"Give, Get, Take and Have" by Curtis Mayfield
In which Mayfield finds a new balance- and the resulting work is accordingly bright.
“In Your Arms Again”:
The short period containing 1975’s There’s No Place Like America Today and 1976’s Give, Get, Take, and Have also saw Curtis Mayfield producing, writing, and arranging Let’s Do It Again, a soundtrack album featuring the Staple Singers, which title track went #1 R&B and Pop. It is therefore astonishing that Give, Get, Take, and Have finds Mayfield sounding as virile and enthusiastic as it does.
The mix is brighter, if slightly thin, the lyrics sharper, the songs more concise. Opener “In Your Arms Again” rides a ringing acoustic guitar figure down a twilit boulevard brimming with subtle hooks. Rich Tufo’s arrangements throughout are subtle and restrained; the strings do a soft-shoe in the spaces where they used to stampede. “Only You Babe” (#8 R&B, Mayfield’s final Top 10 hit) in particular benefits from this approach, brightening a commonplace mid-tempo soul groove with a playful, immersive brass and strings.
“Only You Babe”:
“Party Night” (#39 R&B) is the requisite nod to disco, and Mayfield’s fiery falsetto is better suited to this type of frantic rhythm than it was to the leaden funk that populated the last few releases. “Soul Music” is another exuberant party song with swing to spare, and the title track most resembles Mayfield’s past - background moans, a slinky funk groove, lyrical foreboding, it’s all here, but this time so is that spark which breathes life into otherwise moribund material, the elusive spark which Mayfield had struggled to retain over the last four years.
Although the brighter outlook is welcome, the old flaws still apply: “P.S. I Love You” is marred by its silly lyric, while “Mr. Welfare Man” is another Curtis Mayfield song that was better handled by Gladys Knight. “Get A Little Bit (Give, Get, Take and Have)” is the kind of facile, spirited funk romp that Mayfield excelled at.
Give, Get, Take and Have is notable for its consistency and warmth- and for its almost total dearth of politics. Mayfield had built his career on giving voice to his convictions. From “Keep On Pushin’” to “Love To The People”, Mayfield had spoken his mind, and in doing so had spoken for millions- millions who now turned away from their erstwhile hero as his sermons began to drag.
“Get A Little Bit (Give, Get, Take and Have):
The numbers reflected this: every one of Mayfield’s solo albums since Superfly had sold significantly less than its predecessor, a trend not reversed by Give, Get, Take and Have. At the time, Mayfield’s newfound focus on love and party songs might’ve seemed like a cop-out or a retreat. But with hindsight, it’s clear that a pivot was sorely needed. Because Give, Get, Take and Have is one of Mayfield’s best solo albums, perhaps second only to Superfly.
It proved a guidepost: from here Mayfield would mostly write upbeat, pop-oriented songs, with politics or current events usually relegated to one track per album. The relinquishing of his position as Spokesman For a Generation is a loss Mayfield seems to have suffered lightly. His career was quite long indeed, and although the clamor and rush of his glory days were never to return, he continued recording strong songs and reputable albums for many decades to come. An advocate for his disenfranchised countrymen, a reclusive autodidact who helped soundtrack Freedom Marches and Watergate Hearings, he was then and remains now a true hero, a man who never stopped thinking about his people and whose people never stopped seeing themselves reflected in Curtis Mayfield and his intense, searching music.