His Name is Craig McMullen

You would think that a person who has their name misspelled as many times as I have would be more sensitive to getting other folk's name right. However, when it comes to my new pal and unsung guitarist Craig McMullen, who played with Curtis Mayfield from 1970-1973, I keep mistakenly writing his surname as McCullen. What kind of writer would I be if I didn't have an excuse. You see, ax-man extraordinaire McMullen and drummer Tyrone McCullen (Black men with Irish surnames) both played on my one of my favorite soundtracks Superfly. Yet, if you look at the under the Wikipedia entry, both of their surnames are listed as McCullen.

Of course, every journalist on the planet knows that Wikipedia is often wrong, but for some reason I keep getting surname dyslexia when it comes time to type out McMullen's name. "I feel like I have some kind of mental block," I told him yesterday after sending out a press release about my upcoming Wax Poetics article Gangster Boogie about the making of the Superfly soundtrack and I had messed up again. "But, don't worry, I promise I won't do it again." Good naturedly, Craig simply laughed.
Introduced to Mayfield by Rufus drummer Andre Fisher in 1970, McMullen was invited to audition for the windy city soul man. "I owned all his records, so I already knew the material," recalls McMullen. "Although Mayfield was still singing with the Impressions at the time, he was on the verge of going solo and McMullen was more than ready take that journey with him.

Along with drummer Tyrone McCullen, percussionist Master Henry Gibson, bassist Joseph "Lucky" Scott, the five group members travelled the world and recorded Curtis/Live in New York City's the Bitter End in 1971. "Basically, Curtis was a nice guy," says McMullen, who studied at Berklee College of Music and began his career playing avant-garde jazz. "We had a few ups and downs, but what family members don't."

Between the live album and Superfly, the team recorded Roots (1971), which one writer described as, " a visionary album and landmark creation every bit as compelling and as far-reaching in its musical and extra-musical goals as Marvin Gaye's contemporary What's Going On." From his home in Ohio, McMullen explains, "We all played on that album; Tyrone McCullen played drums on a few tracks too.



"Curtis was a great guitar player, so us playing together I always had to figure out ways of doing something different. When you're a session musician, it's expected that of you to play in more than one position so you don't bump heads with the other guitar players." In addition to the three year stint McMullen spent with Mayfield, where he perfected using wah-wah and fuzz in his work, he also played with The Supremes (Mary Wilson-Cindy Birdsong, Sherrie Payne), Aretha Franklin, The Sylvers, Bill Withers and Donna Summer.

"Being a studio musician, you got to think fast, because time is money. You have formulate your ideas quickly, because those who operate the quickest under pressure are considered the highlight studio players. If you want to be one, you got to act like one. Still, I played with Curtis the longest. His big saying was, 'I want you to do your thing.' And, I always tried to do my thing."

Playing old soul detective back in September, I tracked McMullen down when I started writing Gangster Boogie and he was the very first interview that I conducted. In addition to being a dope guitar player, McMullen is also a natural born storyteller whose Superfly memories of recording that masterful album in Chicago and New York were sharp as a tack.

While there is not much footage of McMullen playing live, he can be seen in the Superfly scene where Mayfield and company performed the provocative "Pusherman" as main characters Priest and Eddie chill out while waiting for their coke connect. "That was the only track that Tyrone McCullen played on and the only one we recorded in New York City." Thirty-seven years later, McMullen still thinks of the Superfly sessions as a special time. "I've played on a lot of albums, but Superfly was one of the best records I ever did. In fact, I think Superfly was one of the best records of all time."

For more of Craig McMullen's thoughts and observations on the making of the Superfly soundtrack, check out Gangster Boogie in Wax Poetics #38, on stands soon--Wax Poetics: http://www.waxpoetics.com

"Pusherman" Scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxq2pCaW7Sk

Mayfield & McMullen on guitar, Midnight Special: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3yQpzdIw5I

Alex Bugnon - keys .. Craig McMullen -gtr.. Norman Brown - gtr .. @ Columbus Jazz & Rib Fest .. July 2009 .

Art Crawl Through East Harlem

Artist Manny Vega in front of his mosaic of poet Julia de Burgos on on the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and East 106th Street.


While New York can be a hard city to live in, there are small pleasures that that make it all worth while. Take for instance the lovely winter afternoon I spent yesterday in the presence of artist Manny Vega. Meeting for the first time at the East Harlem Cafe (153 East 104th Street), where his framed mosaics adorn the walls, Vega is one of coolest dudes I've met in a long time. Vega took me and my good friend Maggie on a mini-tour of the Spanish Harlem neighborhood where his stunning murals and mosaics can be seen in the 110 Street subway station, against the wall of a bodega and in various other public spaces throughout the community. "In the last few years the neighborhood has been rapidly changing," says the Bronx native. "I see my images as an anchor for the community."


Vega, whose work has been praised by noted Yale professor Robert F. Thompson, is just one of the artists who will be featured in this Saturday's exciting Art Crawl of East Harlem produced by Averlyn Archer, President & CEO, Canvas Paper and Stone Gallery and Jacqueline Orange, owner of Taste Harlem Food & Cultural Tours. In addition to visiting galleries, the tour will also feature public space art that can be seen throughout El Barrio. "You'd be surprised how many people live in the city and never see these beautiful works throughout their community," Orange says. "When people think of art in New York, the first thought is always SoHo or Chelsea. Hopefully with Art Crawl, we can change that perception."


The tour begins at 12:30 pm and ends at 4pm. The day concludes with a dinner reception at 6pm. Bus stops include:


El Museo Del Barrio, 1230 5th Avenue at East 104th Street

Deborah Cullen, Director of Curatorial Programs

The re-opening exhibition, Nexus New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis, examines pioneering Caribbean and Latin American artists who lived in New York City before World War II and shaped the American avant-garde.


My Art LLC, 251 E. 110th Street

Cecilia Moreno-Yaghoubi, Owner/Director

Colombia-born artist Cecilia Moreno-Yaghoubi’s three-dimensional assemblages evoke

individual dialogues/associations, experiences and memories from each person who views her work. She paints not only what she has seen, but also what she has felt and sensed, transforming visual landscapes into emotional ones.


Poet’s Den Gallery, 309 E 108th Street

Raphael Benavides, Director

Michael Lindwasser’s photographs use a combination of extreme angles and long exposures to create a unique genre. The exposures imbue his photographs with the vibrant colors of the daytime even though they were shot in the middle of the night. Emphasizing geometry, his work brings the ordinary into the abstract.


PRdream/MediaNoche, 1355 Park Avenue

Judith Escalona, Director

Devoted to new media, MediaNoche presents BIBIANA’s CZECH REPUBLIC 1998 – 2008, perspectives from an immigrant child. Visitors to the gallery enter a Czech immigrant’s tenement apartment, complete with kitchen, dining room, studio, bathroom, and living room. Ten years of photographic work are displayed on the walls, on ropes hung by clothes pins, and in digital frames.


Taller Boricua / Puerto Rican Workshop, 1680 Lexington Avenue

Curators: Marcos Dimas and Christine Licata.

The exhibition Crossing Bridges/Cruzando Puentes is an exploration of Latin “transculturation” by the artist collective Generation Four (G4): Vicente Fabré, Luis Leonor, Moses Ros and Reynaldo Garcia Pantaleón. Together they delve into the process, challenges and social phenomena involved in immigration and the transition from one culture to another. Individually, each artist has a visual language all his own, exploring these influences through an eclectic range of mediums, including oil and acrylic painting, sculpture, installations and performance art. The name Generation Four (G4) represents the artists themselves who immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic at different stages of their lives - as adults, adolescents or born here as first-generation New Yorkers.


For further information, go to:

www.artcrawlharlem.com

Manny Vega website: http://www.artbymannyvega.com

Manny Vega in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/nyregion/25citywide.html


photos by: Maggie Wrigley

The Big Picture: The Music of Michael Jackson

— With the release of the much-anticipated Michael Jackson film This Is It coming on October 28, perhaps folks can finally step away from the television gossip programs and pay attention to what made the King of Pop special in the first place: brilliant songs combined with hypnotic performance skills.

Having last seen Jackson rock a screaming audience back in 1989 on the Bad tour, I still remember the blissful faces of the fans staring in awe and cheering as he cast a spell of pure showmanship. While it was obvious that Jackson put in hours of rehearsal, on stage his flow was effortless. Sliding from one step into another as the music built, Michael Jackson was enchanting and beautiful, electric and dangerous.

Yet, since his death this past June, Jackson’s aural brilliance and extraordinary body of work has been overshadowed by the singer’s bizarre life.

For the rest of this story, go to:

http://www.soulsummer.com/michael-jackson-the-big-picture

Reel Harlem...

Just finished writing a long essay on the making of the Curtis Mayfield's celebrated Superfly soundtrack for Wax Poetics Issue 38. Featuring interviews with composer Curtis Mayfield, arranger Johnny Pate, guitarists Phil Upchurch, Craig McCullen, Jean Paul Bourelly, actor/director Fred Williamson and writers Barry Michael Cooper and Darius James, the tentatively titled "Gangster Boogie: Curtis Mayfield and the Makings of Superfly," delves deep into the ruins of '70s Harlem as the perfect backdrop for blaxploitation dreams and the fueling the soulful genius of a man called Mayfield.

From the streets of Sugarhill to the studios of Chicago, this dynamite story has a plan to stick it to the man. Seriously though, when we get closer to the release date I'll write a little more about the behind scenes chaos, drama and talent that went into creating this enduring album.

Yet, I will admit since listening to the Superfly soundtrack about five hundred times while writing this explosive story (cue wah-wah), I really don't need to hear it again for a year or two. For now, let me just do a visual homage to a few of the Harlem flicks that helped shape my own urban outlaw aesthetic. As my homeboy Richard Pryor used to say, "You messin' with the kid baby...shieeeeeeeeeeeet!"

WaxPoetics: http://www.waxpoetics.com/magazine

Unsung Soul Man Leroy Hutson

Not sure if you're down with windy city singer, songwriter, arranger and producer Leroy Hutson, but he is one of my favorite unsung soul men. A native of Newark, New Jersey, brother Hutson went to Howard University with Donny Hathaway (whom he collaborated with on the classic track "The Ghetto") and Roberta Flack. In 1971, he was hired by Curtis Mayfield to replace him in the Impressions. However, at the time, not everyone was pleased.

"I remember being pissed when the line-up changed," late journalist and friend Tom Terrell once told me. "I had bought tickets to see the Impressions perform at the Howard Theater and when Hutson came on stage instead of Mayfield, I like...'Who the hell is this?' Yet, like other R&B fans, Terrell was soon swayed by Hutson's passionate voice. Two years later, Hutson also went solo.



Somehow I went my entire childhood having never heard of Hutson, but a chance encounter with the greatest hits package Lucky Fellow, The Best of Leroy Hutson (Charly Records) was the turning point. Though I bought the a disc simply because it was associated with Mayfield's funk house Curtom Records, whose roster included Baby Huey & the Babysitters and Linda Clifford, it was Hutson's cool sound that blew me away. Not many cats can sound laid-back and aggressive at the same time, but Hutson's voice and music was icy hot.

Recently, while working on a story about Curtis Mayfield, I was talking to guitarist extraordinaire Craig McMullen (dude played ax with Hutson, Chairman of the Board, The Sylvers, Bill Withers and Mayfield) who informed me that he'd soon be going out on the road with the unsung singer. Hopefully, they'll be at a venue near us.

All Because of You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4hui4_7DlU

Lucky Fellow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc0u7WWwxuk

So in Love With You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaPLjHtl1Po

Nights on Broadway (Introduction)

Illustration by Larry Scott

“Nights on Broadway” is a hip-hop story in every sense of the word. Not only does it take place in the world of graffiti during the years that Kool Herc and company were creating new sounds from old records, but it is also a remixed version of another story I wrote a few years ago. Entitled “The King of Broadway,” it originally ran on the provocative Afro-arts website Nat Creole.com in 2005.

Although the stories are relatively the same, the major difference was adding the blue-eyed soul element of the Bee Gee’s song “Nights on Broadway” to this New York tale of school kids in 1970s Harlem and Washington Heights. Growing-up in these same areas during that same period, the funky white boy groove was one of my favorite jams.

Hearing the track one night in a Brooklyn bar thirty years later, memories of former pop station WABC and school friends from St. Catherine of Genoa made me want to revisit my story. It was then that I decided to do a textual remix in the tradition Grandmaster Flash, Marley Marl, DJ Premier Rza and DJ Shadow—just to name a few.

Without a doubt, these master turntablists had been an influence on my writings as much as the countless writers, journalists and filmmakers I consume on a daily. In my mind, doing a cool remix of an existing story was a way of paying homage to the sonic scientists who introduced me to the concepts of Black futurism, deconstruction and the rhythmic power of noise. Though I am proud of both pieces, it is the remixed version that I prefer.

The beautiful illustrations for this story were done by the late Baltimore artist Larry Scott. A fellow Cancerian, we met at a coffee shop called Xandos, which was across the street from the Baltimore Museum of Art. Introduced by New Jack City screenwriter and former Harlem resident Barry Michael Cooper, who had relocated to B-more in the ‘80s, Scott and I became fast friends.

Art critic and curator Franklin Sirmans was one of the many folks turned out by Scott’s work. Reviewing the artist’s 2005 show “Evolution of Depression,” he wrote, “The drawings almost feel like he’s working 3-D constructing forms with the line. Then there’s the almost abstraction of the work. The thing that hooks me is the simplicity/complexity of the black and whites..they just look mad original and damn good.”

The same year, the alternative weekly The City Paper voted Scott the Best Visual Artists in Baltimore. A few months after his show, I asked Larry if he would be kind enough to add his visual brilliance to my story. Without hesitation, he promised to give me something in a few days.

Though Larry wasn’t of the hip-hop generation, having grown-up a fan of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, he had recently began listening to Tupac, Biggie and 50 Cent and using their gritty poetics to jump-off a new series called “Ready to Die…?”

Come the following Friday, when Larry told me to meet at the usual spot at six o’clock, I was shocked when he gave me an envelope containing twelve separate pen and ink drawings. Though not an art expert, I know what I like and Larry’s work had an effect on me. Like German-Expressionism, film noir and East Coast hip-hop, Scott’s work had a sense of urbane despair that embraced the decadence and danger of the city.

Studying his masterfully atmospheric drawings, I almost cried at the sheer perfection in which Scott captured the pain and joy, laughter and anguish of these characters. Flipping through the dozen related images, one could feel the power of Scott’s vision as he created his own flavor of be-bop/beat-box visualizations.

Although we often spoke of future collaborations, this was not to be. In November of 2007, after leaving the coffee shop portfolio in hand, Larry Scott suffered a fatal heart attack. His body was found sprawled on the sidewalk the following morning. A husband and father, Larry Scott was 50 years old. This remix is dedicated to him and the beauty of his work.

To read the story, go to: http://h2c2harlem.com/blog

What About Bobby?

With Whitney Houston’s comeback disc I Look to You zooming to the top of the charts, the former “crack is wack” poster child has been making the media rounds. From her star-studded preview party at the Beverly Hilton to the highly anticipated interview with Oprah, the former pop princess turned coke queen has been playing the redemption card to the hilt. She has spared no detail, laying bare the most painful moments of her struggles with drug addiction and her turbulent marriage.

Still, through it all, her ex-husband Bobby Brown has been strangely quiet. Although somewhere in the world, Brown might be threatening to toss a TV from the window while calling somebody a bitch, I truly thought we might hear a little rah-rah from the original Bad Boy of R&B. Indeed, since his own fall from soul-man grace, scandal has been never been a stranger to Bobby.

“Bobby Brown was not able to sustain his career, because he did not duck scandal, he invited it,” says journalist Barry Michael Cooper, who coined the term “new jack swing” in a 1988. “Scandal was both his badge of honor and his scarlet letter. Somewhere along the way, he could not differentiate between the two.”

The kid who sang sweet fluff like “Candy Girl” as a member of New Edition has since joined the soulful legion of wildboys that includes Ike Turner, Arthur Lee, Sly Stone, David Ruffin and Marvin Gaye. And since he hasn’t released any new music since 1997, it’s easy to forget that Bobby Brown was once the man in the land of soul.

Although I never agreed with those who called him “The King of R&B,” there is no denying the influence of his seven-times-platinum album Don’t Be Cruel—not to mention the videos, the live shows, and persona he held over the public from the day of its release on June 20, 1988. Without a doubt, we can see a little bit of Bobby Brown in Chris Brown, Usher and even Britney Spears, who remade “My Prerogative” in 2004.

“From the beginning of his career, Bobby always wanted to be the center of attention,” remembers Steve Manning, the first publicist/conceptualist for the legendary Boston boy band New Edition. One glance at the photo with the 12-year-old wearing a bright red jacket as he stares boldly into the camera, made it clear that that Brown was not shy. “Bobby knew he had talent and he wanted everybody else to know it too.”

Though Bobby was young, the fiery Aquarius born on February 5, 1969, was a wild child. “I can remember meeting his mom and family, and they all had a street swagger,” Manning continues. “But Bobby was also very driven; he was destined to be a star.”

for the rest of this story, go to:

http://soulsummer.com/what-about-bobby