The great singer-composer-producer Curtis Mayfield died from complications of type 2 diabetes on December 26, 1999, at the North Fulton Regional Hospital in Roswell, Georgia. He was only 57 years old.
Curtis Mayfield made his first recordings at the age 16 in 1958 as a member of the R & B group, The Impressions.
In the 1960’s the group remained hot with 14 Top 10 hits featuring Curtis Mayfield as the lead singer, producer and writer. He began to address social issues such as civil rights, inner city poverty, and drug use through his music, a provocative step that turned him into a musical force for change in the Black community. Singer Mavis Staples said, “Curtis wrote some of the best message songs.”
In 1964 The Impressions had its biggest hit to date with the Mayfield song, “Keep on Pushing” and other “anthems” followed: “People Get Ready,” “We’re A Winner”; all hit songs but with a life away from the charts.
In 1968 he started Curtom Records. He was in control of his recording, song publishing and recording studio.
His debut solo album from 1970, Curtis, contains some of his most outspoken songs, including “Move On Up,” “The Other Side of Town,” and the solemn masterpiece of self-critique: “We People Who Are Darker Than Blue.”
Shorty after he began adding his soul funk grooves to soundtracks. His “Super Fly” album became an instant classic of 1970s soul and funk, a rare example of a soundtrack outselling the movie and, along with Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, Movie work now took up much of Mayfield’s time – Gladys Knight and the Pips (the film “Claudine”), Aretha Franklin (“Sparkle”), Staple Singers (“Let’s Do It Again”), Mavis Staples (“A Piece of the Action”). “Short Eyes” had a 1977 hit for Mayfield himself.
In 1990 CurtisMayfield was paralyzed from the neck down when a light tower fell on him during an outdoor concert in Brooklyn.
Returning home from the hospital, he faced the greatest challenge of his life — learning to live without a body. It forced him to give up all control. In addition, there was the pain. He suffered from phantom hands — an agonizing sensation he compared to thrusting his arms in a bucket of writhing snakes. Atrophy set upon his muscles, and his feet began to curve downward from lack of use. Diabetes became a serious problem too, and the fingers that once effused elegant guitar licks now served solely as pincushions, caked in dried blood and wrapped in bandages from constant blood-sugar tests. His right leg was amputated. On top of that, he suffered perennial urinary-tract infections as a result of his ever-present catheter.
His death was attributed to type 2 diabetes, but he suffered for nine years after that accident. And he actually produced one album in 1996 called “New World Order.” He recorded one line of a song at a time, lying on his back to allow his diaphragm to work and breath to get into his lungs.
Following his death, any number of tributes were mounted, accolades given. But the real tribute lay in the lasting power of the work he left behind, still being discovered and played by each new generation.