In 1958, when Curtis Mayfield entered the music industry, no African American recording artist owned their own songs or recordings. That was not a situation that Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions’ manager Eddie Thomas thought should be the case. Mayfield had started composing songs for Jerry Butler while he was signed to Vee-Jay Records, and he wanted to retain ownership of them. In 1960, Mayfield and Thomas decided to set up Curtom Publishing, to give them control over Mayfield’s songs. It was an early indication of their business acumen. The company’s name was taken from the first syllables of the founders’ names.
Eight years later, possibly inspired by Sam Cooke’s decision in the early sixties to set up SAR Records, Mayfield and Thomas formed Curtom Records at 8543 South Stony Island, later moving to 5915 North Lincoln. A key element in the formation of the new company was the partnership with Neil Bogart of Buddah Records to handle the distribution of Curtom’s output. The legendary Buddah label, a major independent record company based in New York City, was once the home of Gladys Knight & the Pips. Both Mayfield and Thomas had tried to set up record labels prior to this (Windy C, Mayfield and Thomas labels), but they had failed due to poor distribution arrangements. With Buddah on board, Curtom had more of a chance.
Thanks to the success of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions as recording artists, Curtom Records became a major force in the R&B and Soul music sector by 1972, both in Chicago and across America. The income generated by a series of major hits for the label enabled the organisation to acquire the legendary RCA recording studios on North Wacker Drive, retaining the services of the brilliant sound engineer Roger Anfinsen who was responsible for many hit records recorded at the studio for over a decade, running from the 1960s to the late 1970s.
Curtom Records benefited greatly from the skills of Anfinsen as an engineer, until it closed down its operation in the late 1970s. The company was the only black-owned label in America to have a succession of gold-certified soundtracks according to the RIAA.
At the start of Curtom’s existence, Curtis Mayfield was a member of The Impressions, who were the first act to be signed to the label. The first Curtom album was The Impressions’ “This Is My Country”, which featured two songs written by Donny Hathaway, an arranger at Curtom. The Impressions produced the label’s first R&B and Soul Billboard number one with the single “Choice Of Color”, which was at the top from August 2nd to August 9th 1969. The composition was produced by Mayfield and co-arranged by Johnny Pate and Donny Hathaway. The first top-five single that was released by the company was actually “Fool for You”. It was a beautiful Soul ballad with a dynamic drum roll like a marching band. The single peaked at number three on the Billboard R&B and Soul Singles chart listing.
Most of the early releases on the Curtom label were vocal harmony tracks, building on the Impressions’ success. Later, a wider range of artists joined the label, including Baby Huey & the Babysitters, Linda Clifford and Leroy Hutson, who replaced Curtis Mayfield in the Impressions, when he left to work on solo projects.
Curtis Mayfield 1972
Photo: AVRO, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL (Wikimedia Commons)
The most important of these was the soundtrack album “Super Fly”, which achieved huge success in 1972 and enabled Curtom to cement its position in the market. By 1974, the studio boasted the only twenty-four track recording machine in Chicago. The company employed a dozen songwriters, six or seven producers and had signed five popular artists. The operation worked twenty-four hours a day. The level of success for a Black-owned independent record company was extraordinary. By this time, Eddie Thomas had left Curtom to set up his own Lakeside Records label, with Marv Stuart coming in to take his place.
By the mid-seventies, however, tastes were changing. As Soul and Funk went out of favour, to be replaced by Disco, Linda Clifford’s success was not enough to keep the label afloat. The distribution deal with Buddah had been replaced with a series of contracts, first with Warner Bros (from 1977 to 1978), then with RSO Records (1979-1980) and finally with Capitol Records (1980). These short-term contracts were not good for the future of the company, as sales declined. The company folded in 1980.
Header: Wacker Drive, Chicago (Vincent Desjardins, Wikimedia Commons)
