Curtis Mayfield: People Never Give Up

by Peter Burns

In the past forty years, Curtis Mayfield's music and poetry have grown into an impressive and truly individual body of work. Complete with full discography and interviews with his contemporaries, this is the definitive account of his life and career.

Genres: Music

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Grant Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pete Burns clearly knows his stuff and this biography could be brilliant. After all, Mayfield was one of the greatest and most influential musicians of all time. Unfortunately, Burns is no biography writer. This is essentially one long discography with detailed record numbers and chart positionings. There is little about his life, thoughts and ideas or any of the conclusions that a good biographer would make. It is a boring read (hence I have picked it up and put it down many times over 3 years!). There is not even an index but many many pages dedicated to the discography which has been so detailed in the preceding pages. Credit is given for his passion for Mayfield's art which comes through clearly but this could have been so much more. Surely Mayfield deserves a great biographer. His influence continues 20 years after his death and his work is arguably more relevant and essential to todays world than ever.

[Charles James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings on this book . On the one hand it is a very capable run through of all Curtis Mayfield's and associated recordings ,together with a review of each release and the chart position . The author is clearly a fan and is knowledge of the recordings is impressive .On the other hand you do not get any additional insights into the character or life of Curtis Mayfield .Reading it all the way through it like reading a list as opposed to a biography
However if you want to get a review of each Curtis/Impressions releases , with track recommendations it is a good place to go .

[Conor Madigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

well, he's the man, and he died because of 1980's poor stage lighting techniques. What a shame. one of the foremost songwriters of the era.