Earth, Wind & Fire
The boy who once played drums in Memphis brought jazz and funk, the African thumb piano and visions of the cosmos together on a single stage.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
Companions ⏳🌊
- FamilyVerdine White
Maurice's younger brother, he answered his brother's call in 1970 and held down the bass for more than half a century.
- MentorRamsey Lewis
Leader of the trio Maurice played in for nearly three years, he taught him that jazz and popular appeal could coexist.
- CollaboratorCharles Stepney
A bond dating back to the Chess Records days, he served as co-producer and arranger from 1974 until his death in 1976.
- PatronClive Davis
The label chief who saw them perform in 1972, bought out their contract from Warner and opened the Columbia era.
- ColleaguePhilip Bailey
A Denver-born singer who joined in 1972; his falsetto became the face of the group's sound, and he led the group even after Maurice's death.
- ColleaguePhil Collins
He produced Bailey's solo album during the band's hiatus and sang “Easy Lover” with him, scoring a major hit.
I. The drummer from Memphis · 1941–1969
(Formation) In 1969, in Chicago, Illinois, a twenty-seven-year-old drummer named Maurice White formed a group called the Salty Peppers with songwriters Wade Flemons and Don Whitehead. The following year, in Los Angeles, this small group would take the name Earth, Wind & Fire. But the roots of the story lay farther south, in Memphis, Tennessee. (Grandmother) Born in Memphis in December 1941, Maurice White was raised mostly by his grandmother in a public housing project in South Memphis. His mother left early for Chicago, where she remarried, to a physician named Verdine Adams. The boy Maurice sang in church and lost himself in music, pounding on drums alongside his neighbor and friend Booker T. Jones. Booker T. would later become one of the defining players of Memphis soul. (Chicago) In his late teens he moved to Chicago, where his mother lived, and studied composition and percussion at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. The new household included Verdine White, ten years his junior, and the still younger Fred White. Both brothers would later take up bass and drums in their older brother's band. (Chess) In the mid-1960s he worked as a session drummer, hired to play on recordings at Chess Records, the great house of blues and soul. His drumming survives on Fontella Bass's “Rescue Me” and on recordings by Billy Stewart, among others. It was here that he first met the arranger Charles Stepney. (Ramsey) In 1966 he joined the trio of jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis and toured the country for nearly three years. During this period he acquired the kalimba, the African thumb piano, and learned firsthand that jazz improvisation and popular hits could share a single stage. By the time he left the trio, he wrote in his memoir, he was envisioning a band that would carry a spiritual message within the framework of popular music.
II. A name from the elements · 1970–1972
(West) The Salty Peppers drew a modest response around Chicago with “La La Time,” a single released on Capitol Records. But Maurice wanted a bigger stage. In 1970 he moved his base to Los Angeles and called his brother Verdine out from Chicago to play bass. (Zodiac) The new name came from his astrological chart. In his sign, Sagittarius, the primary element is fire, with earth and air following as its seasonal qualities. He rendered these as earth, wind and fire and made them the group's name. His interest in astrology, Eastern philosophy and ancient Egypt would seep steadily into the band's album covers and stagecraft from then on. (Warner) Signed to Warner Bros., the group released its debut, “Earth, Wind & Fire,” and a second album, “The Need of Love,” in 1971, and also scored Melvin Van Peebles's independent film “Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.” The music of this period, a blend of jazz and psychedelic soul, caught the attention of some critics, but sales were negligible. Money was tight, and disagreements over direction piled up. In early 1972 the first lineup scattered, leaving only the brothers. (Rebuilding) Maurice started again from scratch. Joining him were Philip Bailey, a young singer from Denver, Colorado; keyboardist Larry Dunn, from the same neighborhood; Ronnie Laws on saxophone; drummer Ralph Johnson; and vocalist Jessica Cleaves. Bailey, who had learned to sing in church, had a voice that moved freely through the high falsetto range of the male voice, and paired with Maurice's rich, warm tenor it would go on to define the group's sound. That same year Clive Davis of Columbia Records saw them perform and bought out their contract from Warner.
III. Shining star · 1972–1975
(Discipline) With “Last Days and Time” (1972) and “Head to the Sky” (1973), released on Columbia, the group gradually widened its audience. As guitarists Al McKay and Johnny Graham, saxophonist Andrew Woolfolk and the youngest brother, Fred White, came aboard one after another, the lineup grew solid. According to Bailey's memoir, Maurice demanded long ensemble rehearsals and a disciplined life from the members, and encouraged meditation and a healthy diet. The band moved like a single community. (Stepney) For 1974's “Open Our Eyes,” Maurice brought in his old Chess colleague Charles Stepney as co-producer. Stepney, who had shown his gift for delicate orchestral arranging on records by Rotary Connection and Minnie Riperton, dressed the band's raw funk grooves in sophisticated harmonies and string·horn textures. “Mighty Mighty” reached No. 4 on the R&B chart and No. 29 on the pop chart. (Film) In 1975 the group appeared in and scored “That's the Way of the World,” a film about the music industry starring Harvey Keitel. Maurice recalled that at a screening he sensed the film would flop, so he released the soundtrack album ahead of the movie. The film was soon forgotten, but the album went to No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, and “Shining Star” topped both the pop and R&B charts and won the group its first Grammy. It was a crossover moment, as a group from the Black music charts passed into the pop mainstream. (Message) From around this time Maurice said again and again that his music should offer young listeners self-respect and hope. At the heart of the songs lay not the anger or the pleasures of the street but an invitation to believe in yourself, and this became the feeling that ran through nearly every hit the group would have.
The film was forgotten, but this song carried the group to the top of the pop chart. It is the song in which Maurice's message of believing in yourself rides on the group's tightest groove.
- The short, sharp guitar riff (a briefly repeated phrase) of the intro, and Verdine White's bass bouncing ceaselessly beneath it, are the engine of the whole song.
- Maurice's rich lead and Bailey's high harmonies trade off, so that it sounds not like a single voice but like the whole band singing.
- The horns' short, clipped accents fill the gaps between the rhythms with precision.
- The brief ending, where all the accompaniment drops away and only the voices remain in chorus, is famous. It is the moment a funk song ends like a church choir.
The title track was written for the film of the same name but has outlived it. It carries a mature sentiment: accept the weight of the world, but keep your heart pure.
- At an easygoing moderate pace (mid-tempo), an electric piano lays down warm chords, and over them the bass rolls gently along.
- A rich harmonic progression bearing Charles Stepney's touch tints a simple soul ballad with colors close to jazz.
- Where Bailey's falsetto slips in among Maurice's calm lead, the song brightens by one more layer.
- The ending, which repeats the refrain again and again while slowly lowering the volume (a fade-out), lets the song's meditative mood linger long after.
IV. The pyramid stage · 1975–1977
(Stage) In late 1975 “Gratitude,” a double album pairing live recordings with new songs, again reached No. 1. Onstage the group became famous for glittering costumes, intricate choreography and long, stretched-out improvisations. In the late 1970s the tours added illusions designed by the magician Doug Henning, and scenes such as the pyramid set and musicians levitating in midair became emblems of the show. (Loss) In May 1976, with work on the next album in full swing, Charles Stepney died of a heart attack. To Maurice he had been a musical older brother and the ear he trusted most. “Spirit,” released that year, was dedicated to Stepney, and the hushed mood of its title track is deeply shadowed by loss. Afterward Maurice took on the responsibility for arranging himself, expanding his role as producer. (Egypt) Ahead of 1977's “All 'n All,” Maurice traveled to Egypt and South America. The images of pyramids and ancient temples found their way into the album cover painted by Shusei Nagaoka, and the rhythms and harmonies of Brazilian music into short instrumentals such as “Brazilian Rhyme.” “Serpentine Fire” went to No. 1 on the R&B chart, and “Fantasy,” led by Bailey's falsetto, became one of the group's most lavish ballads. (Kalimba) Through his production company, Kalimba Productions, Maurice nurtured other artists as well. He produced “Best of My Love” (1977) for the Emotions, a sister act from Chicago, taking it to No. 1 on the pop chart, and helped launch Deniece Williams. It was a time when the world of sound he had imagined was spreading beyond the band.
The studio original is lovely too, but the live recording on “Gratitude” shows best what this group was like onstage.
- Philip Bailey sings almost from start to finish above the male singer's chest voice, in a high head voice (falsetto). His hallmark is that the sound never thins even though he never pushes.
- In the live version, Don Myrick's alto saxophone solo unfolds at length midway through, and the heat rises along with the cheers of the crowd.
- The climax of the recording comes at the end, when Bailey draws his falsetto upward in a long line, bending a single syllable through many notes (melisma).
- The lonely mood of a lyric that seems to ask the reasons for love turns, in live performance, into a release closer to rapture.
The centerpiece of “All 'n All,” made by Maurice after he returned from his travels in Egypt and South America. It holds the grand world of arranging he unfolded on his own after losing Stepney.
- The majestic strings and horns of the opening unfold like a scene from a film, setting the song's stage in a single stroke. Eddie del Barrio collaborated on the arrangement.
- Bailey's falsetto takes the lead, painting a longing for dreams and utopia in a voice that floats lightly upward.
- In the chorus, layered voices spread wide, until the group sounds less like a soul act than a small orchestra.
- It keeps a steady, danceable beat while the harmonies shift constantly, creating a singular texture that straddles disco and the symphonic.
V. The peak years · 1978–1983
(Bee Gees) In 1978 the group appeared in the film “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,” starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, performing the Beatles' “Got to Get You into My Life.” The film was panned, but their recording reached the pop Top 10, and Maurice won a Grammy for its arrangement. That same year he founded his own label, ARC, within Columbia. (September) A greatest-hits album released late that year carried one new song. Written by Maurice, Al McKay and Allee Willis, a lyricist then all but unknown, it was “September.” The song outgrew the charts to become, for nearly half a century, a fixture at weddings and celebrations. (Horns) On 1979's “I Am,” the horn section of the Phoenix Horns, a brass and woodwind ensemble led by Don Myrick, and the arrangements of Jerry Hey reached their peak. “Boogie Wonderland,” recorded with the Emotions, rode the disco fever, and the ballad “After the Love Has Gone,” written by David Foster and others, brought the group another Grammy. (Change) In 1980, as the backlash against disco grew fierce, the double album “Faces” failed to sell like its predecessors, and Al McKay left the band. On 1981's “Raise!,” “Let's Groove” embraced the sound of a new era with synthesizers and the vocoder, a device that makes the voice sound robotic, and became a major hit. But when the machine-driven “Electric Universe” disappointed in 1983, Maurice, who had run without pause for more than a decade, decided in 1984 to put the group on hold.
Released as the new track on a greatest-hits album in the peak years, it became the group's most enduringly loved song. It is a song of simple joy, recalling the happiness of one night gone by.
- Al McKay's buoyant guitar riff grabs the ear from the first bar, and the Phoenix Horns answer at once with bright brass.
- The chorus contains a syllable with no meaning. When lyricist Allee Willis wanted to change it, Maurice kept it, saying the feel of the sound mattered more than sense, as she recalled in many interviews.
- Drums that strike the second and fourth beats crisply (the backbeat) and a bouncing bass build a dance pulse a little quicker than a walking pace.
- High harmonies glitter between the vocals traded by Maurice and Bailey, and the whole song sounds like a smiling face.
Though written by composers outside the band, it won a Grammy for singing the regret that follows the end of love in the group's own harmonies.
- Written by David Foster, Jay Graydon and Bill Champlin, it is marked by an intricate progression whose harmonies often turn in unexpected directions.
- Bailey and Maurice take turns on lead, the calm low voice and the plaintive falsetto sounding like two faces of the same regret.
- Horns arranged by Jerry Hey wrap around the chorus, lending the sad ballad an elegant sheen.
- The climax comes late in the song, where the key is raised and the emotion boils up one step further.
Their last big hit, won by embracing the synthesizer in the new era after disco. Maurice wrote it with Wayne Vaughn.
- In the intro, a device that turns the human voice into a machine sound (the vocoder) speaks like a robot to open the song.
- A synthesizer bass repeats in the low register to build the groove's backbone, while handclaps and horns add zest on top.
- The chorus, sung as if many voices were shouting together, sounds like a party's group chant and is built to be easy to sing along with.
- The music video, featuring Ron Hays's computer visual effects, is recorded as the first video aired on BET's “Video Soul.”
VI. Separate paths · 1984–1999
(Bailey) During the hiatus, the most visible member was Philip Bailey. He released the solo album “Chinese Wall” (1984), produced by Phil Collins, and their duet “Easy Lover” reached No. 2 on the US pop chart and No. 1 in the UK. Bailey, who had spoken openly of his Christian faith, also released gospel albums steadily, winning a Grammy in the gospel category for “Triumph.” (Solo) Maurice released his first solo album in 1985, covering “Stand by Me,” and spent his time producing records for other singers. He rarely revealed his private life in interviews; the studio was his daily life instead. (Reunion) In 1987 the group returned with “Touch the World.” “System of Survival” topped the R&B chart, announcing that they were still going strong. 1990's “Heritage” featured Sly Stone and MC Hammer in a bid to connect with the next generation, and 1993's “Millennium” earned them another Grammy nomination. (The stage) But from the early 1990s, Maurice's body found the stage harder to bear. His hands trembled and his movements stiffened, and around 1994 he withdrew from touring to devote himself to production and management. Only some years later did he publicly reveal why. Bailey, Verdine and Ralph Johnson led the band on stage, and in 1995 the group received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
VII. The fire that never goes out · 2000–2026
(Induction) In 2000 the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That same year Maurice disclosed that he had Parkinson's disease. Even as a founder who could no longer take the stage and members who held it down, the group did not break up, and in 2005 it embraced a new generation's sensibility with “Illumination,” made with young producers. From 2004 on, it toured several times with the brass-rock band Chicago. (Carrying on) Their songs lived on in the voices of other generations. In 2018 Taylor Swift drew attention by rerecording “September” as an acoustic country number for a streaming-service project. In 2010 Maurice, Bailey, Verdine, Al McKay and others were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. (Farewell) In February 2016, Maurice White died in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles. He was seventy-four. That same month the group received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and the memoir he had dictated during his life, “My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire,” was published that year. Saxophonist Andrew Woolfolk died in 2022, and the youngest, Fred White, in January 2023. (Today) In 2019 Bailey, Verdine and Ralph Johnson received the Kennedy Center Honors, and the ceremony also honored the name of the late Maurice. Known for selling more than 90 million records, the group kept touring into the 2020s with the three at its core. One man's vision, begun in his grandmother's house in Memphis, still resounds on stage after he has gone.
Lesser-known stories
Maurice White is remembered as a singer and producer, but he began as a studio drummer. At Chess Records, as was the practice of the day, the drumming he did rarely earned him a credit on the record, and his part in hits like Fontella Bass's “Rescue Me” became widely known only later, through his memoir and the work of researchers. The album that gave the group its first popular peak, “That's the Way of the World,” was originally a film soundtrack. Maurice wrote in his memoir that at a preview screening he sensed the film would fail and rushed to release the album first. The film did flop and was all but forgotten, so today the very fact that this classic was a film score is rarely mentioned. Charles Stepney's share is often obscured, too. He handled arranging and co-production during the group's breakthrough years, but he died suddenly in 1976 at forty-five, and the dazzling success that followed came to be remembered under Maurice's name alone. Maurice himself, in his memoir, named Stepney as the man who completed his music. Allee Willis, the lyricist of “September,” was then a writer without a hit to speak of. The song launched her into a career co-writing many more hits and the theme song for the television sitcom “Friends.” The interviews she left behind remain rare testimony that Maurice was a songwriter who put the feel of the sound ahead of the meaning of the words.
Glossary note 📚🔎
Session musician
(Meaning) A session is a single gathering or stretch of time in which people come together to do something. The term comes from calling one recording get-together in the studio a session. (In pop) A professional musician who is not a full member of a band but is called in for each recording to play an instrument for a fee. They play on many singers' records but often remain little known. It is like asking a friend from another class who plays piano well to accompany your class at the school choir contest because no one in your own class can play. Your class is the star of the stage, but much of the sound comes from that friend. (Elsewhere) In computing and on the internet, a single period during which a user is connected is called a session.
Kalimba
(In pop) A small instrument handed down from Africa, played by plucking thin metal tines mounted on a wooden board or box with the thumbs. That is why it is also called the thumb piano. It makes a clear, rounded sound, and Maurice White used it so often on stage and on record that it became something like the group's emblem. If you press a ruler against the edge of a desk and flick its end, it makes a quivering twang; think of the kalimba as an instrument that makes that sound at different pitches with several tines of different lengths.
Falsetto
(Meaning) The Korean term gaseong (假聲) means 'false (假) voice (聲).' Its Western name, falsetto, likewise comes from the Italian falso, meaning fake. Both names carry the sense of an artificial high voice, different from the one we speak in. (In pop) A singing technique that makes the vocal cords vibrate more thinly than usual, producing high notes the natural voice can hardly reach, lightly and softly. In a male singer it sounds high and transparent, like a woman's voice. If you have ever suddenly pitched your voice up in front of friends to imitate a cute cartoon character, that is where falsetto begins. Philip Bailey could sing a whole song powerfully from start to finish in that voice.
Funk
(In pop) A genre born of African American music in the 1960s–70s that puts the drive of rhythm and beat ahead of melody. Bass and drums, choppy guitar and horns interlock so the body moves on its own. It is a different music, in English spelling and in character, from punk, the loud British rock. Just as a group jump rope keeps going only when the turners and the jumpers lock into the same beat, funk comes alive when the instruments lock tightly into one another's rhythm. (Elsewhere) In Korean, peongkeu ('flat; no-show') refers to a punctured tire or a broken appointment, but it comes from the English puncture, an entirely different word.
Crossover
(Meaning) The English cross over means to go across. The idea of passing from one domain to another is right there in the name. (In pop) It describes a singer or song that was popular with a particular audience, for example on the R&B chart of African American listeners, and then also succeeds big on the pop chart of a wider public. It is also used for music that blends genres. It is like the star of your class field day also winning the schoolwide meet and becoming famous across the whole school. (Elsewhere) In basketball, the crossover is a dribbling move that quickly switches the ball from one hand to the other to shake off a defender.
Horn section
(Meaning) A horn originally meant an animal's horn. Because people long ago made sound by blowing into horns, the brass instruments played with the mouth came to be called horns. (In pop) A group of wind instruments such as trumpet, trombone and saxophone playing together as a team. Between the vocal lines they fire off short, powerful blasts in unison, adding brilliance and punch to the song. Just as the whole field heats up the moment the cheering squad blows their bugles together at a sports day, a horn section lifts a song's energy in an instant.
Vocoder
(Meaning) A word combining voice and coder, a device that converts into code. It was originally a communications technology designed to turn the voice into electrical signals for transmission. (In pop) A device that blends the human voice with synthesizer sound, so that it is clearly a person speaking but sounds like a machine. In the 1970s–80s it was often used in pop and funk for a futuristic, novel feel. Think of a robot in a game or cartoon speaking in clipped syllables. The vocoder is what makes that voice sing to the pitch of the song.
Riff
(In pop) a short phrase on guitar, bass or horns that repeats within a song. Apart from the vocal melody, it shapes the song's first impression and its backbone. The sound that lets you name a song within its first few seconds is usually the riff. Think of the short clapping chant a crowd repeats together when cheering at a game. Just as a single chant tells you which school's cheering squad it is, a good riff becomes the face of the song.