Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions remembered tonight
Van Hunt, Dionne Farris, Joi, Eddie Levert, the Impressions and Frank McComb to perform at tonight's Curtis Mayfield tribute.
In anticipation of tonight's National Black Arts Festival tribute to the Curtis Mayfield songbook — To Curtis With Love feat. performances from his former group the Impressions, Eddie Levert, Van Hunt, Dionne Farris, Joi Gilliam, and Frank McComb ($25-$65. 8 p.m. Tonight. Atlanta Symphony Hall, 1280 Peachtree St. nbaf.org.) — I spoke with Fred Cash of the Impressions about Curtis Mayfield's legacy and how the message music he composed for the Impressions was received in the ’60s.
I read in the liner notes to Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions: The Anthology (1961-1977) that a lot of the Impressions black pride songs from that time, especially "We're A Winner," weren't embraced initially by black radio?
Fred Cash: Well, black radio embraced it. The white radio stations wouldn't play it. That was WLS in Chicago, one of the biggest stations at that particular time. They would not play that record. They thought this song was going to cause some kind of riot. They didn't listen to the song to see what it was talking about; they just heard some parts of it and said no. Even when we got ready to go to California, we did the Joey Bishop television show, and that was when "Choice of Colors" came out and that was a big record for the Impressions. Well, we went out to rehearse the song so we could record it for the television show, and the producer came out and said, "Well, no, y'all can't do that song on this show." So Joey Bishop came out and said, "What's going on?" Because we were getting ready to pack up and leave. We said that the producer here said that we couldn't do that song on this show, and he said, "Is that y'all's hit record?" And we said yeah. So he said, "Well, y'all are gonna do it." So that's how we got the chance to perform that song on that particular television show.