It might not be as immaculate as Curtis Mayfield’s classics Curtis and Super Fly, but Sweet Exorcist (1974) doesn’t deserve to be lost to time. Four of the seven tracks had copyright dates from 1969-72, so Mayfield might have been combing through his back catalogue to piece this album together. Artists of this era were typically on one-album-per-year deals. The thing is, Curtis Mayfield leftovers are still Curtis Mayfield.

‘Ain’t Got Time’ is a cool, bass-heavy track. For much of the song, the arrangement is minimal compared to Mayfield’s Super Fly classics. There are no horns, and only brief string parts. The bass is the lead instrument, in charge of the chord changes, while the guitar is more decorative with wah-wahed bends and scratchy strums.

While he does it in a much more laid back manner than James Brown, Mayfield emphasises the One through much of the song. The “got” in the “Ain’t got it” chorus arrives on that crucial beat, adding a slight snarl to a typically cool Curtis groove.

The arrangements on this album were by Richard Tufo and Gil Askey. Askey was one of the keys of Motown, arranging for artists like Diana Ross, The Temptations and The Four Tops. (Mayfield had stopped working with longtime arranger Johnny Pate after a dispute over who wrote “Think” from Super Fly.) The other musicians on the album were uncredited, which was common practice at Motown.

The bassline is a two-bar line, hitting the One every second bar. It plays a note just a hair before that beat, giving the short note on the One extra emphasis. The slide in the middle of the line does the same.

‘Kung Fu’ was one of the new songs, along with the title track and ‘To Be Invisible’. The bassline, with more sustained notes than most funk, combines well with the hi-hat (which sounds brilliant), and scratchy, restrained guitar. Mayfield’s vocal melodies are pretty Super Fly-esque (“My brother worked for Uncle Sam”).

The Funk Brothers, uncredited but instrumental in numerous Motown hits, aren’t likely to have played on ‘Kung Fu’, as it was copyrighted in 1974 and presumably written in that year; they had departed Motown by then.

There’s some strings in the background around the three-minute mark, but the drums and bass continue to take centre stage. The bassline sounds slightly ominous throughout the song, but there’s no big resolution. It’s just slightly unsettling for the entire five-plus minutes.