Artist · chart history · #353 in indie & aaa artist polls
Curtis Mayfield
Solo artist Chicago United States
Curtis Mayfield is an artist from Chicago. Curtis Mayfield has 21 chart appearances on 14 radio countdowns from 7 stations on RockLists, spanning 2001–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Move On Up”, which appears on 10 lists with a best position of #35. The station that charted Curtis Mayfield most often is The Colorado Sound (Fort Collins–Denver, CO), with 6 appearances.
Curtis Mayfield learned to sing in a gospel choir, and he never really stopped preaching; he just moved the pulpit onto the dance floor. Born in 1942 and raised on Chicago's North Side, he fell in with Jerry Butler at 14 and joined the Impressions, and before long he was their lead singer and chief songwriter, slipping the civil rights struggle into sweet, feather-light soul. "People Get Ready", written in 1965, is the proof, a hymn of a song later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
He went solo in 1970 with Curtis, and on records like "Move On Up" his voice floats over a percussion stampede that could go all night. Then came the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, where "Superfly" and its companions turned a hustler movie into a clear-eyed report on crime, poverty and drugs in the inner city.
In August 1990 a lighting rig fell on him during a show in Brooklyn and left him paralyzed from the neck down, but he kept making records, and New World Order arrived in 1996. The honors came thick: a Grammy Legend Award in 1994, a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995, and two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions, with the Impressions in 1991 and on his own in 1999. He died that December, aged 57.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Curtis Mayfield on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Move On Up | 10 | #35 | – | – | |
| 2 | (Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below, We're All Going To Go | 2 | #386 | – | – | |
| 3 | Pusherman | 2 | #539 | – | – | |
| 4 | Gypsy Woman | 1 | #491 | – | – | |
| 5 | If There's A Hell Below We're All Going To Go | 1 | #316 | – | – | |
| 6 | Freddie's Dead (Theme from Superfly) | 1 | #315 | – | – | |
| 7 | Superfly | 2 | #594 | – | – | |
| 8 | We Got to Have Peace | 1 | #726 | – | – |
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