The Impressions signed for ABC-Paramount in New York, after the group left Vee-Jay Records in 1961. Everything started brilliantly, with their first release on the new label going to number two on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart and number twenty on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart, their best results up to that point. The single in question, “Gypsy Woman”, was inspired (according to songwriter Curtis Mayfield) by a scene in a film in which a woman is dancing around a fire. The arrangements are generally simple with a hint of Latin rhythm and castanets adding an unusual touch. Mayfield’s voice is light, in the higher tenor register, with bursts of falsetto, which gave the group a unique vocal sound, different from that of other groups in and around Chicago at that time.

The eight follow-up releases were less successful, resulting in the departure of the Brooks brothers. The group decided to return to Chicago as a trio and began working with Johnny Pate, whose arrangements added a smoother, richer quality to the group’s sound. This gave them a competitive edge over their contemporaries, especially The Temptations, who were the most popular vocal group at the time. The improvement brought them a gold single. “It’s All Right”, released in 1963, reached number one on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles Chart week-ending 9th November 1963 (2 weeks) and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart.

On the strength of this single, ABC-Paramount decided to open an office in Chicago and to appoint Johnny Pate as A&R director in 1964. It was a good decision! The group embarked on a hugely successful phase of their career, with most of the recordings being made at Universal Recording Corporation in Chicago. Pate was also able to add to the company’s R&B roster by signing the Marvelows, the Trends, the Kittens and Betty Everett, who had also been at Vee-Jay.
Between 1964 and 1968, ABC released twenty-three Impressions singles and seven studio albums, up to 1967 on the ABC-Paramount label and then simply on ABC. Eighteen of the singles entered the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart, fourteen entered the Billboard R&B Singles Chart, with five deprived of the opportunity by Billboard’s decision not to issue an R&B chart between November 1963 and January 1965. The most successful of them was “We’re A Winner”, which reached number fourteen on the Pop chart and number one on the R&B chart in 1967. Of the seven studio albums, five made the top four of the R&B Albums chart, and all seven entered the Billboard 200 Albums chart. The group achieved a remarkable level of consistency and clearly made a big impression on all sectors of the market.
“We’re A Winner” is the culmination of a new strand in Mayfield’s songwriting, that began in 1964 with the release of “Keep On Pushing”. This song encapsulates why Curtis Mayfield is such an important figure in the music industry. He set out to focus many of his songs on issues affecting his community and to do so in a positive way. Black pride and ambitions were given an enormous boost by the success of The Impressions in this period and later by Mayfield’s solo work. The social and political impact of his work makes Chicago Soul outstanding, so let us consider three songs amongst many from the ABC-Paramount years.

“Keep On Pushing” reached number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent two weeks at number one on the Cashbox R&B chart in 1964. Johnny Pate’s arrangements added punchy horns and drums to the lush falsetto-laden harmonies of the three voices.

“People Get Ready”, issued the following year, is a masterpiece. It is a Gospel-inspired anthem, with a simple melody and lush strings, that Rolling Stone Magazine nominated as the twenty-fourth greatest song of all time. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. The secret to its success is the warmth of the voices and the “singability” of the tune. The message is positive and full of joy. A lot of people did indeed get on board, as the song rose to number three on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart and number fourteen on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. It was a perfect song that rallied the Black community without a threat to other communities. Dr. Martin Luther King made this song the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, and in 2015 it was chosen for preservation in the Library of Congress by reason of its “cultural, historic, or artistic significance”. It was definitely all three!

“We’re A Winner” from 1967 is the third in the sequence, providing the clearest example of the three of Mayfield’s focus on issues of Black Pride. The idea for the song came to Mayfield in a dream: “No more tears do we cry, The Black boy done dried his eyes, We’re movin’ on up” (song lyrics).
In 1968, Mayfield set up Curtom Records with Eddie Thomas, The Impressions’ manager, and the group moved to the new label, leaving behind a very strong body of work at ABC. The five singles pinpointed in this article are the markers of the group’s outstanding contribution to the Soul and R&B output from Chicago over a seven-year period. The next stage of the group’s development at Curtom, with a new lead singer, were to be just as exciting.