Soul Men

 Four Lessons

 

 

Studying the lives of the following four musicians will teach a great lesson in Black History. I will leave it to others better equipped & better acquainted to tell those tales.

Here are a few choices:
Curtis Mayfield - People Never Give Up, author Peter Burns
Bill Withers - Still Bill directed by Damani Baker & Alex Vlack: documentary 1h 18m
Bobby Womack - Midnight Mover memoir: autobiography
Charles Bradley - Soul of America, a documentary directed by Poull Brien

These men tasted Amerikkka at it bitterest & its sweetest. They filled their music with that heady repast & all its intimate tastes. If we just listen & learn, enjoy to the depths of our souls, we will all be better people.

Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, & record producer. Mayfield was one of the most influential musicians behind politically conscious African-American music.  Mayfield sang openly about civil rights & black pride. He is  known for introducing social consciousness into African-American music. Having been raised in the Cabrini-Green projects of Chicago, he witnessed many of the tragedies of the urban ghetto first hand. Curtis was quoted saying "With everything I saw on the streets as a young black kid, it wasn't hard during the later fifties & sixties for me to write my heartfelt way of how I visualized things, how I thought things ought to be."

Curtis Mayfield - Give, Get, Take, & Have, Curtom CU 5007, 1976.
all decryption codes in comments

Side 1 -
In Your Arms Again (Shake It)
This Love is Sweet
P.S. I Love You
Party Night

Side 2 -
Get a Little Bit (Give, Get, Take, & Have)
Soul Music
Only You Babe
Mr. Welfare Man

Bill Withers

William Harrison "Bill" Withers Jr. (July 4, 1938 – March 30, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter & musician. Withers was known for his "smooth" baritone vocals & "sumptuous" soul arrangements. He wrote some of the most covered songs of the 1970s, including "Lean on Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine". The ultimate homespun hitmaker, Withers had an innate sense of what might make a song memorable. He had little interest in excess attitude or accoutrements. Ultimately Withers reminded us that it's the everyday that is the most meaningful: work, family, love, loss.

Bill Withers - Lovely Day: The Very Best of..., Columbia 520146 2, 2005.

Lovely Day
Use Me
Just the Two of Us
Lean on Me
Ain’t No Sunshine
I Don’t Know
Who is He (& What is He to You?)
Harlem
Kissing My Love
Hello Like Before
Let Me Be the One You Need
Watching You, Watching Me
In the Name of Love
Tender Things
Lonely Town, Lonely Street
I Don’t Want You on My Mind
Grandma’s Hands
I Want to Spensd the Night
I Wish You Well

 

Bobby Womack

Robert Dwayne Womack (March 4, 1944 – June 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, & record producer. Born in Cleveland's Fairfax neighborhood, near East 85th Street & Quincy Avenue, Bobby was the third of five brothers. They all grew up in the Cleveland slums, so poor that the family would fish pig snouts out of the local supermarket's trash. He had to share a bed with his brothers. His mother told him he could "sing his way out of the ghetto." Recalling his childhood, Bobby said, "We came up very poor.  The neighborhood was so ghetto that we didn't bother the rats & they didn't bother us. Womack honestly recalled his frequent drug use. Womack said he began using cocaine sometime in the late 1960s. He had become close friends with Sly Stone & was an enthusiastic participant in Stone's infamous drug binges. Womack told Rolling Stone in 1984: "I was really off into the drugs. Blowing as much coke as I could blow. And drinking. And smoking weed and taking pills. Doing that all day, staying up seven, eight days. Me & Sly were running partners."

Here's Bobby's very last hurrah...

Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man in the Universe, XL Recordings XLCD561, 2012.

The Bravest Man in the Universe
Please Forgive My Heart
Deep River
Dayglo Reflection
Whatever Happened to the Times
Stupid Introlude
If There Wasn't Something There
Love is Gonna Lift You Up
Nothin' Can Save Ya
Jubilee (Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around)

 

 

 

 

Charles Bradley

Charles Edward Bradley (November 5, 1948 – September 23, 2017) was an American singer. After years of obscurity & a part-time music career, Bradley came to prominence in his early 50s. He had traveled the world but in the mid 90s he returned to Brooklyn to be near his mother. It was there he began making a living moonlighting as a James Brown impersonator in local clubs under the name "Black Velvet".  While performing as "Black Velvet", he was eventually discovered by Gabriel Roth (better known as "Bosco Mann"), a co-founder of Daptone Records. Bradley's performances & style were consistent with the revivalist approach of Daptone Records, celebrating the feel of funk & soul music from the 1960s / 1970s.

Charles Bradley - No Time for Dreaming, Daptone Records DAP-022, 2011.

The World (is Going Up in Flames)
The Telephone Song
Golden Rule
I Believe in Your Love
Trouble in the Land
Lovin' You, Baby
No Time for Dreaming
How Long
In You (I Found a Love)
Why is it so Hard
Since Our Last Goodbye
Heartaches & Pain

Nothin' can save ya.

Enjoy,
NØ