Earth, Wind and Fire play Cleveland

Earth, Wind and Fire play Cleveland

Their list of accomplishments reads like no other musical group over the past half century:

Six-time Grammy Award winners, 23 recorded albums of which eight became double platinum, eight number one R&B  singles, 90 million records sold, performances on five continents and for two US presidents, performances at Nobel Peace Prize and Olympic ceremonies, at Super Bowls, inductees into the Rock and Roll HOF, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and this month induction into the Song Writers’ HOF.

Tonight, the legendary kings of R&B/Pop, Earth, Wind & Fire, will bring their world-famous grooves to the Time Warner Amphitheatre for a two-hour performance at Tower City, Cleveland.

“It’s gonna be high energy,” previewed the EWF bass master Verdine White. “The water is a gonna be great. We will be playing for two hours, and it will just be us”.

The band which defined the cross-over sound of 70s R&B with pop music, is in the midst of a 38-show tour, and despite the  aging of its band members, there appears to be no quit in the group many critics consider one of the top musical acts of the modern era.

“We will be in Europe this summer and those shows are already sold out,” noted White. “We’ll go back in the studio and be ready for 2011. We are also doing something really different in September.

That something will be capping off the current tour with a show at the fabled Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The band has come a long way, and appears to be going much further, even after nearly four decades.

One can trace the roots of this cultural iconic group back to its formative years growing up in the Midwest back in the 50s and 60s.

Verdine grew up in Chicago and his doctor father Verdine Sr. had plans for his son to become a doctor as well. He began studying the upright bass as a teen and as Verdine said once told the story, “The instrument was standing alone in the corner, tall, mysterious and majestic … it called me and the love affair began.”

After performing several years with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he got the call from his older brother Maurice who had been making a reputation as an R&B performer. The two would lead Earth, Wind & Fire through its high-water mark of the mid 70s.

For more than 35 years, EWF performed on five continents, playing before millions of fans. The band built its soulful pop sound from Maurice’s perfection of Kalimba, a South African thumb piano and expanded to a full band sound that combined pop rhythms and soulful lyrics and of course the funky and rich back bass beats of Verdine’s bass.

Having played easily over a thousand shows over the course of near four decades, White is still enjoying playing live, and each new honor such as the Song Writer HOF induction, is no exception.

“It’s way up there. You are talking about getting awards for soundtracks and songs that you’ve written – that is a pretty big thing,’ he acknowledges. “If you just get one great song that’s one thing, but to have several songs and people recognize that and they respect for that is a great thing.”

What separated EWF from other R&B groups of the late 60s and early 70s is the music which inspired the Whites.

“Maurice listened to a lot of everybody,” White recalls.” I listened to a lot of his work that he did on Chess (Records), Ramsey (Lewis Trio). I listened to The Beatles, Abbey Road, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, all the milder stuff, Chick Corea.

“We listened to, as well as Motown and commercial things that were happening in the Midwest.  Had I think, we lived in New York, we’d be more jazzers, you know.  I think by being in the Midwest, we were able to play all types.”

Another key White notes is the timing of when EWF broke out. The Civil Rights movement of the Sixties broke some barriers; the more pop culture began to open its collective ears to a variety of more sounds, like Motown and more urban music.

“The timing was perfect. If we had come out 10 years earlier we would have been ahead of our time. We would have been lost. We really made it in 1974. In 1964 you had Warner Brother and Columbia Records, but you didn’t have Clive Davis that signed groups like us.”

Davis gave African-American artists the break needed to be signed, play before more diverse popular American audiences and on more mainstream radio, as well. Along with EWF, Davis was instrumental in getting (Kenny( Gamble and (Leon) Huff ( of the Philadelphia soul sound who wrote for such groups as The O’Jays, the Trammps, Harold and the Blue Notes, The Jacksons and Jerry Butler)and Herbie Hancock. And it was Davis who would buy out the band’s Warner Brother contract and move them over to his Columbia Records where EWF would produce 10 of its 19 studio albums.

“Clive really had the gusto because he understood where the music scene was going, and he had the courage to do it, too,” credits White, now 59. “The only game in town during that time was Motown. Don’t forget he discovered Santana, and they weren’t getting any national play either at that time.”

“So I think our time was good perfect and I think the records we made before that didn’t get us any play were good for us cuz it gave us the opportunity to develop the sound. It takes a couple of years to find out what that sound is, your voice.”

In 1969, then Chess Records session drummer Maurice White, having played with groups such as the Ramsey Lewis Trio, decided to form his own group, the Salty Peppers which would record marginal hits “La La La Time” and “Uh Hah Yeah”. A year later, after the elder White recruited Verdine on bass and a host of other musicians EWF was born.

Maurice began shopping demos of his new group around the Midwest along with songs by Donny Hathaway. Soon Warner Brothers would sign the new act. The band’s first two albums, the self-titled Earth, Wind and Fire and The Need of Love quickly hit the streets and became instant R&B hits.

The band played on legendary movie producer Melvin Van Peebles’s Sweet, Sweetback, Baadasssss Song” movie soundtrack.  Despite this national exposure, band members became restless and just as things were on track, Maurice and Verdine found themselves looking for new supporting players.

After much soul-searching the White brothers set forth to fill a new lineup which as fate would have it, would turn out to be the EWF that solidified the group as a super group.

In 1972 Maurice added to the band vocalist Jessica Cleaves, Ronnie Laws on the flute and the saxophone, rhythm guitarist Roland Bautista, keyboardist Larry Dunn, percussionist Ralph Johnson and vocalist and Denver native Philip Bailey. Within a year, Laws and Bautista left and the void was filled by sax player Andrew Woolfolk, and guitarist Andy McKay and the album Head to the Sky was produced with hit singles, “Evil” and “Keep Your Head to the Sky”. The album would garner the band’s first mainstream pop hit, “Mighty, Might” which would climb to No. 29 on the pop chart.

The album also saw the inclusion of drummer and third White brother Fred, who had been playing with Little Feat and Donny Hathaway.

Things really broke open for EWF in 1974 when after having performed in and recorded music for the soundtrack to the low budget That’s the Way of the World, produced by Super Fly producer Sig Shore. The movie explored the darker side of the recording industry, and despite its lack of success, inspired EWF to release the movie soundtrack which would become its breakout album.

Songs “Shining Star” and the title track “That’s the Way of the World” provided EWF as the first African-American act to top both the pop album and singles chart. The success of the band allotted them the opportunity to add a full horn section, and thus the Phenix Horns,  composed of saxophonist Don Myrick, trombonist Louis Satterfield, both from Maurice’s Chicago session dates, and trumpeters Rahmlee Davis and Michael Harris filled out the lineup.

Having arrived as a legitimate live super group, the bands elaborated its stage production loaded with pyrotechnics, magic, laser lights, flying pyramids, levitating guitarists and elaborate production tricks that included the entire group ascending in a pyramid and a disappearing act. It used the magical production of magician Doug Henning who directed many of their tours throughout the 1970s with his young assistant, David Copperfield. The group also used the opportunity to begin wearing colorful and cultural costumes on stage that paid homage to it s Egyptian/African roots.

November 1977, the group released another studio LP, All ‘N All. Starting with this album, the Japanese artist Shusei Nagaoka began doing the artwork and the illustrations for several of Earth, Wind & Fire’s album covers.

With its Egyptian/African themed album cover, All ‘N All featured the hit singles “Serpentine Fire” and “Fantasy“, and has achieved triple platinum status. In 1978, EWF picked up three Grammy Awards, the third for their version of The Beatles’ “Got to Get You into My Life“. This song, as well as the band, was featured in the movie, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. The film itself was a commercial bomb; however, “Got to Get You into My Life” was the biggest hit from the movie’s soundtrack, reaching numbers one and nine on the R&B and Pop singles charts, respectively.

The year ended with another hit single, “September“, which was added to the quintuple platinum compilation album, The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1, and was released November 23, 1978, just four days before Thanksgiving.

1979 also saw the release of I Am, the group’s ninth album, their seventh for Columbia and their second to be released on the ARC label. Songs from the album included “In the Stone”, “Can’t Let Go” and the much-anticipated, but sad ballad, “After the Love Has Gone” by David Foster, which went to the number 2 spot on the Billboard Pop and R&B charts and won for the Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group at the Grammy Awards of 1980.

By 1979 the band had begun touring overseas, performing as headliners shows in Europe and Japan. And, though the band had given much credence the growing disco sounds, that summer of 1979 found EWF topping the dance music charts with “Boogie Wonderland“, which was produced by Maurice and Al McKay, and featured The Emotions.

Even with the song’s success, Verdine White claimed to Alex Henderson of allmusic.com, that band is not a disco band, saying “I guess you could say we were at the party but didn’t get on the dance floor”.

The double-album Faces, the group’s tenth album, was released October 1980 and went gold the platinum Raise!, EWF’s eleventh album was released in the fall of 1981 and it featured their million selling hit single “Lets Groove“, and the Grammy Award winning “Wanna Be with You“.

Powerlight was released in early 1983 and included the hit singles “Fall in Love with Me” a number 17 pop hit, and “Side By Side.” “Powerlight” went gold. Also in 1983, Earth, Wind & Fire contributed the song “Dance, Dance, Dance” to the soundtrack of the animated film Rock & Rule. Maurice put the band on hiatus in 1983 after the synthesized Electric Universe was released in late 1983 to a poor critical and commercial reception. Maurice White attributes the album’s lack of success to its release so quickly after Powerlight

The band would reunite several times, over the next several years, recording and maintain a level of success, and by the mid-90s Maurice stopped performing regularly with the band, focusing his efforts on producing new talents. He would work with Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, Cher, Minnie Riperton, The Emotions and Denice Williams, and even the rock band the Tubes.

Meanwhile, Verdine would also make a name for himself as a producer, working with Level 42 and The Emotions, and by producing his own instructional videos on bass playing Rhythm of the Earth-Advanced Bass Techniques. He even played on Jennifer Lopez’s CD “The Reel Me”.

But EWF would continue on.

But no one project brought more satisfaction aside from his EWF efforts than some of his philanthropic work. White is the co-founder of The Wright Life Art Center for Youth, which helps underprivileged and at-risk youth to become musicians through scholarships and grants.

“It’s going really great. We put a studio in there. We’re sending about 50 kids to the Grand Canyon this year. We sent 50 kids last year to the White House. So it’s going really good.”

When it comes to his own playing abilities and bass craftsmanship, White simply says, “I hold a groove.”

White says the contemporaries that he listens to and respects are many, but to name a few, he lists Marcus Miller, his great friend the infamous Stanley Clarke, and a new player named Esperanza Spaulding of New Jersey who plays the upright bass in her band Freshness Times Five.

White says much has changed in the recording industry since those high watermark days of the 70s.

“When we started it was multi-track,” he notes. “It went from four-track to eight-track to 32-track and then back to 24-track. The technology has been the biggest change since EWF began,” White says.

But what is most important to White is what makes successful music.

“The key is, it is good,” he simplifies. “Will people like it? Will people remember it, can you sing it when it’s over.  You (as the musician) might not like it at first, but the audience likes it; the key is to stay open.”

Illuminations was the last studio effort by EWF in 2005, and it peaked at No., 8 on the Billboard R&B chart and 32 on the Top 200 chart. The band has plans already to record its next album, and the process of creating has begun already, even as they are in mid tour.

While many a musician began following more astrological projections and Eastern philosophies in the 70s White says today it is not about naming any credos or philosophies, but rather, “It was once called cosmic consciousness and now it is about just being open.”

While White is far from hanging up the bass, he does have a perspective of looking back over time and seeing what he appreciates most, married and father of a son, White simply says, “You mature when you have children, and nieces and nephews, and you have friends from back in the day. You learn to value them and that you can live long enough to have all of those kinds of things around you.”

White follows a strict regiment of eating healthy foods, practicing yoga and working out to keep him fit for the rigors of travel and touring, and he is not the only musician who follows such a path.

“You gotta hit the gym. I think entertainers are in much better shape than they once were.  I think sometimes entertainers get a bad rap for staying up all night. But, you’d be surprised at really how many entertainers are taking care of themselves.”

What makes what EWF does still to this day, is they have been doing it for so long. Many of today’s top performers have named EWF as a top influence, including: Usher, Beyonce and Prince.  Alicia Keys proclaims that EWF is “the best band ever.”  Mary J. Blige has showed her appreciation to the band by re-recording one of the bands hit songs “Imagination.”

The Black Eyed Peas took the stage with EWF with a performance at the XXIX Super Bowl, and then an encore by opening the 57th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

So while White and EWF keep thriving with live shows and recording, it is hard to say when the ride will truly end. One gets the feeling that despite nearly 35 years of grooving, digging their own sound, and giving back to community that it will not be anytime soon that the flames that burn bright for EWF will die down.

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