The Impressions (American band)

For the Australian rock group, see The Impressions (Australian band).

The Impressions were an American music group from Chicago, active from 1958 until 1983, whose repertoire included doo-wop, gospel, soul, and R&B.

The group was founded as The Roosters by Chattanooga, Tennessee natives Sam Gooden, Richard Brooks, and Arthur Brooks, who moved to Chicago and added Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield to their lineup to become Jerry Butler & the Impressions. By 1962, Butler and the Brookses had departed, and after switching to ABC-Paramount Records, Mayfield, Gooden, and new Impression Fred Cash collectively became a top-selling soul act. Mayfield left the group for a solo career in 1970; Leroy Hutson, Ralph Johnson, Reggie Torian, and Nate Evans were among the replacements who joined Gooden and Cash before the group's demise in 1983.

Inductees into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, The Impressions are best known for their 1960s string of hits, many of which were heavily influenced by gospel music and served as inspirational anthems for the Civil Rights Movement.

History

Early years

Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield met while singing in the same Chicago church choir. After singing in a number of local gospel groups, the two of them joined a doo-wop group called "The Roosters" in 1957, whose members included Chattanooga, Tennessee natives Sam Gooden, Richard Brooks, and his brother Arthur. By 1958, The Roosters had a new manager in Eddie Thomas, a record deal with Vee-Jay Records, and a new name: "Jerry Butler & the Impressions".

The group's first hit single was 1958's "For Your Precious Love", which hit #11 on the US pop charts and #3 on the R&B charts. However, soon after the release of the R&B Top 30 hit "Come Back My Love", Butler left the group from a successful solo career. After briefly touring with the now-solo Butler as his guitarist, Curtis Mayfield became the group's new lead singer and songwriter, and Fred Cash was appointed as the new fifth member.

The Mayfield-led years

ABC-Paramount Records success

Mayfield wrote a number of Butler's early solo hits, and used the money to get The Impressions to move to New York City. There, they got a new deal with ABC-Paramount Records in 1961, and released their first post-Butler single. That single, "Gypsy Woman", was their biggest single to date, hitting #2 on the R&B charts and #20 on the pop chart. Successive singles failed to match "Gypsy Woman"'s success, and Richard and Albert Brooks ended up leaving the group in 1962.

The Impressions returned to Chicago as a trio, and soon aligned themselves with producer Johnny Pate, who helped to update their sound a create a more lush soul sound for the group. The result was "It's All Right", a 1963 gold single that topped the R&B charts and made it to #4 on the pop charts, and became one of the group's signature songs. "It's All Right" and "Gypsy Woman" were the anchors of The Impressions' first LP, 1963's The Impressions.

1964 brought the first of Mayfield's Black pride anthem compositions, "Keep on Pushing". Future Mayfield compositions would feature more and more of a social and political awareness, including the following year's major hit and the group's best-known song, the gospel-influenced "People Get Ready", which hit #3 on the R&B charts and #14 on the pop charts.

Increasing social consciousness

In the mid-1960s, The Impressions, anxious to compete with Motown acts such as The Temptations and The Four Tops, began appropriating the Motown Sound into their work, but their fortunes fell instead of rising. After 1965's "Woman's Got Soul", The Impressions wouldn't reach the R&B Top Ten for three more years, finally scoring in 1968 with the #9 "I Loved and Lost". "We're a Winner", which hit #1 on the R&B charts that same year, represented a new level of social awareness in Mayfield's music. Mayfield created his own label, Curtom, and moved The Impressions to the label. Over the next two years, more Impressions message tracks, including the #1 R&B hit "Choice of Colors" (1969) and the #3 "Check Out Your Mind" (1970), became big hits for the group.

After Mayfield's departure

After the release of the Check Out Your Mind LP in 1970, Mayfield left the group and began a successful solo career, the highlight of which was writing and producing the Superfly soundtrack. He continued to write and produce for The Impressions, who remained on Curtom. Leroy Hutson was the first new lead singer for the group following Mayfield's departure, but success eluded The Impressions, and Hutson left the group in 1973. New members Ralph Johnson and Reggie Torian replaced Hutson, and The Impressions had three R&B Top 5 singles in 1974 - 1975: the #1 "Finally Got Myself Together (I'm a Changed Man)", and the #3 singles "Same Thing it Took" and "Sooner or Later". In 1976, The Impressions left Curtom and Mayfield behind for Cotillion Records, and had their final major hit with "Loving Power". The same year, Ralph Johnson was replaced with Nate Evans, who remained in the group for three years, during which time The Impressions switched to 20th Century Records. Singles and albums sales continued to slip, and Evans left in 1979, reducing the group to a trio. Their final album, Fan the Flames, was released in 1981, and Reggie Torian, Fred Cash, and Sam Gooden (who remained in the group throughout its entire existence) disbanded two years later.

Since the early-1980s, The Impressions periodically rebanded in various formats, usually recreating the classic lineup of Mayfield, Gooden, and Cash, and sometimes including Jerry Butler in the lineup. On August 14, 1990, Mayfield was severely injured when lighting equipment fell on him during an on-stage performance. Paralyzed from the neck down, he could no longer play and could barely sing. He eventually was able to make a brief, well-received, comeback in 1997 with his New World Order album, and he died in Roswell, Georgia, on December 26 1999 at the age of 57.

The Impressions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. The members who got to take part in this honor, as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, were Sam Gooden, Jerry Butler, Richard Brooks , Curtis Mayfield. Arthur Brooks, and Fred Cash.

The group performs today, with Fred Cash, Sam Gooden, and Reggie Torian.

Personnel

For a detailed listing of the various versions of the group, see Impressions chronology.

• Jerry Butler (1958 - 1960)
• Curtis Mayfield (1958 - 1970)
• Sam Gooden (1958 - present)
• Arthur Brooks (1958 - 1962)
• Richard Brooks (1958 - 1962)
• Fred Cash (1960 - present)
• Leroy Hutson (1970 - 1973)
• Ralph Johnson (1973 - 1976)
• Nate Evans (1976 - 1979)
• Reggie Torian (1973 - present)

Discography

Albums

• 1963: The Impressions
• 1964: Keep on Pushing
• 1964: The Never Ending Impressions
• 1965: One by One
• 1965: People Get Ready
• 1966: Ridin' High
• 1967: The Fabulous Impressions
• 1968: We're a Winner
• 1968: This Is My Country
• 1969: The Young Mods' Forgotten Story
• 1969: The Versatile Impressions
• 1969: Amen
• 1970: Check out Your Mind!
• 1972: Times Have Changed
• 1973: Preacher Man
• 1974: Finally Got Myself Together
• 1974: Three the Hard Way
• 1975: First Impressions
• 1975: Sooner or Later
• 1976: It's About Time
• 1976: Originals
• 1976: Loving Power
• 1979: Come to My Party
• 1981: Fan the Fire

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