By Michael A. Gonzales

Unlike the deaths of musical icons like Elvis Presley, John Lennon or Michael Jackson, there was not much fanfare when soul brother Curtis Mayfield died—ten years ago on December 26, 1999 —at the North Fulton Regional Hospital in Roswell, Georgia. At the age of fifty-seven, after more than four decades of songwriting, production and performance, the man whose friends nicknamed him “the gentle genius” was gone.

Outside of old soul radio stations, not many seemed to care about Mayfield’s passing. Where were the distraught fans clutching photos of the bespectacled brown-skinned man while candles blew in the winter wind? Where were the urban troubadours strumming songs like “People Get Ready” or “Choice of Colors” on acoustic guitar? Where were the VH1 specials featuring neo-soulsters Lenny Kravitz, D’Angelo, John Legend, Joss Stone, Jill Scott and Maxwell talking how Mayfield’s musical magic—besides the guitar, he played drums, bass, saxophone, and piano—and angelic voice had inspired their own creative spirits?

While Mayfield’s death and subsequent cremation a few days later became nothing more than a footnote in the national consciousness, I sat on the couch in my mom’s Baltimore living room and shed a few tears for the fallen artist. As memories of Mayfield rushed to my head, I was transported back to the Harlem hood of my youth where I first bought the Super Fly soundtrack album at Mr. Freddy’s Soul Shack in 1972, when I was nine.

Bringing it home and placing it on the turntable, the urban blues of Mayfield’s lyricism combined with the wah-wah infused electric funk of his band and the cinematic stereophonic soul of arranger Johnny Pate spilled from the speakers and filled up my life. While the movie wouldn’t be out until a month later, Mayfield’s precise storytelling allowed me to imagine my own ghetto grindhouse crime feature simply by closing my eyes and absorbing his songs. Only later did I come to appreciate the sharp critique of street life he was offering in songs like “Freddie’s Dead” and “Pusher Man.”

After the amazing introduction that was Super Fly, which cultural critic Nelson George has declared “the best album of an amazing era in black music,” I became a follower of all things Mayfield. I learned how he co-founded the Curtom label in 1968, becoming one of the first black musicians to handle his own business, and producing an unbelievable run of great soul music. From the before-my-time classics “Keep On Pushing” and “People Get Ready,” recorded in the 1960s with his former group the Impressions, to his stellar productions of projects by Baby Huey, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Aretha Franklin, Mavis Staples, and countless others, I was enthralled. As a songwriter, Mayfield had a number one hit as recently as 1992 when En Vogue recorded his song “Giving Him Something He Can Feel.”

The Impressions: Curtis Mayfield, Sam Gooden, and Jerry Butler

Grammy-nominated soul singer Maiysha, whose debut This Much is True was a sleeper hit in 2008—and who, like Mayfield, hails from Chicago—sings the man’s praises: “As a vocalist and songwriter, Curtis wrote the kind of songs I could listen to over and over. The arrangements are comforting, the harmonies are gorgeous, and I can’t help but be in awe of his vision.”

Two months before the tragic 1990 accident in Brooklyn’s Wingate Field Park that paralyzed  Mayfield for the rest of his life, I had the pleasure of seeing him perform in Central Park. My colleague, writer Joan Morgan, remembers that June afternoon well: “Not only was Curtis mind blowing, but it was just one of those New York moments so deeply reflective of the city’s magic. The air was filled with the kind of soul power that never gets dated.”

Although Curtis Mayfield has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice (once with the Impressions, and later as a soloist) and won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, when I interviewed him in 1996 for VIBE magazine, none of that seemed to matter.

Sitting next to the kind of hospital bed that he would lay in until his last breath three years later, I asked how he would like to be remembered. “When folks are debating about music or art,” Mayfield mumbled, “I just hope at some point during the argument that someone pulls out one of my albums.” So maybe it’s okay that there’s no big media hoopla marking the tenth anniversary of his death today. Maybe the Gentle Genius would rather that we just… listen.

Bob Marley . Curtis Mayfield . D'Angelo . Elvis Presley . Jill Scott . John Legend . John Lennon . Joss Stone . Lenny Kravitz . Michael Jackson . Prince . R&B . Soul . Super Fly . The Staple Singers . VH1 Featured