Curtis Mayfield: People Get Ready

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, I wrote an essay on People Get Ready, a hit single recorded by Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions 50 years ago this month (go here). The point of the piece was to shed light on the socially conscious song's impact on rock and soul artists of the period and how the song was caught between two phases of the civil rights movement. I also interviewed arranger Johnny Pate.

If the song isn't immediately familiar, here it is...

When People Get Ready was recorded in October 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. had already delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C. in April 1963 and the Civil Rights Act had been signed into law in July 1964. Soon after People Get Ready was released in February 1965, the movement lurched into a new and more dangerous phase. Malcolm X was assassinated in New York in February 1965, followed in March by the "Bloody Sunday" Selma to Montgomery, Ala., march in support of voting rights. People Get Ready soared up Billboard's pop and R&B charts.

The song's gentle, hopeful feel had a deep and instant impact on artists in all types of music. Bob Dylan recorded Like a Rolling Stone in June, Barry McGuire's single, Eve of Destruction, was recorded in July and the Byrds' Turn, Turn, Turn was recorded in September. As the years passed, more socially conscious pop and soul singles became hits.

After King's assassination in 1968, song messages became more pointed. The post-assassination list that year includes the Rascals People Gotta Be Free, which came out in July, the Supremes' Love Child (September) and Elvis Presley's If I Can Dream (November).

But the song that perhaps became the biggest civil rights anthem of all and shifted the focus from hoping for change to demanding it was James Brown's Say It Loud—I'm Black and I'm Proud, released in August 1968. The Impressions' People Get Ready (and Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come, released in December 1964) got the ball rolling.

Joan River's Gilt Trip. In today's WSJ, I interview Melissa Rivers on five items in her late mother's triplex that Joan loved best. The apartment just went on the market for $28 million (go here). I had interviewed Melissa and Joan together back in March 2014 for the Mansion section's "House Call" column (go here). So Melissa, who lives in Los Angeles, let me go up to Joan's apartment to see the pieces. The rooms are hushed now, designed in a style "where Marie Antoinette would have lived if she had the money," Joan once said. There was a peacefulness about the space, and it didn't take much to imagine Joan there cracking up a visitor. [Photo above of Joan and Melissa Rivers by Amanda Friedman for The Wall Street Journal]

Also, in the WSJ's weekend Review section, I interview novelist Laura Lippman (above) on her favorite song—Stephen Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle (go here).

JazzWax clip: Here's a Nightline segment on Joan the night she died in September 2014...

Used with permission by Marc Myers