info/contact
info/contact
Friday Funk #10 – ‘Superfly’ by Curtis Mayfield
Friday Funk #10 – ‘Superfly’ by Curtis Mayfield
Friday Funk #10 – ‘Superfly’ by Curtis Mayfield
‘Superfly’ was the title track (or almost title track, given the two-word album name) of Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack album for Super Fly. It’s sleek, meticuously arranged funk – too laid back to hit the One hard every time, too sure of itself for that to matter.
Johnny Pate was given credit for having “successfully arranged and orchestrated from the original dictations of Curtis Mayfield”, which reportedly “galled” the arranger. Pate had previously arranged songs for The Impressions, who Mayfield had left two years before this album. (The two stopped working together after a dispute over who wrote ‘Think’, another track from Super Fly.)
Pate was a bassist (notably playing bass on ‘Satin Doll’ from Duke Ellington’s Live At The Blue Note), and bass-centric thinking is seemingly evident on ‘Superfly’. The bassline is responsible for most of the melodic content, as well as for helping to emphasise the One, hitting it on every other bar. (Pate had an instrumental album, Outrageous, out two years earlier, and the bass plays a similarly prominent role in the title track.)
The brief bursts of horns are very James Brown. Where Mayfield differed from a classic Brown funk track was the varieties in rhythm. After eight bars of verse, with the bass line emphasising the One, there’s a steady, predictable rhythm. But in the chorus, after the horns emphasise the One with the first line (“Ooh, superfly”), they then arrive a hair after the two at the start of the following line (“You’re gonna make your fortune” and get back on the One at the end of the line “by and by”. The horns then repeat that One-then-after two pattern. Since the horns are the dominant instrument in the chorus, the emphasis really seems to shift away from the One.
The steady snare and hi-hat pattern which plays through most of the song also gets switched up in the chorus. In those bars where the rhythm shifts, the snare and crash cymbal play on every other beat – fewer hits makes the song seem slower, and those extended horn chords seem to go on for longer.
The faint horn part that comes after “by” and “why” adds a layer intriguing layer of feeling. The main horn part and the drums march confidently, but those almost sorrowful blows in the background express some of the unease in the song’s lyrics (“His mind was his own / But the man lived alone”, “The only game you know is do or die”).
The lyrics refer to the drug dealer and chief character of the film. Mayfield told Rolling Stone, “I didn’t have to leave my neighbourhood to be surrounded by the things Super Fly is about.” Mayfield grew up in the Chicago projects.
The “Superfly” lines are reminiscent of the “I’m your pusherman” lines in ‘Pusherman’. “Superfly” and “pusherman” are sung in a similar intonation, and in the same key. This may have been deliberate: these were the two songs about the lead character.
The rest of the musicians were sadly uncredited, as was common (though various sources credit several musicians). The liner notes in reissues do give a “special thanks to Sol Bobrov and all the musicians on the sessions”. Bobrov was a violinist and played on Mayfield’s Curtis album two years earlier.
His core band, though, is understood to have been “bassist Joseph Lucky Scott, percussionist Master Henry Gibson, drummer Morris Jennings and guitarist Craig McMullen”. McMullen said of the recording with a full orchestra: “You hear this big orchestra, 20-something pieces, strings and everything, playing in your headphones, and man, that is like, ‘Whoa! Let me get busy!’”
The guitar parts are subtle but they add important depth, both harmonically and rhythmically. In the verses, the higher-pitched guitar seems to add an uncertainty which contrasts with the strutting drums and Mayfield’s smooth falsetto. In the bridge (“Tryin’ to get over”), the fast, wah-wah drenched guitar adds an urgency. The sudden bite in those chords contrasts greatly with the relaxed strumming elsewhere. In the beginning of the outro (“Superfly”), one guitar plays muted strings in between chords, adding a polyrhythmic fidgetiness to the straighter drums.
Judging from a live performance, it’s likely that Mayfield played the un-wahed parts – for instance, the sliding chords in the verses, and the jazzy chords in the bridge (“The game he plays, he plays for keeps”). Mayfield played with his fingers rather than a pick which added to the tenderness of his playing. He said, “I pluck the strings very gentle. Almost the way I sing.”
The wah-wah guitar was likely played by McMullen. That wah-wah strumming became a staple of blaxploitation soundtracks.
Gibson’s congas are heard in the intro, which features only percussion and bass (as did the intro to ‘Pusherman’). In the case of ‘Superfly’, we’re immediately introduced to the main theme of the song, with the bass being the only melodic instrument in the intro. The comparatively naked feeling intro means we hone in on the bass before before the brilliant drum roll and first blast of horns. The steady snare and hi-hat pattern is a nice contrast after the bouncy congas.
Mayfield told Paul Weller, “I was quite excited to get the very first script for a movie that I was to do a soundtrack for, so I put my total heart into Superfly.” It paid off.
‘Superfly’ was the title track (or almost title track, given the two-word album name) of Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack album for Super Fly. It’s sleek, meticuously arranged funk – too laid back to hit the One hard every time, too sure of itself for that to matter.
Johnny Pate was given credit for having “successfully arranged and orchestrated from the original dictations of Curtis Mayfield”, which reportedly “galled” the arranger. Pate had previously arranged songs for The Impressions, who Mayfield had left two years before this album. (The two stopped working together after a dispute over who wrote ‘Think’, another track from Super Fly.)
Pate was a bassist (notably playing bass on ‘Satin Doll’ from Duke Ellington’s Live At The Blue Note), and bass-centric thinking is seemingly evident on ‘Superfly’. The bassline is responsible for most of the melodic content, as well as for helping to emphasise the One, hitting it on every other bar. (Pate had an instrumental album, Outrageous, out two years earlier, and the bass plays a similarly prominent role in the title track.)
The brief bursts of horns are very James Brown. Where Mayfield differed from a classic Brown funk track was the varieties in rhythm. After eight bars of verse, with the bass line emphasising the One, there’s a steady, predictable rhythm. But in the chorus, after the horns emphasise the One with the first line (“Ooh, superfly”), they then arrive a hair after the two at the start of the following line (“You’re gonna make your fortune” and get back on the One at the end of the line “by and by”. The horns then repeat that One-then-after two pattern. Since the horns are the dominant instrument in the chorus, the emphasis really seems to shift away from the One.
The steady snare and hi-hat pattern which plays through most of the song also gets switched up in the chorus. In those bars where the rhythm shifts, the snare and crash cymbal play on every other beat – fewer hits makes the song seem slower, and those extended horn chords seem to go on for longer.
The faint horn part that comes after “by” and “why” adds a layer intriguing layer of feeling. The main horn part and the drums march confidently, but those almost sorrowful blows in the background express some of the unease in the song’s lyrics (“His mind was his own / But the man lived alone”, “The only game you know is do or die”).
The lyrics refer to the drug dealer and chief character of the film. Mayfield told Rolling Stone, “I didn’t have to leave my neighbourhood to be surrounded by the things Super Fly is about.” Mayfield grew up in the Chicago projects.
The “Superfly” lines are reminiscent of the “I’m your pusherman” lines in ‘Pusherman’. “Superfly” and “pusherman” are sung in a similar intonation, and in the same key. This may have been deliberate: these were the two songs about the lead character.
The rest of the musicians were sadly uncredited, as was common (though various sources credit several musicians). The liner notes in reissues do give a “special thanks to Sol Bobrov and all the musicians on the sessions”. Bobrov was a violinist and played on Mayfield’s Curtis album two years earlier.
His core band, though, is understood to have been “bassist Joseph Lucky Scott, percussionist Master Henry Gibson, drummer Morris Jennings and guitarist Craig McMullen”. McMullen said of the recording with a full orchestra: “You hear this big orchestra, 20-something pieces, strings and everything, playing in your headphones, and man, that is like, ‘Whoa! Let me get busy!’”
The guitar parts are subtle but they add important depth, both harmonically and rhythmically. In the verses, the higher-pitched guitar seems to add an uncertainty which contrasts with the strutting drums and Mayfield’s smooth falsetto. In the bridge (“Tryin’ to get over”), the fast, wah-wah drenched guitar adds an urgency. The sudden bite in those chords contrasts greatly with the relaxed strumming elsewhere. In the beginning of the outro (“Superfly”), one guitar plays muted strings in between chords, adding a polyrhythmic fidgetiness to the straighter drums.
Judging from a live performance, it’s likely that Mayfield played the un-wahed parts – for instance, the sliding chords in the verses, and the jazzy chords in the bridge (“The game he plays, he plays for keeps”). Mayfield played with his fingers rather than a pick which added to the tenderness of his playing. He said, “I pluck the strings very gentle. Almost the way I sing.”
The wah-wah guitar was likely played by McMullen. That wah-wah strumming became a staple of blaxploitation soundtracks.
Gibson’s congas are heard in the intro, which features only percussion and bass (as did the intro to ‘Pusherman’). In the case of ‘Superfly’, we’re immediately introduced to the main theme of the song, with the bass being the only melodic instrument in the intro. The comparatively naked feeling intro means we hone in on the bass before before the brilliant drum roll and first blast of horns. The steady snare and hi-hat pattern is a nice contrast after the bouncy congas.
Mayfield told Paul Weller, “I was quite excited to get the very first script for a movie that I was to do a soundtrack for, so I put my total heart into Superfly.” It paid off.
‘Superfly’ was the title track (or almost title track, given the two-word album name) of Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack album for Super Fly. It’s sleek, meticuously arranged funk – too laid back to hit the One hard every time, too sure of itself for that to matter.
Johnny Pate was given credit for having “successfully arranged and orchestrated from the original dictations of Curtis Mayfield”, which reportedly “galled” the arranger. Pate had previously arranged songs for The Impressions, who Mayfield had left two years before this album. (The two stopped working together after a dispute over who wrote ‘Think’, another track from Super Fly.)
Pate was a bassist (notably playing bass on ‘Satin Doll’ from Duke Ellington’s Live At The Blue Note), and bass-centric thinking is seemingly evident on ‘Superfly’. The bassline is responsible for most of the melodic content, as well as for helping to emphasise the One, hitting it on every other bar. (Pate had an instrumental album, Outrageous, out two years earlier, and the bass plays a similarly prominent role in the title track.)
The brief bursts of horns are very James Brown. Where Mayfield differed from a classic Brown funk track was the varieties in rhythm. After eight bars of verse, with the bass line emphasising the One, there’s a steady, predictable rhythm. But in the chorus, after the horns emphasise the One with the first line (“Ooh, superfly”), they then arrive a hair after the two at the start of the following line (“You’re gonna make your fortune” and get back on the One at the end of the line “by and by”. The horns then repeat that One-then-after two pattern. Since the horns are the dominant instrument in the chorus, the emphasis really seems to shift away from the One.
The steady snare and hi-hat pattern which plays through most of the song also gets switched up in the chorus. In those bars where the rhythm shifts, the snare and crash cymbal play on every other beat – fewer hits makes the song seem slower, and those extended horn chords seem to go on for longer.
The faint horn part that comes after “by” and “why” adds a layer intriguing layer of feeling. The main horn part and the drums march confidently, but those almost sorrowful blows in the background express some of the unease in the song’s lyrics (“His mind was his own / But the man lived alone”, “The only game you know is do or die”).
The lyrics refer to the drug dealer and chief character of the film. Mayfield told Rolling Stone, “I didn’t have to leave my neighbourhood to be surrounded by the things Super Fly is about.” Mayfield grew up in the Chicago projects.
The “Superfly” lines are reminiscent of the “I’m your pusherman” lines in ‘Pusherman’. “Superfly” and “pusherman” are sung in a similar intonation, and in the same key. This may have been deliberate: these were the two songs about the lead character.
The rest of the musicians were sadly uncredited, as was common (though various sources credit several musicians). The liner notes in reissues do give a “special thanks to Sol Bobrov and all the musicians on the sessions”. Bobrov was a violinist and played on Mayfield’s Curtis album two years earlier.
His core band, though, is understood to have been “bassist Joseph Lucky Scott, percussionist Master Henry Gibson, drummer Morris Jennings and guitarist Craig McMullen”. McMullen said of the recording with a full orchestra: “You hear this big orchestra, 20-something pieces, strings and everything, playing in your headphones, and man, that is like, ‘Whoa! Let me get busy!’”
The guitar parts are subtle but they add important depth, both harmonically and rhythmically. In the verses, the higher-pitched guitar seems to add an uncertainty which contrasts with the strutting drums and Mayfield’s smooth falsetto. In the bridge (“Tryin’ to get over”), the fast, wah-wah drenched guitar adds an urgency. The sudden bite in those chords contrasts greatly with the relaxed strumming elsewhere. In the beginning of the outro (“Superfly”), one guitar plays muted strings in between chords, adding a polyrhythmic fidgetiness to the straighter drums.
Judging from a live performance, it’s likely that Mayfield played the un-wahed parts – for instance, the sliding chords in the verses, and the jazzy chords in the bridge (“The game he plays, he plays for keeps”). Mayfield played with his fingers rather than a pick which added to the tenderness of his playing. He said, “I pluck the strings very gentle. Almost the way I sing.”
The wah-wah guitar was likely played by McMullen. That wah-wah strumming became a staple of blaxploitation soundtracks.
Gibson’s congas are heard in the intro, which features only percussion and bass (as did the intro to ‘Pusherman’). In the case of ‘Superfly’, we’re immediately introduced to the main theme of the song, with the bass being the only melodic instrument in the intro. The comparatively naked feeling intro means we hone in on the bass before before the brilliant drum roll and first blast of horns. The steady snare and hi-hat pattern is a nice contrast after the bouncy congas.
Mayfield told Paul Weller, “I was quite excited to get the very first script for a movie that I was to do a soundtrack for, so I put my total heart into Superfly.” It paid off.