"Keep On Pushing" continued the group's predilection for waltz time, and much more importantly, sang in high sanctified harmony of the need to "reach that higher goal" of social equality. Mayfield's melodicism and delicacy prevented the Impressions from being labeled militant, but the people knew.

"People Get Ready" is Mayfield's most enduring song, a transcendent gospel melody exhorting people to prepare for the train to salvation on one level, and to freedom in a newly reconfigured America (the Civil Rights Act had just passed) on another level - faith being the only ticket needed for either passage.

After sixteen Top 40 hits with the Impressions, Mayfield went solo in '70, eventually releasing 15 charting and 3 gold albums including his masterpiece, '72's Superfly, a soundtrack to a black action flick, much as Isaac Hayes' career had peaked the year before with the soundtrack to Shaft.

Mayfield composed the entire original score, which superbly accents the excitement and pathos in a story of a drug dealer out for one last big score. Mayfield finds a pusher's swaggering mid-tempo funk groove to define the tone of the soundtrack. "Freddie"s Dead" strikes a perfect balance between sympathy and contempt, with orchestral highs matching thumping bass lows and Mayfield's quavery, delicate voice refusing to look away. The title track is sinewy Latin-tinged street-funk, reminiscent of War, which again sees both sides of a complex character.

After a brilliant career as a solo artist, writer and producer, tragedy struck Mayfield in August of '90 while he performed at an outdoor concert in Brooklyn, NY. High winds dislodged a lighting rig, causing it to collapse on him, damaging his spine and leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. He died of its complications nine years later.