Today in 1972, Curtis Mayfield started a four-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with the soundtrack to 'Superfly'.
The film, along with 'Shaft', was one of the first of Hollywoods craze with the genre known as 'blaxploitation' movies. Although these films with their flimsy plot lines were somewhat trite in concept they did bring more roles to young black actors then Hollywood or audiences had ever seen before, or it might be said, since. Superfly mainly stood out for it's music, written and performed by Mayfield .
The hip talk and cool vibe marked a new street style of film making, but mainly due to the lack of plausible plot lines in later films within a few years this genre had gone. Curtis himself was also far more politically and socially aware to repeat the style for other films.
It was though, one of his most successful recordings and contained some truly classic tracks that were to influence musicians decades later (particularly 'acid jazz' in the early 90's).
This clip from the film includes Curtis and group performing 'Pusherman' as the club house band .
