6 Degrees of Soul: After leaving Motown, Day 9’s Four Tops scored a Top 20 hit with “Are You Man Enough”. That song was produced by Johnny Pate for his soundtrack of the film Shaft in Africa. Pate gained notoriety with his early work for Day 10’s The Impressions.
Initially, Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield were the main components of The Impressions; Butler sang lead and Mayfield wrote the songs. Butler left the group to pursue a solo career leaving Mayfield at the helm. It was during the Mayfield period that The Impressions made most of their strides. In the mid-sixties, Mayfield began to write socially conscious songs for the group such as, “Keep On Pushing”, “People Get Ready” and “We’re a Winner”. In 1970, Mayfield began his solo career and was replaced by Leroy Hutson. Another random fact: Leroy Hutson was Donny Hathaway’s roommate at Howard University and co-wrote “The Ghetto”.
…in 1963, Johnny Pate produced “It’s All Right”… but what’s not all right is the… well… you’ll see…
…a Mayfield original “I’m So Proud”…
…Keep On Pushing was the groups biggest album… here is the title track… (I don’t think Curtis had this in mind…)
…one of the instruments of the Civil Rights Movement was the song “People Get Ready”… Rolling Stone ranked it the 24th Greatest Song of All-Time…
…“Man Oh Man” recently popped back up… and made folks go crazy…
…“We’re A Winner” / “Amen” are synonymous with Black Pride…
as always… keep pushing to do better…
– dre’ of onustees.com
