At the Heart of Earth, Wind & Fire
Welcome to the wondrous world of an extraordinary musician fascinated by John Coltrane, Elvin Jones, and Miles Davis. His name? Maurice White. He brought his positive and generous visions to life.
“Music is the language of the soul,” Maurice White once said in My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire (Amistad, 2016), the autobiography he co-wrote with Herb Powell. “It conveys a message to those ready to receive it: We dance to the rhythm of the Drum Major, who is the source of our creative spirit. Even as a child, I felt the very same thing. There was always an immense amount of joy associated with the music I listened to. Music touched me to the very core. Having grown up in Memphis in the 1950s, I was exposed to gospel, blues, jazz, Elvis, country music, Mahalia Jackson, and the fathers of modern music: Ray Charles, James Brown, Fats Domino, Little Richard, The Platters, and The Moonglows. As a child, I listened to them all! Later, I was inspired by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bach, Mozart, and Sly & The Family Stone. John Coltrane is the light that illuminated my life. Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield were making important statements. Sly Stone—with whom I worked—moved me with his genius for grooves. The great Charles Stepney, a musical architect of extraordinary talent, became my trusted collaborator. The elements were conspiring deep within me, but I knew that the heart was the key.”
The DJ is inwardly jubilant; he knows the dance floor is about to erupt with joy to the sound of Earth, Wind & Fire. “Do you remember the 21st night of September...”—segueing from “September” into “Boogie Wonderland” is a surefire way to see bodies joyfully possessed by the music, with the whole crowd beginning to belt out the lyrics at the top of their lungs. “If I were DJing a wedding,” he muses with amusement, “this is the moment the napkins would start twirling in the air...” But what he also knows, and never ceases to tell his friends—is that Earth, Wind & Fire’s music cannot be reduced to just these two global hits; they are, in a sense, two trees that hide a lush musical forest. He first discovered Earth, Wind & Fire’s music in 1974, thanks to the astute recommendation of a local record store owner who plucked a colorful-sleeved LP (Last Days and Time) from his “US Imports” bin.
— “You like Santana, jazz, Sly & The Family Stone, and the Headhunters? You’ve got good taste, young man. Here, give this a listen.”
— “Earth, Wind and... Fire? Never heard of them.”
— “That’s to be expected; they haven’t had a hit in France yet. But take my word for it: they’re a fantastic band that blends jazz, funk, soul, and Latin music—with an added African touch.”
— “Really? Then I’m sure I’ll like it. Thanks for the tip!”
— “My pleasure.”
Maurice White—born December 19, 1941, in Memphis, Tennessee—was the founder, creator, and visionary architect of Earth, Wind & Fire. His gangster father, John White—the “Al Capone of Black Memphis” (at least in his own dreams)—died in 1946. His young mother, Edna Parker—barely seventeen when Maurice was born—left Memphis to settle in Chicago, entrusting her son to Elvira Robinson, whom Maurice would call “Mama” for the rest of his life. Mama loved music—Mahalia Jackson and Ray Charles, in particular. Every Sunday and every Wednesday, she took little Maurice to church. Together with his friend David Porter, Maurice sang gospel music at the Rose Hill Baptist Church. He was six years old. (Years later, David Porter would become one of the greatest songwriters of his generation, co-writing—most notably with Isaac Hayes—the hits “Hold On, I’m Comin’” and “Soul Man” for Sam & Dave. But that is another story.)
At age twelve, Maurice received a letter from Edna inviting him to come spend a few days in Chicago. She introduced him to his stepfather, Dr. Adams, and then to Verdine, Geri, Monte, and Patt—his four half-siblings. “Who is he?” they seemed to ask themselves as they looked him over. He returned to Memphis shortly thereafter.
With David Porter, their camaraderie blossomed into a true friendship. At sixteen, they enrolled at Porter Junior High School. It was the era of doo-wop. Maurice loved to sing, but rhythm captivated him even more. When, in 1958, Johnny Otis scored a massive hit with “Willie and the Hand Jive,” Maurice noticed how prominent the groove was in the mix. He took note. And began playing the drums.
But life was hard. To help Mama make ends meet, Maurice took a job as a newspaper delivery boy—sometimes venturing even into the white neighborhoods of Memphis. One day, two police officers beat him up—just like that, for no reason at all—while sneeringly hurling racial slurs at him. In Memphis in the late 1950s, the few Black police officers were not permitted to arrest a white person.
At Porter Junior High School, Maurice met a young saxophonist named Booker T. Jones. Booker T. encouraged him to play the drums even more. A very good idea. (Later, Booker T. Jones—who had by then become an organist—would form Booker T. & The M.G.’s, one of the most significant bands in the history of soul music. But that is another story entirely.)
Through Booker T., Maurice discovered jazz—Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane. And the drummers! Art Blakey, Roy Haynes, Max Roach, and later, Tony Williams and Elvin Jones—his absolute favorite. Legend has it that Maurice White filled in for Elvin Jones in the John Coltrane Quartet for a few gigs around Chicago in the mid-1960s; Elvin was, so the story goes, “indisposed”... At age 20, he graduated from Booker T. Washington High School. In the audience on graduation day, he spotted his mother, who begged him to come back and live with her. Farewell, Memphis; hello again, Chicago.
Maurice White gradually found his footing in the Windy City, beginning to play with local musicians: trombonist Louis Satterfield (who would also become a highly sought-after bassist) and saxophonist Don Myrick—both future members of Earth, Wind & Fire’s formidable horn section. Maurice also played with pianist Fred Humphrey—his mentor, his guru, even. Humphrey introduced him to Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz: “You have to listen to this, Maurice; it will open your mind.” In 1962, another decisive encounter took place—this time with James Mack, the bandleader at Crane Junior College, who encouraged Maurice and his buddies to form a group: The Jazzmen.
But it was while working as a session musician that his musical career truly began to take shape. Initially, this was for Vee-Jay Records: he was the one playing on Betty Everett’s “You’re No Good”—a hit 45-rpm single from 1963 that was later covered by Linda Ronstadt and Van Halen. Shortly thereafter, he learned that Chess Records (the Chicago label) was looking for musicians for its house band. He assembled a thirteen-piece orchestra to audition for the gig. Everything went smoothly. The boss, Leonard Chess, was enthusiastic, but immediately added: “Great job, guys—but we really only need a guitarist, a bassist, and a drummer.” Gerald Sims became the guitarist, Louis Satterfield the bassist, and Maurice White the drummer. A new chapter had begun.
Pianist Ramsey Lewis, a Chess Records star and another of Maurice White’s great mentors, recalled this spirited and determined young musician in his autobiography Gentleman of Jazz: A Life in Music (Blackstone Publishing, 2023), co-written with Aaron Cohen: “I loved the way Maurice played when he was at Chess. It was fiery and intense. And when I needed a new drummer for my trio in 1966, he was a natural choice. He truly changed the color and dynamics of my group, and always brought something fresh and new to the table; he rarely repeated himself, and his touch was subtle.”
Maurice White played on a great number of Chess singles. He was behind the drums on “Rescue Me,” where he channeled what he called his “Motown feel”: that rhythmic power inherited from the great Detroit label, which Chess was, at the time, striving to emulate. In 1966 came his first major breakthrough: he replaced Isaac Holt in the Ramsey Lewis Trio—a group that joyfully blended jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel, as exemplified by the track “Wade in the Water” on the album of the same name. He began earning a much better living and treated himself to a Buick Riviera, which he paid for in cash.
Two years later, Maurice White began working with a future collaborator for Earth, Wind & Fire: the arranger Charles Stepney, who had penned the arrangements for Ramsey Lewis’s new album, Maiden Voyage. In 1970, the Ramsey Lewis Trio was hired by Stepney to back a young soul singer destined for greatness: Minnie Riperton. Her extraordinary ability to soar into the stratosphere with stratospheric high notes—not to mention Stepney’s arrangements—left a mark on the young Maurice, who felt, more keenly than ever, the need to bring his musical visions to life by forming his own band.
“When Maurice confided to me the visions he had for Earth, Wind & Fire,” Ramsey Lewis recalled in Gentleman of Jazz, “he spoke of rock, jazz, rhythm & blues, and... magic. I replied: ‘Maurice, you must have gotten a touch of sunstroke; go home and take an aspirin.’”
More determined than ever, Maurice White read Napoleon Hill’s The Laws of Success—recommended by pianist Fred Humphrey—and committed to paper the principles that would govern “his relationship with the universe,” as he put it in My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire. No drugs, no alcohol, having seen too many careers destroyed by excess in Memphis and in the Chess studios of Chicago. A year before the creation of this magical group that still existed only in his restless mind, Maurice White formed a short-lived combo with two musician friends: the Salty Peppers. They released two 45s to modest success. Then, determined to fly on his own, he left the Ramsey Lewis Trio—a group he could never thank enough for placing him in the spotlight, helping him overcome his shyness, and notably asking him to step to the front of the stage for his thumb piano solo, more commonly known as a kalimba...
Maurice White left Chicago and moved to Los Angeles in April 1970. He asked his brother Verdine, a bassist, to join him. Once there, they lived communally in a small apartment while holding auditions for various musicians. His first real group he would call Earth, Wind & Fire, based on his astrological chart. And perhaps, too, on the name of another ensemble that was already successfully blending jazz with rhythm and blues and pop: Blood, Sweat & Tears.
The music of Earth, Wind & Fire’s early period swung between soul, Afrocentric proto-funk tinged with psychedelia, and jazz digressions; it was, as Maurice White himself described it, “jazz-psycho-funk.” Their self-titled debut LP came out in 1970 (or 1971, depending on the country). And while The Need of Love, the second LP, was already in the pipeline—the executives at Warner Bros. Records wanted to release it quickly—an aspiring filmmaker, Melvin Van Peebles, contacted Maurice White and his bandmates and proposed that they perform the music for his first feature film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Maurice White accepted, and the soundtrack to this unhinged, anti-white-America firebrand would leave a lasting impression—even more so than Earth, Wind & Fire’s first two albums. (Melvin Van Peebles composed it himself, and played the main theme for the first time in front of Maurice White... on a kazoo!) The music of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was not so far removed from that of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, who had scored the soundtrack to a French film around the same time, Les Stances à Sophie, featuring—well, look who it is—Fontella Bass, who had since become the wife of Lester Bowie.
Record store owners did not yet know exactly where to file Earth, Wind & Fire’s albums, so into the jazz bins they went, not far from those of Frank Foster, for example, who had recorded The Loud Minority in 1972 with a young, angry woman named Dee Dee Bridgewater on vocals. Listening to The Loud Minority and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Energy back to back proves that in this period still deeply marked by the Civil Rights Movement, the musical preoccupations of one artist and the next were often very close.
But as one might have feared, Earth, Wind & Fire struggled to find an audience, and Warner Bros. Records brought in a new sales director who made his opinions crystal clear to Perry Jones, the group’s manager: “I don’t like Black groups, and frankly, I don’t like Negroes.” Welcome to the United States. And exit Warner Bros. Records.
This did not, however, prevent Earth, Wind & Fire from asserting its aesthetic and expanding its audience beginning in 1972 with Last Days and Time, their first LP for Columbia, their new record label—one to which they would always remain loyal. Maurice White had dissolved the first lineup to reinvent a new one, still with his brother Verdine. Gradually, the combined arrivals of drummer Freddie White—another brother of Maurice’s who had just toured with Donny Hathaway—keyboardist Larry Dunn, guitarist Al McKay, and of course the fantastic singer Philip Bailey, the man with the crystal falsetto, would allow him to materialize his artistic visions in widescreen fashion, not to mention his signature instrument, the kalimba, which he had already played on the Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song soundtrack and which would always connect him to a kind of fantasized Africa. Earth, Wind & Fire was then touring as the opening act for Uriah Heep, Santana, or Weather Report.
On their next album, Open Your Eyes, recorded at Caribou Ranch—the property of James William Guercio, the producer of Chicago (the group, not the city!)—the influence of Sly & The Family Stone was still quite strong, but the Earth, Wind & Fire “sound” asserted itself even further. The vocal power of Philip Bailey, along with arranger Charles Stepney, the former collaborator from the Chess years, made the difference. And in “Caribou” there surfaced another major influence: Brazilian music. “I can still hear all the excitement in his voice after Earth, Wind & Fire had just opened for Sly & The Family Stone in Philadelphia,” Ramsey Lewis recalled in Gentleman of Jazz. “He was on the phone, and he was breathless. He told me the crowd had gone crazy, that they had demanded encore after encore. That’s when I realized just how devoted, body and soul, he was to his group.”
In 1975, Maurice White was contacted once again by a film producer—the very same one who had financed Superfly, the Blaxploitation film for which Curtis Mayfield had composed the unforgettable soundtrack. Earth, Wind & Fire recorded several songs for That’s the Way of the World, a film starring Harvey Keitel. The movie was a resounding flop; the accompanying album, however, was a massive success that propelled Earth, Wind & Fire into a new artistic and commercial dimension—in the United States, That’s the Way of the World actually outsold the latest releases from Pink Floyd and Barbra Streisand! The crossover was complete: Earth, Wind & Fire’s music now appealed to audiences of all stripes.
And—as was often the case in the 1970s whenever a band scored a major hit—their record label released a double live album. Gratitude would prove to be one of the most memorable live albums of its era, featuring three live sides and a fourth recorded in the studio—an idea that Weather Report, notably, would adopt four years later for their album 8:30. Given that Earth, Wind & Fire and Weather Report shared the same management duo—Bob Cavallo and Joseph Ruffalo—this likely explains the connection.
On stage, the musicians’ outfits were as flamboyant as their music, and the magic Maurice White had promised Ramsey Lewis back in the late 1960s was very much present—orchestrated by the illusionist Doug Henning, whose assistant happened to be a certain David Copperfield. Verdine White took flight and played upside down; Freddie White’s drum kit spun on its own axis.
The classics from That’s the Way of the World haven’t aged a day—the ultra-funky “Shining Star,” or the sublime ballad performed by Philip Bailey, “Reasons,” which quickly became a moment of communion between the singer and his fans. “We were an R&B band. We were a jazz band. We were a pop band. We were a world music band. We were an Afro-Cuban band. We felt the power of our musical diversity. And our audience felt it too,” Maurice White wrote in My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire. The final thirty seconds of “See the Light”—the closing track on That’s the Way of the World—rank among the most astonishing moments in Earth, Wind & Fire’s entire discography.
Touring, writing, recording, touring... The pressure mounted, yet the quality remained consistently high with Spirit; Earth, Wind & Fire refined its crossover blend—direct and flamboyant, the music was nonetheless complex and sophisticated. Those famous grooves—fusing funk and disco—were fast becoming their trademark, not to mention those precision-engineered horn arrangements, which always left ample room for soloists—saxophonist Andrew Woolfolk, for instance, shines on the instrumental track “Biyo.” As for the phenomenal “Getaway”—which opens the album—it encapsulates, in just a few minutes, all the musical brilliance that would go on to set a standard for countless other bands. The only somber note: Charles Stepney died of a heart attack, leaving his friends feeling orphaned. Would they ever recover from this sudden loss?
The unthinkable happened in 1977: Earth, Wind & Fire outdid themselves once again with All ‘N’ All. Housed in a legendary sleeve—every bit as striking as the cover of The Mystery of the Great Pyramid by Blake and Mortimer—the album’s eleven tracks weave between funk, soul, gospel, and Brazilian music. And to top it all off, this sonic pyramid contains another solid-gold hit: “Fantasy,” arranged by another Chicago musician, Thomas Clay Washington—a.k.a. Tom Tom 84. The art of sonic production is elevated to a state of sheer incandescence. Learned, sophisticated, and accessible—yet simultaneously spiritual and romantic—these songs set dance floors and radio airwaves ablaze across the four corners of the globe. And much like Stevie Wonder’s work, their music captivated jazz musicians, from George Duke to Mark Colby and Weather Report. As for Philip Bailey, he continued to sing with undiminished conviction at dizzying altitudes—the kind, as the saying goes, that give you a nosebleed. The brief interlude “Beijo” gradually attained cult status and became a signature trademark of the band. “Brazilian Rhyme,” meanwhile, is an instrumental adaptation of Milton Nascimento’s “Ponte de Areia”—a track that sounds like a subtle nod to Native Dancer, the album Wayne Shorter had just recorded with that brilliant Rio de Janeiro native.
By 1978, it was time to catch their breath; Maurice White was on the verge of exhaustion. Consequently—as is customary for any band selling millions of albums—Earth, Wind & Fire released a Best Of compilation. The collection featured their cover of “Got to Get You into My Life”—a rendition that some listeners actually prefer to the Beatles’ original version. Sacrilege? No—rather, clear-sightedness; and to boost sales, an irresistible, previously unreleased song: “September”—destined for the global success we all know so well (people will still be dancing to “September” centuries from now). And as if that weren’t enough, the very next album, I Am, features the group’s other global classic, “Boogie Wonderland”—not to mention the instrumental track that would set the rhythm for the opening credits of the Sunday-night movie on French television for years to come: “In the Stone.”
In the early 1980s, the adventure continued; Maurice White harbored ambitions of grandeur—specifically, of creating a double studio album, much like Stevie Wonder had done in 1976 with Songs in the Key of Life. Yet, despite its undeniable quality, the ambitious Faces failed to achieve the same level of success as its predecessors. Not a single track managed to scale the heights of the charts—a rare occurrence for the band, and one they had grown unaccustomed to! And in that era, an album without a hit single—especially a double album—was akin to a train without a locomotive.
The following year, Maurice White returned to his roots: a striking cover featuring an Egyptological aesthetic, and a standard-length album—Raise!—driven by elastic grooves. With it, he rediscovered the keys to global success thanks to “Let’s Groove.” It may not be Earth, Wind & Fire’s most subtle composition, but it possesses a dance-floor efficacy that is nothing short of formidable. Meanwhile, as Philip Bailey began to embark on a solo voyage, Larry Dunn and Verdine White offered their services as producers to the English band Level 42.
In 1984, Maurice White threw in the towel, disbanded Earth, Wind & Fire, and launched a solo career of his own—albeit without much success. His sole solo album failed to leave a lasting impression. Consequently, in 1987, he reassembled his flagship band and returned with a highly successful album: Touch the World. This sonic makeover did not necessarily appeal to those nostalgic for the “golden era” of Earth, Wind & Fire; however, by 1987, the 1970s felt like a distant memory, so it made sense to ground the music firmly in the sonic reality of the eighties. Maurice White and Earth, Wind & Fire were no longer blazing new sonic trails, but rather adapting to the prevailing sounds of the moment. The production style on Touch the World is reminiscent of the work of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis—the new mentors behind Michael Jackson’s younger sister, Janet.
On the 1990 album Heritage, Maurice White invited his hero—his ultimate role model—Sly Stone, to join him. Then, on Millennium—released in 1993—another great admirer of Sly Stone stepped in to lend a hand to Earth, Wind & Fire, who were, alas, losing momentum. His name was Prince, and he composed a song for them that bore his unmistakable signature. Although the track was titled “Super Hero,” Maurice had just learned that he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. A harsh return to reality. The ill wind of fate was blowing.
Maurice White passed away on February 4, 2016. Yet the sacred fire is eternal; it will forever remain the legacy of a band unlike any other—one that, through the grace of its leader, managed to infuse its music with the spirit of jazz, and return to that music’s very roots: dance.