Biography
The Impressions were a Chicago-based vocal group whose music became the sound of the Civil Rights Movement. Founded around 1957 when a teenage Curtis Mayfield joined forces with Jerry Butler and others from Chicago's North Side, the group evolved through several lineup changes before settling into the classic trio of Curtis Mayfield, Fred Cash, and Sam Gooden in the early 1960s.[1]
Mayfield, the group's primary songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist, was born June 3, 1942, in Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing project. His father left the family when he was five. His grandmother was a preacher at the Traveling Soul Spiritualists' Church and became his most formative influence; by age seven he was singing in church. He taught himself guitar as a teenager, developing the distinctive open-tuning style that would mark all of The Impressions' recordings.[4][5]
The group's early work included "For Your Precious Love" (1958), recorded when Mayfield was sixteen, and a string of hits that defined the Chicago sound: lush orchestral arrangements by Johnny Pate, gospel-rooted three-part harmonies, and Mayfield's lyrical guitar work. Beginning with "Keep On Pushing" (1964) and continuing with "People Get Ready" (1965) and "We're A Winner" (1967), The Impressions created a body of civil rights music that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. drew on repeatedly, both for inspiration and for practical crowd leadership during marches and protests.[2][3]
The Impressions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. Mayfield went on to record landmark solo work, including the influential Superfly soundtrack (1972), and founded Curtom Records, one of the first Black-owned independent labels of its era. He was paralyzed in August 1990 when a lighting rig fell on him at an outdoor concert in Brooklyn, but continued to record until his death on December 26, 1999, at age 57.[4]