Song of the Day: Mavis Staples, “Chocolate City”

Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby did a series of movies in the ’70’s: Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Let’s Do It Again (1975), and A Piece Of The Action (1977). A Piece Of The Action was filmed in Chicago, and some of the scenes were shot on State Street between Chicago Avenue and Pearson Street, very close to Loyola University’s downtown campus, where I spent a good portion of the summer, and we were able to watch some of the goings-on.

Anyway, the music for that movie was written by Curtis Mayfield and some of the songs were sung by Mavis Staples, including "Chocolate City," which came at the beginning of the movie. It wasn’t released as a single, but the soundtrack album received high marks from Billboard.