In my youth, my father worked at General Electric, and virtually everything in our home came from its company store. If GE didn’t make it, we didn’t own it. I found this brand loyalty somewhat frustrating, until the day that my parents gave me a portable GE 8-track player, in all its black and silver, plastic and steel glory, and suddenly GE was the coolest company on the planet! But, at the then tender age of 8, I didn’t have a real sense of what music I preferred to collect. Luckily, as he often did and still does, my older brother came to my rescue. He gave me, among others, an 8-track of Curtis, the debut solo album by the late Curtis Mayfield, released in 1970.
And thus began my early appreciation of soul/R&B music. (Even the Stones tape he also got me, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, had some straight-up R&B tracks). I repeatedly played Curtis until my parents — if not the battered tape cartridge itself — pleaded for mercy. My favorite track, which still entrances me, is “Move On Up,” a 9-minute funk/soul masterpiece featuring snare and conga-driven polyrhythms, joyous, bright horns, and Curtis’s positive message, delivered in effortless falsetto, to “move on up/towards your destination”! Although it did not chart in the U.S., an edited version of the track reached # 12 on the UK Singles Chart and became a sacred text for soul musicians. We feature here Curtis and his band performing the song on German television in 1972. Enjoy.
By Robb Patryk
(Dedicated to Tim Patryk, in thanks for the many things he’s taught me about music and life.)
