Shining Star: Braving the Elements of Earth, Wind & Fire

by Bailey, Philip

  Jim Brown and BBC soon arranged a record deal with Warner Brothers Records for Earth, Wind & Fire. Joe Smith, the label president and an ex–disc jockey out of Boston, was an astute record exec. He was not afraid to dabble in and experiment with new forms of contemporary music and he signed EWF to a multirelease deal. The label arranged for Earth, Wind & Fire to conduct its early rehearsals on the Warner Brothers film lot in Burbank. It wasn’t a glamorous setting; the place resembled a large, empty barn. But the band dutifully set up its gear, and its self-titled debut album was released in late 1970. It sold a respectable twenty to thirty thousand units, not bad for a debut record from an unknown and untested eclectic ensemble. The album was produced by a Warner Brothers staff producer named Joe Wissert, who had previously worked with the pop band The Turtles and would go on to mine platinum sales with Boz Scaggs. The EWF debut featured a vocally rich tune called “Love Is Life,” weaving the seamless group singing of Maurice, Sherry, Don, and Wade with a full-blown horn section. The song sparked a modest progressive underground-radio following that would help boost the band onto the college circuit.

  In 1971, prior to cutting their second album for Warner Brothers, Maurice and the band were chosen to compose the original soundtrack music for Melvin Van Peebles’s indie movie Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, today considered a classic. The underfinanced, much maligned underdog film became a box office smash after counterculture figures like Huey P. Newton and his Black Panther Party embraced it and urged their black brothers and sisters to do the same. Maurice, ever the persuasive and gregarious type, became friends with the eccentric Van Peebles when the director enlisted him for the project. One day when Reese had to fly to Houston for a business trip, he dispatched Verdine to spend the day with Van Peebles. Verdine drove from Hollywood to Pasadena with him to visit Van Peebles’s father. During the visit, Melvin pulled out a yellow kazoo.

  “This is going to be the theme of the movie,” he announced, before blowing a few notes.

  The original lineup from the first EWF album performed the Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song soundtrack on a Paramount Studios soundstage on Santa Monica Boulevard. Maurice sat behind the drums and Verdine played bass as the band improvised its way through a free-form score in front of a giant movie screen, watching key scenes and playing along live. The entire soundtrack was cut in three days. Verdine recalls that an engineer at the Paramount Studios session was Brian Bruderlin, actor James Brolin’s brother.

  Reese cued the band through the various themes and changes from behind the drum set, suggesting, “Try this here, try that there.” On one ballad Verdine flubbed the bass part with a few bad notes, but there was no time for second takes, punch-ins, edits, changes, or overdubs. The sessions were hit-and-miss, and there was little budget to woodshed the soundtrack, which was later released on Stax Records. (For the record, Earth, Wind & Fire was the first African American band to write, perform, and score a movie soundtrack.)

  Earth, Wind & Fire’s second album, The Need of Love, released in November 1971, was smoother and less raw than its first. Maurice’s drumming was exemplary, particularly on a solo from a tune called “Energy,” which had a free-jazz, electric Miles Davis/Bitches Brew feel to it. During the sessions noted R&B and disco singer Jean Carne was living in the same apartment building as Maurice and Verdine. Her first husband, Doug, played organ on the record and Jean sang background vocals. (Reverend Ike, the audacious storefront preacher-turned-television-evangelist, lived just above the White brothers in the same complex.)

  In the space of a year and a half in Los Angeles, EWF had recorded two albums and a movie soundtrack, and Verdine hadn’t yet turned twenty-one. It was a priceless learning experience for the young bassist, who was quick to adapt to a generously creative studio environment. Cutting the first two EWF records was a far richer experience than he would have had as a traditional session bass player. These weren’t like the usual three-hour record dates back in the old Chess Studio days. Maurice and Verdine were ensconced in the studio for weeks at a time. “Fire” would experiment for ten hours a day, allowing Maurice to perfect his concept of the band along the way.

  The original Warner Brothers Earth, Wind & Fire lineup was much more Afrocentric than most rock or R&B bands at the time, with earthy jazz overtones and a psychedelic bent. They weren’t exactly a commercial entity. While Maurice and the group weren’t necessarily militant, they did have the appearance of being so. Chicago had a strong community-activist vibe. At the time African Americans in large American cities were embracing their blackness and reaching back to their indigenous African roots in dress and style. Maurice did his part by introducing the kalimba. The early Earth, Wind & Fire lineup was commercial only in the sense that it wasn’t as jazzy as the Ramsey Lewis Trio.

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  One of Perry Jones’s first priorities as national promotion man for black music at Warner Brothers was Earth, Wind & Fire. Perry’s initial goal was to break EWF by organizing an ambitious national airplay promotion campaign that would focus on top R&B stations throughout the country. Although this was prior to the days of format-specific marketing and radio airplay within the music industry, Perry had an idea: He would request that Warner Brothers ship copies of Earth Wind & Fire’s albums directly to black-owned record stores, as opposed to having them purchase the titles from the one-stop wholesale outlets, where black retailers traditionally purchased their stock with cash.

  Perry’s next move was to introduce the band to a lineup of top black radio programmers on a regional basis. Perry and Maurice’s early game plan was to arrange a minitour of radio stations across the Northeast. Their first stop was a performance to be staged at the Gaslight Theater in New York City, sponsored by WBLS and hosted by deejay extraordinaire Frankie Crocker. As a result of that successful showcase, the traveling EWF road show continued. Perry reached out to more deejays and programmers, such as Georgie Woods and Jimmy Bishop at WUS in Philadelphia, and set up a small network of promotional appearances through various influential radio stations. The venues were primarily meet-and-greets, followed by short live sets held in nightclubs where the deejays had their own personal connections. At other times Perry would help set up stage events at local hotel ballrooms where Earth, Wind & Fire would play live for a crowd of lucky radio listeners. After an appearance in Philly, the band moved on to a club in Boston, and then to a meet-and-greet show in Chicago staged through E. Rodney Jones, one of the founding fathers of black radio in the Windy City. Other stopovers included Detroit, Miami, Memphis, and Houston.

  Perry and EWF’s minitour was arranged on a shoestring budget. Jones placed plane tickets and per diem expenses on his credit card through a sympathetic publicity department at Warner. He regularly put in money from his own pocket, while Maurice used his funds as well to keep the band afloat. Verdine contributed his unemployment benefits to help support the campaign on the road. Since EWF was a departure from the current crop of traditional top R&B stars (like Aretha Franklin and Al Green), Perry’s efforts were often met with resistance and skepticism from some of the sales executives back at the label. Because the concept of an adjunct black promotion department was new to Warner Brothers Records, not everybody on the promotional staff was as gung ho as Perry.

  As the tour wound down and it was time to head back to Los Angeles, Perry arranged for one final show to be held in his old stomping grounds of Denver. Since it was a homecoming of sorts, he called in a few favors and phoned a friend who worked at the Hilton Hotel there. He told his pal that he and the band were on their way back to the West Coast and needed a quick venue in order to stage a stopover show in the Mile-High City.

  “I’ll get you a room to play,” Perry’s friend told him. Next, Perry reached out to a radio personality called Dr. Daddy-O from KDKO, a Denver R&B station.

  Perry then phoned me. It had been a while since I had seen him, and he told me he was stopping in Denver for a few days and had made a
rrangements for my band, Friends & Love, to open a special showcase appearance and help draw a crowd to Earth, Wind & Fire’s Denver promotional premiere event. Wow, too cool!

  On June 23, 1971, Earth, Wind & Fire—billed on an orange engraved invitation as “Warner Brothers’ Hottest New Rock Group”—appeared on a Wednesday night at the Hilton Hotel Empire Room before an audience of more than a hundred people who had paid $2.50 to see both bands play.

  That night Perry introduced me to the band. The first time I laid eyes on Maurice White, he smelled of coconut oil. We were riding down the elevator together with Perry and Larry Dunn just before the show. Reese was dressed in a pair of white bell-bottom pants, a skintight satiny body shirt, and a sequined cowboy hat. I, on the other hand, was wearing my high-water pants and a dark shirt. When we shook hands, Maurice was the smooth city slicker, and I was the country hick.

  When I heard Earth, Wind & Fire for the first time live that night in Denver I was impressed with two things: I loved the introduction of the kalimba, because I had never heard anything like it before; second, I loved watching Verdine play the bass. With his frenetic energy, he literally ran all over the stage. EWF in June 1971 was far different from anything I had seen or heard from any group, black or white. Compared to horn bands like Blood, Sweat & Tears, which were so popular at the time, EWF’s ensemble sound had a unique aura. Their jazzy musical changes and colors were different from anything else being played on the radio.

  We had heard, thanks to Perry, advance white-label copies of Earth, Wind & Fire’s records months prior to their coming to Denver, so we had already embraced their music. In fact, Friends & Love had covered a couple of their tunes in some of our own live sets. In the beginning we had no idea what Earth Wind & Fire looked like. Once the albums hit the stores, we were surprised to find that they were an African American group!

  The show at the Hilton went down very well, even though Dr. Daddy-O didn’t show up to introduce the bands. Afterward Friends & Love did a special after-hours set at our usual haunt, 23rd Street East, and sitting in the club and digging the scene were Maurice and Verdine White. It had been a great night of music, and I had just made what I had hoped to be a very opportune musical connection.

  It was great seeing Perry again, and meeting Maurice and Verdine. We all seemed to have so much in common musically. I had taken Janet with me to see Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, and we both thought it was special, even though the music sounded “out” to the two of us at the time.

  After the showcase in Denver, Friends & Love took up another residence at the Hornbook in Boulder. Meanwhile, I had sensed the shifting winds of change in my own life. I felt as if my musical career were heading toward a crossroads. In spite of the regional success of Friends & Love, I’d come to the conclusion that very few major record labels and artists and repertoire (A&R) men would travel to Denver to scout and sign a band like ours unless we were a country-and-western act.

  In addition, it was getting more and more difficult to run our Friends & Love rehearsals. Some band members had become complacent. Perry had previously warned me that I would be in danger of becoming a “local yokel” in the clubs, the big fish in a small pond only until the next new kid came along. But I sure wasn’t aspiring to that, and neither was my longtime friend Larry Dunn. Yet the other band members were more interested in meeting women and partying hard than expanding and exploring the band’s sound. They didn’t share the dedication I felt to improving. We were making money, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I was coming at it from another place. I had already played the best regional venues with the best local musicians. I needed more.

  While Perry was toiling away on the road with his new job with Warner, I was feeling more and more musically and professionally trapped. Aside from visiting my family or getting the occasional out-of-state club gigs in Kansas City, I’d hardly been outside Colorado. That fact bothered me, too. Now, through my association with Perry, I realized I couldn’t become a successful recording artist and also remain in Denver.

  It was during the summer of 1971, not long after the Hilton show, that I came home one night and announced to Janet, who was seven months pregnant, “I can’t deal with this anymore. Let’s go to California. What do you think?”

  I had made up my mind. We were moving to Los Angeles. It turned out that Janet, too, had dreams of one day moving out west. So I made the call, phoning Perry to tell him the news.

  “That’s it! We’re coming out to California.”

  We stuffed my congas and all of our belongings into some duffel bags that Janet and I had bought down at the pawnshop. A couple of my friends were also heading west, so I loaded my stuff into their van, and we hit the road. Because Janet was pregnant, we made arrangements for her to join me a few weeks after she had had our child and I was settled in with Perry.

  As I sat in the van on the way to Los Angeles, my head was spinning. I was going to Los Angeles. This is where they make it happen; this is where it’s done. I thought long and hard about becoming a new father and putting my musical career on the line by going to the West Coast. Heading over Donner Pass and across the California border was a major milestone. I was about to pursue my dream of becoming a shining star in Hollywood.

  9

  STARS AND STRIPES HIPPIE SHIRT

  I landed in Southern California in the summer of 1971 and crashed at Perry Jones’s duplex on Crescent Heights Boulevard, which he also shared with William “Hop” Johnson, a friend of Perry’s and Maurice’s, who lived in the upstairs part of the building. Perry was living the swinging bachelor’s life, having separated from his wife, Jean, after joining Warner Brothers Records. He drove around the city in his kelly green Triumph TR6. His new girlfriend was an exotic hottie—a mixture of Filipino and African American. She had a beautiful sister who sometimes tagged along, and Perry would bring them both around to Hollywood parties.

  Perry’s house was a bit of a scene, with starving musicians dropping by and taking advantage of his Warner Brothers expense account and his swimming pool. We would have parties and silly jam sessions, parading around the house while banging on various drums, toys, and percussion instruments. As I had during my childhood, I lay sprawled out across the living room floor, listening in awe to the sheer volume of new music flowing into the house, checking out every record Perry brought home. One of my favorites was the new album by Joni Mitchell, Blue. Joni was much more than a folksinger. Her songs were extremely poetic and personal, and also very musically complex.

  Whenever various radio programmers came to California, they would stop over to see Perry. You never knew who would be there. I got to meet Patti LaBelle, one of my favorite singers, when Perry invited her over for a lobster dinner. I was thrilled, and Patti was a real nice lady. Little Richard showed up at Perry’s pad, too. He had recorded a song called “Dew Drop Inn”—which he did all the time. Fresh off the Rock & Roll Revival circuit, Richard had recently resurrected his career after recording a new album with Reprise called The Rill Thing. He returned to the soul and Top 40 charts with a hot, contemporary-sounding hit called “Freedom Blues.” Another frequent visitor was the illustrious Sly Stone. At the time Sly and the Family Stone was one of the hottest bands in the world. There were rumors that Sly wanted to leave Epic Records and would possibly sign with another label.

  One night Sly showed up at Perry’s carrying a mysterious-looking violin case, which he would take with him into the bathroom—for hours. Turns out there was no Stradivarius inside, just a cache of recreational drugs—baggies of sticky Columbian pot, quaaludes, hashish, hallucinogens of every description, and plenty of pills to get Sly back up once he came crashing down. Not only were the drugs plentiful and part of the landscape, they were pure and uncut. There was also a hefty supply of Sly’s latest favorite pastime: powder cocaine. At one point, he brought over animal tranquilizer, which he offered to share. I passed because I liked to stay in contro
l.

  While admittedly I partook of Sly’s stash, by the grace of God I didn’t indulge to the point of being captivated or controlled by drugs. Music mattered too much to me. It was my personal calling, the thing that had brought me to Los Angeles. I was in awe of Sly’s success, but I was more of a starstruck fan than a follower of his bad habits. One day Perry asked me to drive Sly’s then wife, Debbie, down from the Hollywood Hills to the Burbank airport so she could catch a plane to San Francisco. She ended up staying with Carlos Santana and later married him after splitting up with Sly.

  A television personality named Harold Dow also stayed at Perry’s and later went on to become a network news anchor in New York City. The Crescent Heights house was a way station for people on their way up. It represented a beautiful and unique time in my life, when Perry and Hop embraced a young person like me and provided a roof and shared their food, drugs, and contacts.

  I was lucky to have a mentor and a friend like Perry looking after me. Just as Maurice had done with Verdine, Perry took me out to a boutique and bought me some new clothes—a stars and stripes hippie shirt and some groovy velvet bell-bottom pants—so I could fit in with his hipster crowd. He was a free-spirited guy, a holdover from the Swinging Sixties. All the other smooth city-slicker R&B label promotion guys on the circuit would laugh when they ran into Perry the Happy Hippie, with his huge trademark Afro, tie-dyed jeans, riding boots, and handmade flowered shirts. While R&B radio program directors typically wore flashy suits, sported diamond rings, and played poker and drank like fish with the other label promotion fellas, Perry was the “hippie postman.” He could light up a room with his bag of goodies, which he kept next to the LPs and singles he was promoting inside an old leather U.S. Post Office mailbag.