'Tales From Monographic Oceans': a spontaneous journey in a stretch of sea, cutting through the isthmuses of some discographies (Curtis Mayfield, 9, 8)
Curtis Mayfield - Back to Living Again Comment: 'People Get Ready? Impression-ism of the Soul'...
No, he can't do it.
How can a total quadriplegic, trapped in a bed for five years, with diabetes that advances silently and relentlessly, manage to RECORD an album?
How can he SING - singing is something that exists between exhalation and inhalation, something that violently opens up oneās chest - a person under whom a concert lighting scaffold has collapsed?
And yet, it can happen.
Or rather: the WILL POWER of Curtis - I believe, only his, unyielding, relentless - could.
And thus, in 1996, almost six years after that cursed tornado - yes, climate change is not exactly a new topic - of that August in Brooklyn, this MIRACLE emerged: Curtis Mayfield's last album.
Of a beauty that leaves you breathless.
No, our concession as listeners to an insulting sentimentality. The album is truly beautiful, a product of modernity that does not succumb to its obviousness, that does not bend to vile vulgarities. There's the heartbeat of trip-hop then in vogue, measured synthetic sounds, melodies and lyrics that once again invite hope, struggle, and to never give up, and coming from HIM they truly don't seem like empty slogans from sales managers.
There are songs that are some of his most beautiful in twenty years. New and old. When the scratching kicks off the version of 'We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue' present here, you understand that the circle is closing, one of those moments in which torment and ecstasy become one and compensate you for too many hours spent listening to other things.
Above all, thereās THAT VOICE.
Less sharp, slightly less falsetto, just a bit darkened by the years and...life.
But still HER, unmistakable, only aided by choirs and external voices (it seems they had to do a copy-paste of hundreds - different HUNDREDS - of fragments to record the album. Because a quadriplegic can only manage to sing for a few seconds).
At one point, towards the end of the song posted here, a female voice bursts in: 'Go ahead, Mayfield!'.
I obey
And we all follow you.
Once again: 'You're a Winner'
Everything else is our wonderful shit.
