"There's No Place Like America Today" by Curtis Mayfield
In which the Gentle Genius rouses from his torpor- and crafts a classic.
“When Seasons Change”:
From the first rising strains of “Billy Jack” it’s clear that Mayfield has made a reclamation: a grim, minor-key portrait of a fallen factotum, it recalls “Superfly” in the best sense: stark, vivid images careen across guttering funk, trimmed with horns that continue hemorrhaging well into the six-minute mark. From the enormous hush which follows its fade comes “When Seasons Change”, one of the most fragile ballads in a catalog full of them. Mayfield’s vocal wafts like a pinhole of light through a dungeon wall, singing about scuffling and scars and the face of Jesus, which appears everywhere in our cold, hard world.
“So In Love”:
After the desperate ennui of Got To Find A Way, There’s No Place Like America Today seems all the clearer and more concise. “Hard Times”, one of Mayfield’s best-ever songs, appears here as a skeletal, menacing groove, far removed from the bombast of Baby Huey’s better-known version. “So In Love” (#9 R&B, #67 Pop) provides a reprieve from contemporaneity in the form of a brassy ballad that rolls and (occasionally) struts, hampered only by the rote lyrics, which were Mayfields’ Achilles heel at this point.
The other six-minute epic here, “Blue Monday People” is also the album’s weakest track. The band, especially the guitars of Gary Thompson, Phil Upchurch, and Mayfield, weave a heady groove, complete with funky breakdown, but vagaries like “depression ain’t quite what you promised” and some haphazard shouts of “Crimes in the night!” can’t carry the song, which forms a void at the center There’s No Place Like America Today.
“Love To The People”:
Strain is the word that appears again and again in the lyric sheet, and “Love To The People” ties together all of the album’s thematic elements. Succinct and driving, It’s a song about struggle and perseverance, about warming the cold a little and never giving up your little pride. It’s exactly the kind of song we’ve come to expect from Curtis Mayfield, and on There’s No Place Like America Today, he came through for us again. But the album stalled at #120 on the album charts, and the reviews ranged from apathetic to withering.
It seemed Mayfield’s best days were behind him. The same seemed true for his homeland. From the East a maelstrom called Disco was rising. In time, it would sweep away all the last remainders of soul music. Mayfield, like all of his contemporaries, would do his best to change with the times with the lighter, brighter Give, Get, Take, and Have.