Curtis Mayfield - (Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Going To Go (1970)

"... 'Hell Below,' [Curtis] Mayfield’s debut single as a solo artist, was released soon after he stepped down as the leader of the beloved soul group, The Impressions. The song also opens Curtis, his first solo album. Always a deliberate and self-aware artist, he didn’t choose randomly. He’d already steered The Impressions toward funkier, more conscious material—most notably on 1968’s This Is My Country and 1969’s The Young Mods’ Forgotten Story—but as a solo artist, he wanted to make a fresh impression beyond The Impressions. 'Hell Below' certainly did that. While The Impressions had shown occasional flashes of darkness or outrage, Mayfield’s sweet, silky tenor sounded more pleading than pummeling. It didn’t help that the diminutive, baby-faced Mayfield—whose bucktoothed smile is plastered on almost every Impressions LP—kind of looked like a teddy bear. On 'Hell Below,' though, he comes out like a grizzly. A feral bass line launches the song, growling and loping along like a wounded animal. On top of it, a Tower-Of-Babel clamor of voices—some gibbering like TV news, others pushing The Book Of Revelation—twist the mood from bestial to biblical. Then Mayfield steps up. To listeners in 1970, it must have been jolting. ..."
Curtis Mayfield, “(Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Going To Go” (Video)
W - "(Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Going To Go"
Genius (Audio)
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YouTube: ‎(Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below We're All Going To Go

2013 June: Roots (1971), 2014 May: Super Fly (1972), 2014 July: There's No Place Like America Today (1975), 2014 September: Back to the World (1973), 2014 October: Omnibus (1995), 2015 March: "Freddie's Dead" (1972)