Everyone Loves You When You're Dead: Journeys into Fame and Madness by Neil Strauss

Author:Neil Strauss [Strauss, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2012-05-01T05:00:00+00:00

Curtis Mayfield is responsible for some of the most seminal soul, funk, and inspirational music of all time, from his anthem with the Impressions “People Get Ready” to the theme from Superfly to the samples that have fueled over a hundred R&B and hip-hop songs. But in 1990, while preparing for a concert in Brooklyn, Mayfield was struck by a falling lighting scaffold that paralyzed him from the neck down.

In your music, you sing about peace and how there are better years coming. Now, when you hear those songs twenty-five years later, do you feel peace and better years have come?

CURTIS MAYFIELD: Well, I believe never lose hope. Never lose faith in your dreams. In spite of this world, there is still a whole lotta good people in it—and I must believe that. So I’ll never give up and just lose total hope for mankind itself. And I’m a rather pessimistic fellow (laughs). But I’m optimistic about people and I must be. I mean, especially in my shape today. If it weren’t for a lot of good, good people about, I’d be in bad shape. So just keep the faith. That’s what [congressman] Adam Clayton Powell used to say.

I suppose some things have gotten better and other things have gotten worse. I guess that’s how it always works.

MAYFIELD: Ain’t that life? But somehow we still manage and somehow, if you look for it, you can still live for happiness. It might be a little harder trying to achieve, but you don’t give up, you know. Can’t give up to these losers, man. In spite of these people that drag you down and create crime and hardship, you gotta believe that people are better than that.

Has the accident changed any of your ideas about life or what we’re supposed to do with the time we’re given?

MAYFIELD: Well, no, nothing’s changed too much. I’m the same person. I just happen to be paralyzed. Of course, you have to deal with the complications of being in this particular order, but I still carry my spirits as high as I can. If anything, after the accident and seeing beautiful people of all colors, races, and creeds come to my aid and having their love, respect, and especially prayers, I must believe in mankind even more.

Are you still able to perform?

MAYFIELD: Oh, I have no plans of performing again. Being a quadriplegic, it will be just a little too testy. It’s really always a life-and-death situation—almost every minute of the day. Then there’s the cost of just getting me around. You know, when I get up and go anywhere, it can cost me from ten to twenty thousand dollars between making travel arrangements, taking along a nurse, getting baths, and all the other stuff I need just to survive. So performing is out of the question.

On one hand, it’s been great to see your music celebrated with three new compilations and two tribute records, but on the other hand, do you kind of wish that

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