Across a six-decade career that saw The Impressions evolve through multiple changes of personnel and musical style, the group earned a reputation for quality and variety of material, top-notch performance, and timeliness of topic. The saga has two origin points: Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Chicago, Illinois. In the 1950s both towns were rife with gospel choirs and gospel-rooted doo-wop and R&B groups. In Chattanooga, the Brooks brothers, Arthur and Richard, and fellow vocalist Sam Gooden, moved from the sacred to the secular, naming their outfit the Roosters. At the time, in Chicago, baritone Jerry Butler and tenor Curtis Mayfield were singing hymns in the same choir. The Roosters wandered north to Chicago, ambitious young men met and found common cause, and in 1958 Jerry Butler & the Impressions, with Mayfield on guitar, had a hit on Vee-Jay Records with “For Your Precious Love.” Soon Butler had gone solo, briefly accompanied by Mayfield, who rejoined the Impressions as lead singer and began blossoming as a songwriter. The group moved to New York. In 1961 they hit big with “Gypsy Woman,” a prelude to many successful 45s, but not soon enough for the Brooks brothers, who departed in 1962. Updating their sound soulward and now a trio, the Impressions came back to the Windy City. This phase unleashed Mayfield’s social consciousness, which powered hits like “Keep On Pushing,” “People Get Ready,” “We’re a Winner,” and the like. Mayfield founded Curtom Records and brought the band along. In 1970 he went solo and enjoyed great success as the composer of cinematic soundtracks such as Super Fly, Claudine, and Sparkle. The Impressions pressed on, too, moving to Cotillion for a final flash of chartdom with “Loving Power.” Mayfield, left paralyzed from the neck down by a stage accident in 1990, nonetheless kept on pushing. He released his final album New World Order in 1996. He died in 1999. — Michael Dolan

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