We continue our theme of travel today with “People Get Ready” a 1965 single by the Impressions, and the title track from the People Get Ready. The single is the group’s best-known hit, reaching number 14 on the Billboard. The gospel-influenced track was a Curtis Mayfield composition that displayed the growing sense of social and political awareness in his writing.
Curtis Mayfield was displaying a growing sense of social and political awareness in his writing at the time. Mayfield said, That was taken from my church or from the upbringing of messages from the church. Like there’s no hiding place and get on board, and images of that sort. I must have been in a very deep mood of that type of religious inspiration when I wrote that song.
The song is the first Impressions hit to feature Mayfield’s guitar in the break. “People Get Ready” is in a long tradition of Black American freedom songs that use train imagery, such as “Wade in the Water”, and the Gospel Train”. The idea comes from the spiritualist idea that once one dies the soul goes in a journey to the afterlife.
Rolling Stone magazine named “People Get Ready” the 24th Greatest Song of All Time and also placed it at number 20 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. The song was included in the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. “People Get Ready” was named as one of the Top 10 Best Songs Of All Time by Mojo music magazine, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.
In 2015, the song was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry due to its “cultural, historic, or artistic significance”. Martin Luther King Jr. named the song the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement and often used the song to get people marching or to calm and comfort them.
The song became a classic that has influenced a wide range of artists from country singers through British, American and Australian pop and rock artists to reggae star Bob Marley who recorded an interpretation of “People Get Ready” as “One Love/People Get Ready” in 1965 and again in 1977. Others who have recorded the song include Eva Cassidy, The Persuasions and the Staple Singers.
