Curtis Mayfield’s *Superfly* soundtrack is a searing, silken masterpiece of political funk—a black revolutionary’s report from the blighted streets, wrapped in some of the most gorgeous arrangements of the 1970s. The grooves ache, the strings soar, and the lyrics still draw blood. If you only own one soul soundtrack, make it this one.
You hear it in the first three seconds: that guitar. Clean, ringing, almost polite, like a man adjusting his collar before he tells you something you don’t want to hear. Then the bass drops in, low and insistent, and Curtis Mayfield starts to sing about pushers and preachers and the thin line between them. This is Superfly, and nothing in soul music had ever sounded quite like it.
Mayfield had already left the Impressions, already made his solo statement with Curtis the year before. But Superfly was different. It was a film—Gordon Parks Jr.’s blaxploitation classic about a coke dealer trying to get out—and Mayfield was writing the score. He didn’t just soundtrack the movie. He rewired it, made it his own. “I wanted to show both sides,” he told an interviewer in 1972. “The romance of the life and the reality.”
So you get both on Superfly: the wink in the strings of “Pusherman” and the cold shudder of “Freddie’s Dead.” “Little Child Runnin’ Wild” opens with a hiss and a snare snap that still sound like a door slamming shut. The album is a funk narrative, but it’s also a sermon. Mayfield sings in that high, soft tenor, never straining, never yelling, and you lean in because if he’s this calm, the news must be bad.
He played all the guitar himself—that chiming, open-tuned, percussive style that everyone from Prince to John Frusciante swiped. The rhythm section came from the Memphis session pool, mostly: drummer Tyrone “Big Ty” Chandler, bassist Joseph “Lucky” Scott, and a horn arrangement by Johnny Pate that cost the producer a few sleepless nights. Pate wrote the string parts in a Chicago hotel room after listening to Mayfield hum melodies into a cassette. “He’d just go ‘da-da-da-dee-da’ and I’d turn it into violins,” Pate remembered.
The album was cut at Curtom Studios in Chicago, Mayfield’s own room, built over a garage on St. Charles Street. The room was small, the board an old eight-track, and the Ampex tape machine had a habit of slipping. None of it matters. The sound is fat and warm, a little dim around the edges, like a photograph taken through a glass of whiskey. You can hear the room breathe.
“Superfly” the song—the one that opens side B—is all bass and tambourine and that guitar again, with a string line that mimics the vocal so closely they sound like two people thinking the same thought. It should not work. It works perfectly.
And then there’s “Freddie’s Dead.” The single was a hit, but the album version is something else—a five-minute elegy that shifts from a slow grind into a dirge and back, with Mayfield singing about a man who “was too young to be my daddy.” The guitar solo is two notes, and it breaks your heart.
Mayfield didn’t just write about the street. He wrote for the street. “Superfly” is a cautionary tale wrapped in a bass line so thick you could wear it as a coat. “Give Me Your Love” is the only love song, but even that sounds haunted, as if the woman on the receiving end has already been lost to the life.
The album sold millions. It also got Mayfield blacklisted from some black radio stations for being “too political.” He didn’t slow down.
A note on the pressing: get the original Curtom vinyl if you can find one. The early reissues are okay, but original pressings have a low end that sounds like the bass is coming from somewhere underground. The digital remaster from 1999—the one with the sepia cover—does something odd to the cymbals. The 2014 Rhino reissue is the safest bet for new vinyl. The 24-bit CD transfer from 2008 is fine, but you lose the warmth.
Put this on late, after everyone’s gone. Start with side two. “Pusherman” will tell you everything you need to know about 1972, and about now. Then let “Freddie’s Dead” sit in the silence after the needle lifts. It earns the quiet.
🎵 Key Takeaways
- The opening guitar is clean and polite, then bass drops in.
- Mayfield sings about pushers and preachers in a soft tenor.
- He played all guitar in a chiming, open-tuned, percussive style.
- Johnny Pate turned Mayfield's hummed melodies into string arrangements.
- 'Little Child Runnin’ Wild' opens with a hiss and snare snap.
- The album was cut on an eight-track at Curtom Studios.
Is Superfly a concept album about a specific story?
It was written as the soundtrack to Gordon Parks Jr.'s 1972 film *Super Fly*, about a cocaine dealer named Youngblood Priest. Mayfield took the screenplay's themes—escaping the drug trade, systemic oppression, street survival—and crafted a loosely connected song cycle that stands alone as a narrative.
What was Curtis Mayfield's role in the Impressions?
Mayfield was the lead singer, primary songwriter, and guitarist for the Impressions from 1958 to 1970, writing classics like 'People Get Ready' and 'Keep On Pushing.' He left the group to launch a solo career and built his own Curtom label, of which *Superfly* was his biggest commercial success.
Why does Superfly sound so different from typical funk records of the era?
Mayfield's signature open-tuned guitar (often in F-sharp) produced a clean, percussive chime instead of heavy wah-wah. Combined with his delicate falsetto and Johnny Pate's cinematic string arrangements, the album has a polished, almost fragile feel that contrasts sharply with the hard street subject matter.
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