My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire

by Maurice White

  Our new crew had torn up mattresses, made mud pies out of the cotton in the pillows, and punched holes in the wall. These were some rowdy-ass white boys. The road crew can get stir-crazy. The professionals we had hired worked at a demanding pace, and I understood that they needed to let off a little steam. Roadies don’t get to see the sunset or the sunrise. Their heads are usually underground. We had eight tractor-trailers on the road. They were sleeping in buses and trucks, moving the band down the highway.

  Leonard explained to Frank that he didn’t want all that stereotypical rock-and-roll behavior to be associated with Earth, Wind & Fire. After the melee, Leonard and Frank started booking the crew and the band in different hotels, to separate us from that kind of activity. Still, Frank had amassed a great crew. After the ruckus, they calmed down and got on our wavelength.

  In between gigs and periodic stops in the studio to finish recording That’s the Way of the World, we filmed the movie. I played a character named Early, a disgruntled bandleader. My first scene was with Harvey Keitel, who played a record producer named Buckmaster.

  Early: “Let’s get down and make some records.”

  Buckmaster: “Man, we’re gonna have to cool it for a bit. I have to record a new group. Now I’m going to try and finish them as fast as I can and get back to you in a couple of days.”

  Early: “You’ve got to record a new group? Man, we’ve been waiting seven months. The cats are waiting on me downstairs.”

  I rolled my eyes sarcastically as I finished out my lines with Keitel. “Cut,” Sig said. I only had a few other lines in the film. It was abundantly clear to me that I didn’t have any acting chops! The entire band looked pretty weird on-screen, though we tried to make it look as effortless as we could. I don’t think the script was that bright, either, in our defense.

  Hollywood Sound, Studio B, became my home away from home for the next few years. The studio worked for me because the management was not averse to George modifying its equipment. George was customizing my microphones, the outboard compressors—everything. I swear the top of Hollywood Sound’s mixing console resembled some electrical mad scientist’s laboratory. There were wires of every color in the spectrum sticking out of boxes, little lights blinking on and off. It looked like a damn fire hazard to me. He started carrying around a Strobotuner, tuning Johnny’s and Al’s guitars and adjusting their bridges when they weren’t around—a no-no, but their guitars started to fall out of tune less.

  When we turned to the challenge of mixing “Shining Star,” we had recorded a lot of tracks. Charles had done a killer horn arrangement that we recorded at Sunset Sound. Philip and I kept stacking our vocals to get a sound I was comfortable with. We wanted to sound like a group of different voices, like Sly and the Family Stone, but when George started to pull up all those faders on the console and reveal everything that had been recorded, it sounded cluttered.

  According to George, “Shining Star” was the weirdest thing anybody had ever heard. He heard it as a mess, claiming we had heaped stuff on. Larry had cut an organ track doing this big-ass Billy Preston–type organ part—every bar of the whole song, verse and chorus, top to bottom. The drums were also too busy. The whole song needed to be cleared out. We accomplished that by having Fred White play a kick snare overdub with a simple, straight-ahead boom chick, boom boom chick, boom chick, boom boom chick. We gated everybody to the claps and snare drum, which prevented about twelve tracks or so from hitting on the backbeat. This cleaned up all the raging musical clutter that was preventing the pocket from coming through.

  Starting with mixing “Shining Star,” George and I established a method of working together on mixes. He would make some moves on the console, and I would make others. Sometimes we needed a third set of hands, but more often than not it was just the two of us. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I heard his cleaned-up version of the track. When it came to mixing records, the proof is always in the pudding.

  It took six or seven days to mix “Shining Star.” Every day and a half we would finish a mix, and then we’d come right back the next day and try it again, starting from scratch each time. These were the days before automated recording consoles with total recall. Two of the most distinctive elements of the “Shining Star” mix are the beginning and the ending. For the intro, I wanted an old boogie-woogie piano style, like the way the piano players would play back in Memphis juke joints. I transferred that style to the guitars, and Johnny and Al just nailed it.

  The ending was a bit more technically complicated. I had an idea about fading the band out into an a cappella background, but when we tried it, the song was just too damn long. With the way George had creatively used drastically different reverbs, EQs, and echoes on the hook fresh in my mind, I said, Let’s just drop them out as we get closer to the end. That effect turned out to be the shit. George kept carving away the reverb, a little less each time. By the time you hear “shining star for you to see what your life can truly be,” the sound is right in your face.

  When I played the finished mix of “Shining Star” for Bob, he said, “Pal, this is your first number-one record.” I responded, “We’ll see, won’t we?” It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him, and I certainly did want a number-one record. But again my natural skepticism of a manager or record label executive telling me something was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread had kicked in. I wasn’t going to fall for all that hype.

  “Shining Star” worked well as a radio-friendly record. The strong definition between the verse and the chorus helped lift the hook, a time-tested tool for creating hit records that gives the listener’s ears a new dynamic to lock onto.

  In addition to “Shining Star,” “Reasons,” “See the Light,” and “Happy Feeling,” the album was rounded out by “Yearnin’ Learnin’,” “Africano,” and “All about Love.” On “All about Love,” toward the end, there is a speaking part that added to the idea that Earth, Wind & Fire was “deep.”

  You know, they say there’s beauty

  in the eyes of the beholder, which I say is a natural fact.

  Because you are as beautiful as your

  thoughts, right on. You know, for instance, we study all

  kinds of occult sciences and astrology and mysticism and world religion, so forth, you dig.

  And like coming from a hip place, all these things help

  because if you’re inside your inner self—

  Have mercy!

  Now, there’s an outer self we got to deal with

  the one that likes to go to parties,

  one that likes to dress up and be cool

  and look pretty, all ego trips and all this.

  I’m trying to tell you,

  you gotta love you. And love all the beautiful things around you,

  the trees and the birds. And if there ain’t no beauty,

  you got to make some beauty. Have mercy!

  Listen to me.

  In 1975 I was feeling sanctified and bold. I was examining the black man in me, the universal man. I wanted to articulate who I was becoming in my music. Our philosophical way of composing continued, with some good results. The song “That’s the Way of the World” started as a basic track given to me by Charles. His melancholy yet hopeful chord changes set the tone. Verdine and I wrote lyrics that spoke about staying true to yourself and remaining young at heart. The song was written as the movie’s main theme, but after the title, that’s where the association stops. Verdine and I didn’t pay any attention to the script; we just wrote what we felt. Johnny Graham’s simple, haunting, bluesy guitar solo was the unsung hero of the song. There’s something about Johnny’s unique choice of notes that speaks out in the track:

  You will find peace of mind

  If you look way down in your heart and soul

  Don’t hesitate ’cause the world seems cold

  Stay young at heart ’cause you’re never old at heart

  That’s the way of the world

  Plant your flow
er and you grow a pearl

  A child is born with a heart of gold

  The way of the world makes his heart grow cold

  —“That’s the Way of the World,” That’s the Way of the World, 1975

  It is truly the Creator’s gift when something comes just when it’s needed. Earth, Wind & Fire needed the song “That’s the Way of the World.” I believe Charles needed to write those melancholy chord changes. I know Verdine and I needed to write the lyrics and melody. And Americans needed to hear it. By 1975, Watergate had been dropped on our doorstep. We as a nation were finally coming to grips with the whole Vietnam experience. Our government had been dead wrong to get involved in the war, and it had been totally discredited. Its disgrace fostered the view that institutions could never be trusted implicitly. In fact, my stepdad, Verdine Sr., crystallized this to me. I went through my ritual of mailing him and Mother Dear an advance copy of our album. When I saw him soon thereafter, he said in a very fatherly tone, “Son, that song, ‘That’s the Way of the World,’ is your national anthem.”

  It is our national anthem because “to sing our message loud and clear” meant that Earth, Wind & Fire had, I believe, a divine assignment. We were telling the world’s people not to waver in their hope, not to waver in their heart’s desire, no matter how crazy and out of control the world seemed around them. The world will tell you that nothing ever changes, that you’re a fool to have hope—but it’s each human being’s divine right to hold on to hope and faith. I believe this was the ultimate message the band was created to give.

  That’s the Way of the World’s big orchestral arrangements were definitely an upgrade in our sound. Charles had put his genius into the horn and string arrangements, and vocally Philip and I had never sounded better. During the drawn-out recording of the album, a lot had happened for us personally too. My first child, Mimi, had been born; Philip’s mom had died suddenly; and Mother Dear had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

  A month before That’s the Way of the World was released, Bruce Lundvall and I had a meeting. All the executive brass at Columbia Records agreed that we had made a great album, he said. “Personally, Maurice, I’m highly pleased. I can’t lie—I was concerned.” I know what he was getting at. I had spent some serious money recording the album. But, thankfully, it didn’t matter.

  Columbia Records was not so pleased when I refused to have the words “The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” included boldly on the front cover of the album, as was the standard practice. It was an accepted marketing belief that this prominent banner helped album sales. This may have been true, but I didn’t give a damn. I wanted the album to stand alone as an EW&F album, and stand at a distance from the movie.

  This was a moment where I think Columbia may have believed too much in my public persona as the peace-and-love Maurice White and underestimated me as the bandleader/businessman Maurice White. They told me I was throwing away a great marketing opportunity. Maybe I was—but I was also protecting the brand of Earth, Wind & Fire. When they saw I wasn’t going to give in, they finally relented.

  My instincts were spot-on. Verdine and I went to a screening of the movie. I was devastated. We looked like clowns—like idiots. Uncharacteristically, I panicked. Shit, Charles was right—this was going to ruin the album! The movie was going to kill all the work we had done.

  “Man, this is not good, V,” I said. “This is not good!”

  This is one time where Verdine became the older brother. Putting his arm around me, he said, “It’s going to be all right, Reece. It’s going to be all right.”

  I put it in God’s hands. I called on him and waited. His response was not unlike Mama’s prevailing mantra—just keep moving forward. I did. The final preparations for the album’s release culminated in recruiting a then-new photographer, Norman Seeff, to shoot the gatefold cover art. He set a double stack of four queen-size mattresses on his studio floor and had the guys jumping and being dropped down on the soft surfaces. He then superimposed them on a clean white background. In the final product, only Verdine and I were standing straight, me smiling with open arms and Verdine with resolute clasped hands. He and I were still Chicago cool.

  14

  Expansion

  Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward.

  —Maxwell Maltz

  In many ways the defining part of my career as a bandleader, singer, songwriter, and record producer was just beginning in 1975. The majority of the year was spent—where else?—on the road. The year before I had begun, with Bob Cavallo’s help, to set up the band to be run more like a business. We had started to make a decent amount of money in ’74—not anything to write home about, but a reasonable sum. A big part of this restructuring was that I hired a corporate accounting firm. It came in and set up entities, companies, and corporations on my behalf. In those days I ran Earth, Wind & Fire as a sole proprietorship: Maurice White doing business as Earth, Wind & Fire. The firm set up Kalimba Productions, a company that would lease out my services as a producer. It also set up another company relative to my publishing interests, Saggifire Music. Art Macnow was the accountant who worked with me.

  I could have ignored Mother Dear’s repeated plea, “Sandy, take care of your brothers and sisters,” but I couldn’t. Part of the ever-expanding team around me included two of my half siblings. Geri and Monte moved to California to work with EW&F. Monte became a road manager, and Geri worked at our new office on Charleville Drive in Beverly Hills. Their joining the team wasn’t nepotism or sacrifice; they were both very capable, and wanted to do the best job they could. Plus I trusted them.

  I loved having my half siblings along on this creative business journey. However, I do have one major regret where they are concerned. When Verdine came out to LA, he took my last name, White. We identified ourselves as brothers because we got tired of explaining the relationship over and over to others. Dad was gracious and cool about that. I think he understood that it was a Hollywood thing, so that Verdine could be identified as my younger brother early on. What I deeply regret is not discouraging Fred, Geri, and Monte from using my last name, instead of their birth name, Adams.

  One time after a show in Chicago, a guy in the band called Dad Mr. White. I strong-armed him, pulled him aside, and said, Hey, man, his name is Dr. Adams! Dad was a big man in physicality, heart, and spirit. He never said anything to me about feeling slighted by the surname change, but, looking back now, I believe I should have put my foot down.

  As we toured back and forth across America, the band members were getting more ambitious and increasingly communicative with one another. They were gaining more and more confidence, feeling that we had the upper hand over our contemporaries. I contributed to this feeling too. I said it over and over: Man, you brought the right vibe tonight. I kept on trying to be motivator in chief, though now everybody was motivating everybody else. It was gratifying.

  We chartered a few flights, but we didn’t have our own plane then, so it was late nights onstage and up early in the morning to get to the airport or back on the bus. We always knew who was calling at 5:00 or 6:00 a.m.: our road manager–gatekeeper Leonard Smith, with his usual line, “Get your feet on the floor, it’s time to go.” He could have put that line in his tape recorder: it was literally the same every morning.

  By 1975 concertgoing was becoming big business. The arena-rock era was in full swing, and we were a part of it. Before this shift, you had to have six or seven acts or more on the bill to consistently sell out the big arenas, but now Elton John and the Rolling Stones were selling out large venues, and so were we. Our audiences were gradually broadening along racial lines. Earth, Wind & Fire was the first black group to get paid the same kind of money, the same percentage of the gate, that the big British acts were getting. By this time we were continually sold out. As a result, we could call our own shots.

  We started booking our own engagements. We had been using Premier Talent a lot, but that had to stop
when things got bigger. We made it clear that we wanted to use some black promoters. Our motivation for this change was partly altruistic, to help up-and-coming black promoters. But it was also practical. EW&F had made it to this point because of the black college audience. When we moved into playing in arenas, we didn’t want to upset those well-worn channels of black promoters to black radio to the black audience. They had helped build our popularity. We were the biggest black thing going, and for black promoters to have a piece of those dollars was significant for them. We had contacts in every major market in America, and even the smaller secondary markets. Premier and other agencies weren’t going for hiring black promoters. I had nothing against the establishment concert promoter’s world; as a matter of fact, we continued to work with them all, in different capacities. Bill Graham, Larry Magid, and Jack Boyle were powerful and did good work. It was clear that black promoters were never going to be able to promote white acts—for the most part, they still don’t today. We could work with black promoters when possible, but only because we took control of our own concert promotion affairs.

  Bob Cavallo and Joe Ruffalo brought in a young cat who was a hustler when it came to booking, Steve Fargnoli. Together we created the Brighton Agency, a company responsible for not only our bookings but those of the other artists in the Cavallo-Ruffalo world. You probably couldn’t do that today because of conflict of interest laws.

  In early April 1975, we hosted The Midnight Special, playing “Mighty Mighty,” “Yearnin’ Learnin’,” and “Shining Star.” I wasn’t crazy about this performance, although I liked it more than Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. We needed a bigger live sound. This would require a horn section and adding three more salaries. If it hadn’t been for the increased touring revenue from the success of That’s the Way of the World, it would never have happened.