What Easter and the 50th anniversary of the film Super Fly and its music have in common.
It’s Easter, so once again it’s time to ponder painted eggs, popcorn bunny rabbits and the 1970s Blaxploitation classic. If you and your Peeps don’t celebrate the season by watching one of the 20th century’s most commercially successful Black American works of cinema – and, more pointedly, by blasting the film’s funky, soulful soundtrack at your family gathering — maybe this is the year to add these elements to the holiday festivities.
In my childhood home we had a copy of the album in our vinyl stacks and my folks seemingly had no qualms about their seven year-old son spinning the record at his whim. I loved the sound of the music and Mayfield’s delicate, vulnerable falsetto. I was much older when I realized he’d taken the stark subject matter of the film and translated it into one of the 1970s’ important music commentaries on social issues like drugs, poverty and the so-called “American Dream.
But the movie aside, the Easter season always reminds me of a trio of songs from the album, a trinity if you will, that recall the Easter story in some ways. Mayfield is one of rock and soul’s legends, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame act The Impressions and the man who wroteanthem of the Civil Rights era, “People Get Ready,” which also has religious undertones. Surfing the ‘Net I can’t find anything that confirms he overtly intended to infuse’s music with religious themes.
“Super Fly” is the last song on the album’s flipside. It’s noteworthy that “Freddie’s Dead” was the first single released from the album and “Super Fly” followed. The song’s got the feel of “Superstar,” from themusical, exultant in tone and encompassing the hero’s story lyrically. From the “darkness of night with the moon shining bright,” comes “the man of the hour, has an air of great power.
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