The Gentle Genius who put conscience into soul music

Curtis Mayfield was born in Cook County Hospital in Chicago in 1942. His father left when he was five, and his mother and grandmother moved the family through several public housing projects before they settled in Cabrini–Green. They steered him toward gospel, and at seven he sang at his aunt's church with the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers. A guitar came at ten, and he was so fond of it that he slept with it. Self-taught, he admired Muddy Waters and the Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia.

At fourteen he formed a group called the Alphatones, and in 1956 he met Jerry Butler and joined the Impressions. As the group's lead singer and main writer he became known as one of the first to bring social awareness into soul. In 1965 he wrote “People Get Ready”, which Rolling Stone later placed at No. 24 on its list of the 500 greatest songs. Over time he earned the nickname the Gentle Genius.

He left the Impressions in 1970 for a solo career, starting with the album Curtis. In 1972 he wrote the soundtrack to the film Super Fly, tackling crime, poverty and drug abuse in the inner city, and the record reached No. 72 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums. The title track, “Superfly”, still turns up on radio today.

In August 1990 a lighting rig fell on him during a concert at Wingate Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and he was paralysed from the neck down. He kept recording and released New World Order in 1996. He received a Grammy Legend Award in 1994 and a Lifetime Achievement Award the following year, and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, in 1991 with the Impressions and in 1999 as a solo artist. He died on 26 December 1999, aged fifty-seven.