Move on up

[jsmith]

It's strange how some songs resonate around the world & yet they never really got the recognition they deserved back where they were made.
In the UK, Europe & most of the rest of the world, the most successful Curtis Mayfield song / recording was his early solo effort MOVE ON UP.
It was m massive pop chart hit in the UK immediately it was lifted from his album to form a UK 45 A side. It headed straight for the UK Top 20 and was on the charts here for 10 weeks in 1971 -- it peaked @ #12 on our pop charts.
It became an instant radio / club hit too & the song was soon accepted as a masterpiece.
In the US it never was a hit track. Because of it's anthem status in the UK, many top acts did cover versions. Paul Weller [[the Jam / Style Council) soon started performing it live, he has recorded it a number of times & still included it in his live act. There have been many other UK covers of the song. You can't beat Curtis's original but many covers run it close.
There was even a disco version which did well in the clubs everywhere & sold well / making it onto the US disco charts. The disco group were a US outfit & they had more commercial success with the song than I believe Curtis ever did in the US [[though his LP that it was on was a massive seller / album chart hit).

when l

[jsmith]

Paul Weller again ...

[jsmith]

The song has been sampled in more recent times ...
here's the disco version [[far from my favourite version) ...

[jsmith]

Another UK cover version [[again not great) ...

[jsmith]

It's a song that lots of groovy outfits have to included in their live shows ...

[jsmith]

Curtis doing it live himself ...

[jsmith]

A prat sampling Curtis' classic to form a song he did ...

[jsmith]

analysing the song ...

[jsmith]

Reggae version ..

[jsmith]

Yet another decent cover ...

[jsmith]

An organ instro version ...

[jsmith]

Candy Dulfer sax's it up ...

[Boogiedown]

Thanks for a great post on an unlikely song!




You've singled out a very favorite of mine also jsmith, but
its due to the version you least like.



I was DJing at the time the Destination version came out [the promo was on a very rare and beautiful vinyl color: clear purple]. The song seemed to be an instant floor pleaser....for one thing this is right during the disco glut ....and so much of what was coming out was this high BPM 130+ stuff geared toward being played at the night's peak. The intro and break of MOVE ON UP made it very easy to segue in or out of a number of other favorites, which is always good for keeping them dancing on the floor.

Now again this was during the glut when all the big boys like CBS and Warners were flooding the market with product, so it was always nice to see the little guys [and ones like Butterfly especially since they were dedicated to the disco genre] strut themselves to the top. And MOVE ON UP wasn't just sort of liked by the crowds ....it was #1 for 4 weeks!! [blocking Michael Jackson]

I had no idea this was a remake of an older song until twenty something years later. [Who would've? The song was never a US hit.]

The Destination version has a bit of a story attached to it that involves an unlikely pairing of an escapee from a volatile Iran and Curtis Mayfield himself:

More on that as time allows, stay tuned!!

[Sotosound]

The original UK single contained an edit, and faded before the end of 'part 1'.

A subsequent reissue in the late 70s [[IIRC) ran up until the end of part 1 with the dead stop and, tbh, I've never heard the full-length version on radio.

The full-length version includes a 'part 2', which resumes the groove after part 1's dead stop, and that part 2 is effectively a joyous jam [[in the true sense of a jam) based around the track's main groove.

For anyone who has only ever heard the first three or four minutes of the track, that whole sequence of stop, restart, and jam can be a wonderful surprise, and it rewards me repeatedly.