“Man, it’s all about the chops! Did you hear those parts he wrote? They’re badass.”
“Yeah, but a brother could have done that!”
“Man, right now I just don’t give a damn about that.”
I know my statement came across as arrogant. Truth is, though, I sincerely didn’t care whom I had to enlist to get to the next level. Foster had extremely strong jazz, classical, and pop sensibilities, and he had the creative hunger to try and squeeze all his knowledge into every arrangement he did for me. Yes, some cats I brought to the EW&F table were white. I was not going to let race determine whom I would call or not call to get the best job done. It was not personal.
It was also not personal that from the very early days of EW&F, I never really hung out with the guys. After the gig, I was done. When we were off the road, I didn’t see the band much at all. It’s not that I didn’t like the guys. I did. But I savored my alone time. I needed to regenerate. Some of them never understood that. They thought I was trying to separate myself in some way. My perceived remoteness was simply an extension of my straight-ahead, move-forward mentality, a survival and coping mechanism that I learned from Mama and my life in Memphis. That moving-forward mentality helped the band. It kept the divergent attitudes, ideas, and motivations in EW&F all moving forward to a productive end. Problem is, though, with my allegiance to that kind of mentality, some people are not treated with the sensitivity that is needed in certain situations.
Since attitudes in group dynamics often come from the top, my misinterpreted aloofness trickled down. The cohesiveness of the band was fraying. That was natural—we were all developing our own interests and our own lives. As early as 1977 we started to be divided—not in a conflicted way, but in a practical way. When we recorded the rhythm section, it was a restricted session. No one was allowed but the guys involved. When we recorded vocals, it was just Philip and I. With horns, it was only the arranger, the horn players, and myself. For Andrew’s and Johnny’s overdubs or solos, it was just them and me. The only constants in the studio were George Massenburg and myself. The band never knew what I was going to add to the tracks. Only when an album was completely finished did they hear the final mix, with lyrics, melodies, and horn arrangements.
Even our tour rehearsals became segmented. Larry Dunn would rehearse the rhythm section for weeks before Philip and I came to the set. The horn players rehearsed separately. It was just practical for a band and operation as big as ours. The only time we were all together was onstage or on the plane.
23
I Am
Infinite striving to be the best is man’s duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God’s hands.
—Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in Anuradha Kuma, Mahatma and the Monkeys
In late September of 1978, the last thing we recorded for the the I Am album was Don Myrick’s saxophone solo on “After the Love Is Gone.” George Massenburg did a masterful editing trick where he let Myrick’s solo overlap into the next song on the record, “Let Your Feelings Show.” With that finished, we were finally done and could start mixing—or so I thought.
“Let Your Feelings Show” was supposed to be the first single from I Am. I knew for sure that it was the hit. “Let Your Feelings Show” gave a new meaning to the power in the band’s sound. Chugging along, the song is straight masculine energy. It vamps out with a tribal talking drum and African-chant-like vocals. George and I fought over that mix for weeks, but we had gotten it right.
Around the same time that we were finishing I Am, Al McKay was producing another artist for ARC, Curtis, The Brothers. They had spent a bunch of money and in my estimation still didn’t have a hit. Jon Lind and Allee Willis came to their rescue and submitted a song for the project called “Boogie Wonderland.” I stepped in as a coproducer with Al on this song, utilizing the EW&F rhythm section, along with David Foster on piano. We started jamming the song, and since Al was producing, I just mostly laid back. Jon Lind and I were singing the melody behind a partition as the band was playing. We did this for continuity’s sake and vibe. As it was coming together, I whispered in Jon Lind’s ear, “This is going to be a great track.” The demo that Jon Lind had recorded was very disco-laden, almost like “Disco Inferno” by the Trammps, but with the band involved, the EW&F musical diversity was starting to shine through.
As we started to carve out the track, it took on more and more of a greasy Latin/samba vibe. Our bossa nova elements were emerging. By the time Larry Dunn suggested dynamic Latinesque hits for the intro, I knew it was going to be happening. I called Benjamin Wright to do the arrangement. I was familiar with Ben’s work. Studio owner Paul Serrano, back in Chicago, had turned me on to him. As a matter of fact, when Stepney died years earlier, I had considered him to take Step’s place as our principal arranger, but I took Step’s advice and went with Tom-Tom Washington instead. Ben was a master at making things sound big and majestic, using the full range of the orchestra.
Ben used timpani drums and dramatic melodies that added strength, thematic character, and power to “Boogie Wonderland.” It was a masterful arrangement and a great orchestral recording session. When it was finished, I whispered excitedly to Ben, “This has got to be for Earth, Wind & Fire.” But the song was promised to Curtis, The Brothers. I didn’t want to squash their thing, and I thought it was going to be a hit record for them and in turn a big success for ARC.
A day or two later we brought in Curtis, The Brothers to do their lead vocals on “Boogie Wonderland.” It was like pulling teeth. Their pocket was way off; their energy was subpar. Al and I worked hard to get the right performance out of them, but it was taking way longer than it should have. Still, we got through the session, and I believed it was going to work out after all.
Later that night Anthony Curtis requested to see me. “Man, I really appreciate this opportunity you’re giving us,” he said, “but we just don’t feel ‘Boogie Wonderland’ fits us.”
“I think you’re making a big mistake—it could be a smash for you. But I won’t force it down your throat.”
Right then the possibility of “Boogie Wonderland” becoming an EW&F song was rising. Even with my love of Ben Wright’s thunderous arrangement, though, I still had major misgivings about EW&F releasing a disco song, especially one titled “Boogie Wonderland.”
Larry and Verdine, who weren’t any fans of disco either, cornered me in the studio. “Reece, we can do this, but just do it our way,” Larry said. “The EW&F foundation is already there.”
“Guys, I like the track, but I want to find someone else on ARC to give it to. I’m just not sure if it’s for the Fire.”
Larry and Verdine persisted. And I couldn’t deny that the track was smoking. Their suggestion to do it our way had merit. As an experiment, Philip came in and we cut background vocals on it. But it needed more vocal guts in the hook. I called the Emotions, and their vocals gave the song punctuation. Larry and Verdine had won. “Boogie Wonderland” was in.
I’m proud of “Boogie Wonderland” for two reasons. One, the track is burning with musicality and virtuosity. We even won a Grammy for the instrumental version. Two, the lyrics are a rejection of the hedonism and narcissism that disco (rightly or wrongly) had come to represent.
Midnight creeps so slowly into hearts of men who need more than they get
Daylight deals a bad hand to a woman who has laid too many bets
The mirror stares you in the face and says, “Baby, uh uh, it don’t work”
You say your prayers though you don’t care; you dance and shake the hurt
—“Boogie Wonderland,” I Am, 1979
As I said earlier, I had completely ignored and detested disco. Many of our singles, like “Getaway,” “Serpentine Fire,” “Fantasy,” and “Got to Get You into My Life,” were greatly diverse rhythmically and musically. Since those tunes had become hits in the disco era, I was afforded the luxury to not go anywhere near disco. I did not want to be trendy, and Columbia Records stayed out o
f my way. By 1979 it seemed every popular act had recorded one or two disco songs. Artists as varied as Neil Diamond, the Rolling Stones, and Rod Stewart were riding the disco bandwagon, releasing at least one song in the genre.
Additionally, by now the word disco had become poison. It killed itself by being so generic, uncreative, and overexposed. It also represented excess and bad clothing. Despite all of that, when Columbia Records heard “Boogie Wonderland,” they smelled money and wanted to release it as the first single from the new album. “Boogie Wonderland” is considered one of the last so-called worldwide disco hits. By the time it was released, people had started having “Disco Sucks” record-burning parties, and folks were wearing “Kill the Bee Gees” T-shirts.
Without question, when the I Am album was finished, I knew we had a winner, full of musical diversity. It had Dixieland swing in “Star,” and 1950s doo-wop in “Wait.” Of course it also had the Afro-Cuban/funky/pop/percussive vibe only Earth, Wind & Fire could do in the mystical anthem “In the Stone.” The songs were happening, the mixes were stellar, and the band never sounded better. Before its release, both Prince and Quincy Jones told me it was our finest record.
In January, “September” was certified as a gold single. On February 15, 1979, we picked up three Grammys. Two were for EW&F: Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus for “All ’N All,” and Best R&B Instrumental Performance for “Runnin’,” both from the album All ’N All. The third was mine, for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) for “Got to Get You into My Life.” For the third year in a row we won the American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B/Band Duo/Group. Predictably, we were not in attendance, except for Verdine, who was late. When Kristy and Jimmy McNichol say, “And the winner is Earth, Wind & Fire,” there’s a slight pause, and then the camera turns wildly to the left, catching Verdine in full track-sprinting mode. Running down the aisle from the very back of the theater (and not falling, thank God), he sprints up the steps, taking the stage to accept the award. After a quick complaint about LA traffic, he catches his breath and graciously accepts the award on behalf of the band, ARC Records, and myself.
Awards aside, EW&F’s music was always intended to uplift and bring divergent races together. If someone gleaned from Earth, Wind & Fire’s music a certain political disposition, more power to them. I gave to charities, and I lent the name of EW&F to several causes I believed in, like the Muscular Dystrophy Association and several national voter registration drives. But my friend from Chicago, Jesse Jackson, was always trying to get me to donate Earth, Wind & Fire’s time to do this or that. He would show up at Hollywood Sound, Studio B, so many times unannounced and tell me what he wanted the band to come play for, or ask, Could you record this song for the project? I would tell him that I was selective about what the band was politically aligned with, which in reality was nothing. I wanted the universal persona of Earth, Wind & Fire to be above the ever-changing winds of politics.
But UNICEF was not political; it was only about the welfare of children worldwide. In early 1979 we performed a medley of “September” and “That’s the Way of the World” for The Music for UNICEF Concert: A Gift of Song, a television special and benefit concert held at the General Assembly of the United Nations to raise money and awareness for UNICEF as well as kicking off UNICEF’s International Year of the Child. We prerecorded the track and sang the lead vocals live. Along with EW&F, ABBA, the Bee Gees, John Denver, Olivia Newton-John, Donna Summer, Rita Coolidge, Kris Kristofferson, and Rod Stewart shared in this history-making, hope-filled event. There wasn’t much drama between the stars. I do remember Rod Stewart had on a full-length mink sable coat, and everybody wanted host Henry “The Fonz” Winkler’s autograph for their kids.
For some reason or other the producer, Robert Stigwood, wanted us to dress casually for the performance, not in our stage wear. That wasn’t going to happen. I think Stigwood didn’t want us to upstage his client, the Bee Gees, and he still may have been pissed about us having the only success out of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie fiasco. When we returned to the hotel, I instructed Leonard to tell the guys to dress there and not at the UN, so they would have no option but to film us that way.
Roughly three months later, “Boogie Wonderland” would be released as the first single from I Am. That record and “After the Love Has Gone” quickly became gold singles.
Nineteen seventy-eight was a year of incredible professional highs, but it ended in considerable sadness. Mother Dear gathered the entire family in Chicago for Christmas, and broke the news that her cancer had returned. She had all of her children there with her until the very next day, when she went into the hospital. As has been the case for most of my life, I chose to keep my concern for her locked up deep within myself.
After Mother Dear’s revelation, I went to Carmel for a few weeks. I had to make some decisions about the tour in support of the I Am album. I needed Carmel’s peace and quiet to chill me out. I hired a tennis instructor, and we played every day right before sunset. Before I left LA, I was given a banker’s box full of materials I needed to look over for the tour. After some lengthy phone calls with Verdine and Cavallo, I decided not to have an opening act—just Earth, Wind & Fire for two-plus hours of our musical theater. I hoped that having no opening act would cut down on the cost. Since “Boogie Wonderland” had exploded, I opted to take three young ladies—Carla Vaughn, Sylvia Cox, and Judy Jones—on the tour to do the Emotions’ vocal parts on the song. They would also help take some of the background vocal responsibilities off the band.
I told the guys to keep their hands off the girls, a demand that I could not adhere to myself. Judy Jones was beautiful, smart, and sweet. During that tour we fell into a relationship. By the end of the tour, I had real and genuine feelings for her. I continued to see her for a while. I even thought briefly about making her “the one.” But my noncommittal stance would eventually drive us apart.
For what we called the Tour of the World 1979, we would do America in the winter and then go on to London, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, and finally Japan. We tapped David Copperfield for our illusions this time. Copperfield had come up under Doug Henning but had branched out on his own. He didn’t have Doug’s forcefulness. Doug was like a general, a shut-up-and-pay-attention kind of cat, but Copperfield didn’t have that personality. Everybody would continue to horse around while he patiently stood with his hands folded behind his back, waiting for the guys to calm down. His illusions were very technical in execution. We had an astonishing disappearing escapade that boggled the mind—to give any more details would reveal his secrets. Some of this high-tech growth was Copperfield’s genius; some of it was the technology that was moving fast in show business. As with everything else, we moved along with it. Once, when we were on the soundstage rehearsing one of his illusions, and it did not work properly, Copperfield stormed outside almost in tears. Some of the guys were kind of laughing at his outburst. But I took it as a sign of his total dedication to what he was doing for us.
The one thing that stayed the same for our tour preparation was George Faison and his incessant hollering, giving us direction. He felt we had gotten sloppy in our time off between tours. Forever the schoolmaster, he set out to abolish any thought that his moves might be any easier than the last time. He didn’t let up on us one bit. I remember him hollering, “You ain’t sold no tickets yet—get back to work!” He had us doing dancer-type exercises to limber up. There was more spinning around, more symmetry with the lighting and explosions, not to mention singing and playing instruments.
As a result, there was more rehearsing and coordination between the entire team. Additionally, the staging, the rehearsals, the magic, the advanced pyrotechnics, the wardrobe, the trucks, the lights, and the sound all fell under the EW&F financial umbrella. We didn’t rent anything, as most rock acts did. The trucks, the stage, the lights, the sound—they were all owned in-house. It was at this time that I got some real serious
pushback from my management team and accountants. Sitting in my office, I was shown a spreadsheet with all the costs laid out and calculated: band and crew salaries, Copperfield, Faison, wardrobe, hotel transportation, and a bunch of other stuff. I looked at it briefly and tossed it back at Art Macnow.
“Unless you want to come home broke, you’ve got to cut some of this stuff back,” Art said, trying to scare me for what he thought was my own good.
“Man, I can’t give the audience the same thing as last year,” I said. “I’ve got to up the ante.”
“These costs are freaking me out! Look at Whitten and Copperfield’s bill.”
“Yeah, but what I’m paying for is the dramatic effect—the magic and costumes are a big part of that.”
“I’m telling you, you’ll be lucky if you break even—and you won’t.”
I thought back to the beginning of the EW&F odyssey, when I had wanted all those things that were now on the financial spreadsheet. The drive for a better and better live show was especially important to me, and it had happened. Each tour I was upping the ante, and yes, that required some significant money—over a half a million dollars up front before one ticket was sold. Still, I knew that eventually I’d win the argument. After all, it was, in fact, my money. Bill Whitten was the best in the world of rock-and-roll wardrobe, so I had to have him. His costumes could cost from $3,000 to $10,000 each, and each member needed more than one. But his African-themed designs made us look and feel like kings. They were meticulous in color and sparkle and were durable. They contained all kinds of materials—Lurex (a kind of metallic yarn), glass stones, metal, plastic, and more. His wardrobe for us overflowed from every stitch with star quality.
The road thing was always financially tricky for me. I had always made a great living off my songwriting and especially publishing royalties. The guys in the band who wrote songs always made out better than the ones who did not. By and large, however, the road monies paid a lot of the supporting cast around me—not only the band but also all the crew, management, accountants, wardrobe, magic, and choreographers. Although the road was a strain for me personally, it did in fact keep the machine of Earth, Wind & Fire rolling along.
My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire Page 26