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Earth, Wind & Fire to blow into Cleveland hot to make music in its fourth decade
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
Earth, Wind & Fire.
The band's music is almost as ubiquitous as the elements that make up its name. With more than 35 years of music-making, 20 albums (15 certified gold and eight platinum or better), the songs of the Chicago-bred band and 2000 rock hall inductees have easily passed the ''test of time'' standard of classic pop music and have become woven into the fabric of American pop culture, transcending genre and crossing over into several radio formats.
The band, which will be performing Saturday at the Plain Dealer Pavilion in Cleveland, still spends significant time on the road, filling seats (at least until the audience gets up to dance) at theaters, outdoor sheds and halls around the globe. The band still plays to multigenerational audiences, a positive sign that though it is a veteran act, its music knows no age or language barriers.
''We went to Europe, South America and now we're doing the American leg and it's been great,'' bassist and original member Verdine White said from a tour stop in San Antonio. ''The shows are doing fantastic, the reviews are great and we're seeing a lot of young people, which is great.
''We've been having [young people] across the whole world,'' he continued. ''We played Amsterdam a few months ago and we had 30,000 kids. 30,000! And they love the music. It's the quality of the music as well.''
The band's music, an amalgam of slick funk and R&B with healthy dollops of jazz, African music, disco and gospel, is laced with punchy horn charts, singer/percussionist Philip Bailey's signature falsetto and singer/songwriter/mastermind Maurice White's (Verdine's brother) warm tenor, making its tunes recognizable. But from that musical mixture, EWF music is above all pop music evidenced by a chart history that includes five No. 1 R&B, one No. 1 pop and eight Top 10 pop albums and eight No. 1 R&B singles. But within the smooth toe-tapping grooves of dance fare such as Let's Groove Tonight and Boogie Wonderland are songs with substantive, spiritual and positive concepts, such as the believe-in-yourself anthem Shining Star and the believe-in-the-future ballads That's the Way of the World and Keep Your Head to the Sky, not to mention one of the best slow jams of the 1970s in the Bailey vehicle Reasons.
The band was started as the Salty Peppers in the late '60s/early '70s by Memphis-born Maurice White, who was a house drummer for Chess records laying down beats for recordings by Etta James, saxophonist Sonny Stitt and pianist Ramsey Lewis. White enlisted his bass-playing, prodigiously Afro-ed brother Verdine and changed the name of the band to Earth, Wind & Fire based on his astrological sign Sagittarius.
The band's first few albums were funky and fusion-heavy jams featuring unique musical touches, such as White's fleet fingered solos on the kalimba (also known as the African thumb piano), building a strong following amongst R&B fans.
The 1975 fourth album, That's the Way of the World, was originally a soundtrack album to a film about the music industry starring Harvey Keitel and members of EWF playing ''The Group.''
The movie lasted only a few days in theaters, but the album contained three of EWF's most enduring hits, Reasons, Shining Star and the title track, and shot the band into the mainstream, where the members never looked back.
The live album Gratitude gave new fans a taste of the band's power in concert and still stands as one of the better live albums of the era, featuring the eight-minute extended version of Reasons, which many R&B fans over the age of 35 can still sing from memory. Gratitude also helped cement the live legacy, as the group began to expand spiritual and mystical concepts into the live musical spectacle, complete with laser lights shooting around arenas, giant pyramids and magic tricks that never detracted from EWF being a hell of a live band.
The next three studio albums, Spirit, All 'n All and I Am, finished the decade with more hits, including Getaway, Serpentine Fire, Fantasy, After the Love Is Gone and Boogie Wonderland — the disco-pandering duet with the Emotions.
The band's commercial fortunes waned in the early 1980s, and by the middle of the decade, EWF went on hiatus for a few years while Maurice White produced other artists and Bailey released his second solo album, Chinese Wall, and had a hit with Easy Lover — a duet with and produced by Phil Collins, who was also using the EWF horn section for his own solo records.
Verdine White says now that he doesn't even recall the hiatus, and the band reconvened in 1987 and hasn't stopped recording or touring since. In the mid '90s, it was discovered that Maurice White had Parkinson's disease and he retired from the road, but is still involved behind the scenes and in the studio.
Even without him onstage, the band saw its touring fortunes rise as nostalgia and love of good music brought young and old fans out to see it.
EWF could easily rest on past hits by playing every track on The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire Vol.1 and 2 in concert, collecting the guarantee and moving on to the next town, but the band has continued to record and the reason is simple.
''Because we're musicians,'' Verdine White said matter-of-factly. ''You're constantly evolving. You're constantly working at your craft. You're constantly getting better and so it's just part of the process.''
In 2005, Earth, Wind & Fire — now officially considered Verdine White, Bailey and guitarist Ralph Johnson, a member since 1972 — continued ''the process'' with Illumination. The album was praised as the group's best collection in more than a decade and features songwriting and production assistance from a host of young musicians raised on the band's music. The group enlisted hot names such as Black Eyed Pea leader Will.I.Am, who produced the bouncy opening Lovely People, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on the ballad Pure Gold and Love Dance (used in the film Robots — one of the many EWF songs that have turned up in films over the years).
Former Tony! Toni! Tone! singer/songwriter/producer Raphael Saadiq guests on the classic sounding slow jam How I Feel and the uptempo Latin-flavored Work It Out. Crooner Brian McKnight, Big Boi of Outkast and Kenny G also turn up within the disc's grooves.
Despite all cooks in the musical kitchen, Illumination sounds unmistakably like classic Earth, Wind & Fire with modern touches.
''It was a really great project, a lot of sales and the one thing about it is that the producers really wanted us to be ourselves. You know they all had memories of us,'' White said.
The album garnered the band a Grammy nod. It already has eight Grammy Awards, four American Music Awards, honors from the NAACP and BET and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame among its accolades.
White said that although the band appreciates the awards and shows of respect for its longevity, members are still moving forward and are in talks to begin recording a new album in the fall that will be a three-disc CD/DVD combo, with a disc of all new material, plus a live recording and a live concert DVD that will be released through an exclusive deal with a major retailer, similar to recent deals Wal-Mart has done with veteran acts Journey and the Eagles.
For White, it's all part of the life and musical journey.
''We've done a lot of interesting work, which is great to be able to work for a long time,'' he said.
''This is what you do, it's your life path and people enjoy it. When you have a career and our career has been really up and down, but it's been a great career and not many people have been around as we have. And our career is just like life, it just goes on and on and that's a great motivating factor.
''The work. The work is the thing,'' he said.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
Earth, Wind & Fire.
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