Originally posted 07/12/2018: Thank you for joining us for our first official post on the Through the Eye of a Needle blog page! Shout out to Jabriel Allah for allowing us this space.
The concept of this reoccurring-post is centered around an artist or genre of music that a person may play incessantly over time, so much so, that it rivals being an obsession where one can literally get stuck playing or listening to the same artist/genres. ‘Stuck in’, for this column, can be defined as listening to the same artists or genre for more than a week because you like that artist or genre, not because you didn’t feel like changing the CD or playlist/station in your vehicle or primary listening device (being lazy). Also, ‘stuck in’ includes listening to the same artist/or genre at two or more places that you spend most of your time listening to music (work, the gym, home, car, leisure activities). In Laymen terminology, going through a musical artist or genre phase. I’d like for readers to share their stories if they have one, even if they’re not the person who got 'stuck in a groove'. I’m sure your parents, parents themselves, siblings and friends you’ve rode with have experienced getting stuck in a groove. Let us know, nothing’s outlawed, add-on!
With that said, I’m going to share two incidents, out of 1000s, when I got stuck in a groove. In the late 90’s, I bought a Curtis Mayfield LP, Sweet Exorcist. I had Got to Find a Way, Roots, Live Double LP, Curtis, and of course Superfly, a few other little joints too. I liked all of them, but it was something about this Sweet Exorcist LP when I saw it in the bin, that made me think it was on some next shit. First off, I’d never seen it before… I’m talking pre-‘Google it’ era. I couldn’t look up his discography online in seconds with my device. AOL, Netscape and Lycos were running shit when I bought this LP. Google wasn't around yet. Most cats didn’t have the internet at their gates either, let alone a computer or anything similar. No Wi-Fi hotspots in businesses and parks, all dial up. The net was Mad expensive too, and slower than molasses. The good old days, when we didn’t text people in the same house as us, when we said hello and made eye contact with one another. My bad, I got nostalgic and lost focus temporarily.
Like I was saying, I didn’t know what all of his albums were, so for me, seeing it was like seeing a new Curtis Mayfield release, except for the fact that it was new to me in the late ‘90’s, but it was made over 20 years prior to my ‘Columbus Discovery’ (released 1974). The title and the Jacket are an ill combination. So, the first thing I did was check to see if it’s a 70’s LP cuz catz was on it in the ‘70’s as far as funk and soul goes. Yep-it’s ’74-check. Then the condition, take it out the sleeve, I don’t see any deep scratches-we good there. Then I glanced over at the listening station and seen it was clear. I grabbed a few more pieces of interest and went over to preview em. |
I can’t lie, when I finally got to it, I was expecting it to be dope, and if it wasn't, I was still getting it just off the strength of the cover...It was very dope, at least on Side A. Ain’t Got Time, Sweet Exorcist-the title track, To Be Invisible-the lyrics on the front cover, and Power to the People-a nice Liberation song were all solid cuts. I could hear samples in them too. |
I flipped it, skimmed through the first couple cuts on side B. Kung Fu was mad funky, Suffer was cool-laid back-felt like Al Green was in the studio with Curtis on that ballad. But when I dropped the needle on last track on side B,Make me Believe in You?! I nodded hard. Brought it back, played the intro again. Looked around quietly at the people in the store with my face saying: "yea, y'all ain't up on what's playing in these headphones, this joint dope!" I was done!!! Sounded like some, I don’t know, pimp gangster roll out theme music or something. | |
Sidebar: the YouTube videos in the paragraph below are not Curtis Mayfield songs.
| Then I had to do what I call the 'Mardi Gras'…The Mardi Gras is a term I came up with when I'm record shopping and previewing LPs. It's when I let the song play past the intro, into the initial verse/medley, chorus and bridge/break. I do this, because a song can get real wack after the intro or break, and Take Me to the Mardi Gras is one of the best known songs that does that (no diss to Bob James). Another song like that is The Big Beat, I switch them up randomly, but they mean the same thing, listen longer, Mardi Gras/Big Beat. |
The song was solid front to back, and when it was done I was like, "damn! Time to make a beat off this joint." The break and strings are nice. After I bought it, I started looking into my Curtis collection to see if I had missed any cuts that were like Sweet Exorcist's. I found a few, but nothing too similar...
...until I ran across There’s No Place Like America Today. The cover?! The lyrical content and grooves are, in my opinion, some of his best, but lesser known work. The imagery alone is not too far off from the political climate of today, and it definitely is an accurate depiction of its recent past. The family on vacation and the displaced Africans' Migration.
A lot of people know Curtis Mayfield songs like Pusherman, Gimme Your Love, If There’s a Hell Below, Keep on Pushin’ and We’re a Winner. Those are dope too, but songs like Kung Fu, Hard Times, Stone Junkie and Mother's Son are just as tight if not tighter.
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Point is, I was all about Curtis and his related productions. I wouldn’t listen to anything else. All of his 70’s early 80’s stuff, and the classic Impressions work from the 60’s, not to mention his side productions and collaborations with the Staple Singers, Baby Huey, Donny Hathaway, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Jerry Butler, and Linda Clifford to name a notable few.
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If Curtis was on it in any capacity, I was shopping for it, downloading it and listening to it for a month or so. Had songs playing on my way to work and back to my gate, would mix it at the gate too, just was on it. I listened to other stuff that wasn’t by Curtis here and there, but I kept him on heavy rotation.