Curtis Mayfield and Donny Hathaway were two great composers, arrangers and performers. Both played piano. Mayfield played bass, guitar, drums and horns too. They were fucking ill. They were ghetto prophets for the down and out. Both wrote beautiful melodies and were socially conscious. They did it for the people. Mayfield’s songs remind me of epic stories or movies. Hathaway was more introspective and subtle. He drew heavily on French classical music.
All of their songs bring to mind the inner city of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. This was a time when Blacks in America had finally seen integration pass into law and start to slowly be accepted. At the same time however, Uncle Sam's racist draft policies ended up sending off all of the Black Community’s young men to Vietnam. The vets came back shell-shocked and addicted to the heroin produced in Cambodia (which was funded by the CIA if you hadn't already heard about that). The music represents the hope that the community had, but at the same time, these songs are brushed with a melancholy tint representing the frustration and despair living in the ghetto brings. Bottom line : Hard times= brighter days coming.
