through the Tulips
Prince and the Revolution - Kiss
The Temptations - The Way You Do the Things You Do
The Doobie Brothers - What a Fool Believes
Earth, Wind & Fire - Reasons
Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams - Lose Yourself to Dance
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - The Tears of a Clown
The Moody Blues - Evening Time to Get Away
The Isley Brothers - That Lady
Disclosure ft. Sam Smith - Latch
The Delfonics - La La Means I Love You
Eduard Khil - I Am Very Glad, as I'm Finally Returning Back Home
Deep Purple - Child in Time (Made in Japan version)
Major Lance - The Monkey Time
Isaac Hayes - Theme from Shaft
Melvin van Peebles - The Man Tries Running His Usual Game but Sweetback's Jones Is So Strong He Wastes the Hounds (Yeah! Yeah! and Besides That He Will Be Comin' Back Takin' Names and Collecting Dues)
Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)
Renegade Soundwave - Probably a Robbery
Ludacris - Two Miles an Hour
Elzhi - Concrete Eyes
69 - Ladies and Gentlemen
King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One
Steppenwolf - The Pusher
Chance the Rapper - Pusha Man
Ice-T - I'm Your Pusher
Master P - Kenny's Dead
Audio Two - Many Styles
Erykah Badu - Master Teacher
UGK - Cocaine in the Back of the Ride
MC Hammer - That's What I Said
Big Daddy Kane - Git Bizzy
Mary J. Blige - I'm the Only Woman
Inspectah Deck - Trouble Man
Three 6 Mafia - Lick My Nuts
clipping. - Story 2
Snoop Dogg - No Thang on Me
Da Entourage - Bunny Hop
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - (Have You Ever Been To) Electric Ladyland
The Beach Boys - Let's Go Away for Awhile
Victoria Beckham - Resentment
J. Cole - Nobody's Perfect
Andre Nickatina - Rise and Fall of a Rap Cat
Dickie Goodman - Superfly Meets Shaft
Beastie Boys - Egg Man
Cookie Crew - Come On and Get Some
Geto Boys - Do It Like a G.O.
Nelly - Tilt Ya Head Back
Aretha Franklin - Jump
Isaac Hayes - Chocolate Chip
Johnny Pate - Shaft in Africa
Band/album personnel
Curtis Mayfield – vocals, guitar, producer
Phil Upchurch – guitar
Joseph Lucky Scott – bass
Master Henry Gibson – percussion
Tyrone McCullen – drums ("Pusherman")
Morris Jennings – drums (all tracks except "Pusherman")
Craig McMullen – guitar
Roger Anfinsen – engineer
Johnny Pate – orchestrator, arranger
Harry "Slip" Lepp – trombone
Credits
“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of:
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste
The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...
Faith No More - Midlife Crisis
Herbie Hancock - Hornets
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen
Curtis Mayfield - Eddie You Should Know Better (this episode only)
You can buy or stream Super Fly and other albums by Curtis Mayfield at curtismayfield.com, your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Twitter @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Editing and production on this episode is by Rich Bunnell, with special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for producing the introduction and theme song. See you next album, and keep as cool as you can.