It was the legendary masters of gospel and soul music - the Impressions - that taught this classic to the world in 1964. To those not privy, the Impressions was the group that the great Curtis Mayfield (1942-1999) left (c. 1970) to pursue the solo career that we all know and love. I have rounded up a few covers to illustrate the weight that this song carried in the wake of its revelation. Dig the great Chambers Brothers (which already made it to this website http://withthemisnagdim.blogspot.com/2008/03/this-is-serious-classic.html) and the great Al Green (b. 1946) and his singers & players (date unclear). Then enter the white boys: Jeff Beck (b. 1944) and Rod Stewart (b. 1945) [I apologize for the silly video, its not mine], and an Irish band called U2 (1987) with a guy called Bono (b. 1960) singing and playing guitar (note his identification of Curtis Mayfield at the beginning). Then a son of Bob Marley (1945-1981), Ziggy (b. 1968) performs (1997) the classic on a trite American TV show.
Then I added this from the Master.
