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Curtis Mayfield – Super Fly
Label: Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab – MFSL 2-481, Rhino Records (2) – MFSL 2-481
Series: Gain 2™ Ultra Analog 45RPM 180g Series –
Format: 2 × Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Album, Limited Edition, Numbered, Reissue, Remastered, 180 Gram, Gatefold
Country: US
Released: 21 Jan 2019
Genre: Funk / Soul, Stage & Screen
Style: Soundtrack, Soul
Tracklist
A1 Little Child Runnin' Wild 5:15
A2 Pusherman 4:50
B1 Freddie's Dead 5:08
B2 Junkie Chase (Instrumental) 1:52
C1 Give Me Your Love (Love Song) 4:15
C2 Eddie You Should Know Better 2:14
C3 No Thing On Me (Cocaine Song) 4:52
D1 Think (Instrumental) 3:44
D2 Superfly 3:51
Companies, etc.
Phonographic Copyright (p) – Rhino Entertainment Company
Copyright (c) – Rhino Entertainment Company
Licensed From – Rhino Entertainment Company
Manufactured By – Rhino Entertainment Company
Record Company – Warner Music Group
Copyright (c) – Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Inc.
Published By – Curtom Publishing Co., Inc.
Published By – Camad Music Co.
Recorded At – RCA Studios, Chicago
Recorded At – Bell Sound Studios
Mastered At – Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Lacquer Cut At – Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Mastered At – Record Technology Incorporated – 29990
Pressed By – Record Technology Incorporated – 29990
Credits
Arranged By, Orchestrated By [From Original Dictations of Curtis Mayfield] – Johnny Pate
Art Direction – Glen Christensen
Contractor – Marv Heiman*
Design [Packaging] – Milton Sincoff
Engineer [RCA] – Roger Anfinsen (tracks: A1, A3 to B5)
Lacquer Cut By – RML*
Mastered By – Krieg Wunderlich, Rob LoVerde
Producer, Performer, Written-By [Words And Music] – Curtis Mayfield
Notes
Strictly Limited to 4,000 Numbered Copies
℗ 1972 & 2018 Rhino Entertainment Company. Produced under license from Rhino Entertainment Company. Manufactured by Rhino Entertainment Company, a Warner Music Group Company. © 2018 Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab®, Inc.
Mastered by Rob LoVerde and Krieg Wunderlich at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab® in Sebastopol , CA on the GAIN 2 ULTA ANALOG SYSTEM™
Specially Plated and Pressed on 180g High-Definition Vinyl
Production by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab® in Sebastopol, CA
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Barcode (Text): 8 21797 24811 2
Barcode (String): 821797248112
Matrix / Runout (Side A): MFSL 2-481 A1 RML 29990.1(3)...
Matrix / Runout (Side B): MFSL 2-481 B1 RML 29990.2(3)...
Matrix / Runout (Side C): MFSL 2-481 C1 RML 29990.3(3)...
Matrix / Runout (Side D): MFSL 2-481 D1 RML 29990.4(3)...
Rights Society: BMI
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Mit der Soul- und R&B-Band Impressions hatte Curtis Mayfield bereits mehrere Charthits verbuchen können, doch den größten Erfolg seiner Karriere landete er als Solokünstler 1972 mit dem Soundtrack Superfly. Dem Blaxploitation-Film über einen ausstiegswilligen Kokain-Dealer setzte Mayfield Texte entgegen, in denen er die Lebenswirklichkeit in den städtischen Ghettos kritisch kommentierte. Seine Musik ist eine Reise durch urbane Stadtviertel, Denkweisen und Leben, die gleichermaßen als Beschreibung des Status quo wie auch als emotional geladener Weckruf fungiert. Der in Chicago geborene Sänger bedient sich dabei über weite Strecken eines Falsett, das die widersprüchlichen Gefühle von Sympathie, Wut, Traurigkeit, Sinnlichkeit, Härte, Verzweiflung und Angst der Protagonisten unterstreicht. So vermittelt Mayfield unangenehme Wahrheiten und kritische Perspektiven, ohne dabei zu predigen oder Partei zu ergreifen.
Musikalisch überzeugt Superfly auf ganzer Linie mit satten Grooves und funkigen Riffs. Die Singles Freddie's Dead und Superfly wurden über zwei Millionen Mal verkauft, das Album hielt sich vier Wochen auf Platz 1 der Charts und wurde für vier Grammys nominiert. Das Remastering übernahm Rob LoVerde. Mayfields Arrangements atmen nun spürbar Luft. Sie offenbaren ein erstaunliches Maß an Offenheit und Dynamik und platziert die Musiker auf einer breiten Bühne.
Das MFSL Re-Issue erscheint als Doppel-45rpm-180g-Vinyl-LP im Klappcover und ist auf 4.000 Exemplare weltweit limitiert. Geschnitten wurde von Rob LoVerde im Half-Speed-Mastering Verfahren.
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Rezension:
Neben Isaac Hayes' "Shaft" ist dies der wohl definitive Blaxploitation-Score – und ganz nebenbei noch eines der besten Alben des 70er-Soul, ein Soundtrack, der den Film selbst (wiewohl ein Genre-Klassiker) bei weitem überstrahlt. Man spürt es schon in den ersten Takten, sobald die Hammond einsetzt: Was hier in Sachen Groove und Spannung geschieht, ist einzigartig. Die Dichte an Klassikern ist extrem, "Pusherman", "Freddie's Dead" und der Titelsong mögen in Sachen Popularität leicht vorne liegen, sind aber letztlich Erste unter Gleichen – was man in diesem Ausnahmefall sogar für die Instrumentals stehen lassen kann: Wer nach "Junkie Chase" nicht außer Atem ist, hat nicht zugehört. Ein 'all-time classic' vom ersten bis zum letzten Ton. – Der 45er Umschnitt vom MFSL stellt alles bisher Dagewesene in den Schatten: So durchhörbar waren die komplexen Arrangements noch nie; und der Bass ist von sagenhafter Präzision. Wer das einmal gehört hat, wird es nie wieder anders hören wollen… (1972/2019)
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Titel:
1. Little Child Runnin' Wild
2. Pusherman
3. Freddie's Dead
4. Junkie Chase
5. Give Me Your Love (Love Song)
6. Eddie You Should Know Better
7. No Thing On Me (Cocaine Song)
8. Think
9. Superfly
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Description
A Master Stroke of Boundary-Crossing Music, Brilliant Production, Smart Storytelling, and Vital Social Commentary: Curtis Mayfield's Lushly Orchestrated Superfly Is a Cultural Signpost
Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's World-Renowned Mastering System, Pressed at RTI, and Strictly Limited to 4,000 Numbered Copies: 180g 45RPM 2LP Set Features Widescreen Details, Tones, and Grooves
Curtis Mayfield's border-transcending Superfly is much more than a soundtrack to a cutting-edge blaxploitation film. Recorded in 1972 to coincide with Gordon Parks, Jr's movie about a dealer attempting to divorce himself from the urban underworld, Mayfield's brilliantly orchestrated set ignited an entire genre, expanded the scope of R&B, and spurred dialogues surrounding significant social issues ranging from the unvarnished consequences of hustling to the realities of African-American lives in America. Rightly deemed by Rolling Stone "Marvin Gaye's What's Going On at a street level" and named the 69th Greatest Album of All Time by the magazine, Superfly endures as an astonishing master stroke of boundary-crossing soul, lyrical smarts, and vital commentary. Mobile Fidelity's reissue brings it – and its of-the-moment contents – to life like never before.
Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's world-renowned mastering system, cut at 45RPM for the first time, pressed at RTI, and strictly limited to 4,000 numbered copies, this 180g 45RPM 2LP set of Superfly presents Mayfield's vision with widescreen sonics worthy of its cinematic reach. The extra groove space afforded by the 45RPM edition changes everything and explodes the wealth of aural information. Separation between the seemingly countless instruments, the myriad timbres of Mayfield's voice, the ambitious breadth and crucial shifts of the strings, the probing reach of the lean albeit direction-leading bass: You've never heard Superfly sound so vibrant, realistic, or immediate. Surpassing the status of an album, the 1972 effort comes across here as an audiophile-vetted cultural signpost – an epic on the order of Duke Ellington's Black, Brown & Beige, Miles Davis' A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and Gaye's aforementioned manifesto.
As Mobile Fidelity's restored version proves, few records mesh lush delicacy with such pressing urgency to the extent heard on Superfly. Mayfield's arrangements now breathe and exhale with palpable air, revealing an astounding degree of openness and dynamics that places the musicians on a grand soundstage. On par with the finest big-studio productions of the 60s and 70s, Mobile Fidelity's Superfly bursts with colors and details – with the mind-boggling array of individual threads forming a seamless tapestry involving guitars, woodwinds, horns, singing, and melodies. The presentation of the wah-wah effects, accenting rhythms of the brass rejoinders, and mood-setting aura of the strings are alone enough to make Phil Spector or Brian Wilson blush. No prior R&B work simultaneously crossed as many lines, painted such vivid portraits, and maintained such streetwise cool.
No wonder Superfly kickstarted the genre of blaxploitation music. Yes, Isaac Hayes' Shaft arrived nearly a year earlier. Apart to their fundamental relationship to the style, however, the records are worlds apart. Mayfield's creation stands as a fully realized track-by-track immersion into urban neighborhoods, mindsets, and lives that doubles as both boots-on-the-ground reportage and an emotionally loaded wake-up call. Primarily singing in a light falsetto that underscores the conflicting feelings of sympathy, anger, sadness, sensuality, toughness, desperation, and fear harbored by the protagonists, the Chicago native dispenses hard truths and critical perspectives without ever preaching or taking sides. The results pulse with the same vitality as they did four decades ago, wth Mayfield's narratives echoing with biographical and descriptive details rather than choosing a celebratory or exploitative route.
As skillful as Mayfield's words remain, the music blows them away. Superfly works on multiple levels – a record whose deep grooves and avalanche of funk-derived riffs express basically everything that needs to be said. Each song inhabits its own geographical and personal landscape, their lasting appeal a testament to the album becoming one of the few soundtracks to out-gross its accompanying film. Shortly after release, Superfly spent four weeks as at the top of the Billboard Pop charts and yielded a pair of two-million-selling singles, "Freddie's Dead" and the title track, both pregnant with the powerful imagery and tell-it-straight approach that define every moment of the record. Mayfield's direct connection to the material remains evident.
"I could relate with a lot of [the script for Superfly], because I lived enough throughout the city to sense...what a ‘Superfly' was," he once explained to writer Bob Pruter. "[The script] allowed me to get past the glitter of the drug scene and go beyond it." And go beyond he does – in every practical facet – from the entrapment and danger conveyed by "Little Child Runnin' Wild" to the bleak albeit mesmerizing, greasy funk of the blunt "Pusherman" to the escapist sensuality of the smooth "Give Me Your Love (Love Song)." Superfly is an American institution – and a work everyone should experience in full-range sound. Mobile Fidelity's ultra-clean pressing makes it all possible.
Secure your numbered-edition copy from Music Direct today!
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180-gram 45 RPM 2LP set!
Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's renowned mastering system
Pressed at RTI, strictly limited to 4,000 numbered copies!
Curtis Mayfield's border-transcending Superfly is much more than a soundtrack to a cutting-edge blaxploitation film. Recorded in 1972 to coincide with Gordon Parks, Jr.'s movie about a dealer attempting to divorce himself from the urban underworld, Mayfield's brilliantly orchestrated set ignited an entire genre, expanded the scope of R&B, and spurred dialogues surrounding significant social issues ranging from the unvarnished consequences of hustling to the realities of African-American lives in America.
Rightly deemed by Rolling Stone "Marvin Gaye's What's Going On at a street level" and named the 69th Greatest Album of All Time by the magazine, Superfly endures as an astonishing master stroke of boundary-crossing soul, lyrical smarts, and vital commentary. Mobile Fidelity's reissue brings it — and its of-the-moment contents — to life like never before.
Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's world-renowned mastering system, cut at 45 RPM for the first time, pressed at RTI, and strictly limited to 4,000 numbered copies, this 180-gram 45 RPM 2LP set of Superfly presents Mayfield's vision with widescreen sonics worthy of its cinematic reach. The extra groove space afforded by the 45 RPM edition changes everything and explodes the wealth of aural information. Separation between the seemingly countless instruments, the myriad timbres of Mayfield's voice, the ambitious breadth and crucial shifts of the strings, the probing reach of the lean albeit direction-leading bass: You've never heard Superfly sound so vibrant, realistic, or immediate. Surpassing the status of an album, the 1972 effort comes across here as an audiophile-vetted cultural signpost — an epic on the order of Duke Ellington's Black, Brown & Beige, Miles Davis' A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and Gaye's aforementioned manifesto.
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