—William James
In spring of 1994 Bob Cavallo, Art Macnow, and I met at the Glen Deli on Beverly Glen Boulevard, near my home. The guys wanted to try to go on the road without me. It would be a trial effort to see how they did, and to see if it was even possible. Since I own the name Earth, Wind & Fire, they would need my blessing. Bob and Art explained to me that if the guys could come up with something respectable, it could be lucrative for me, and the guys in the band could continue to earn a living.
I knew this was coming. A few months earlier, we had been performing in Japan. This was one of those frustrating periods when I did not have the drug regimen together. Physically, I barely got through those performances. My voice wasn’t strong. We had to lower the key to “After the Love Is Gone.” Right before we left Yokohama to come back home, I was walking to my hotel room, and I passed by an open door. The entire band was in one of the guy’s rooms, having a meeting. I stopped for a second or two, looked in the room, and then just kept walking. When they saw me, they looked like they had seen a ghost.
I knew what they were talking about. What would they do if I stopped touring? Would they have a job? Did Philip, Verdine, Ralph, and Sheldon have all the musicians’ support to soldier on without me? Would I pull the plug on the whole thing?
I listened to Bob and Art’s pitch, and at first I was very—no, extremely—resistant. I explained to them that despite the financial incentive that they artfully dangled in front of me, I did not want Earth, Wind & Fire to become an oldies act, like an Earth, Wind & Fire revue-style thing. I also didn’t want it to become like the Drifters or the Temptations, with several groups out there touring under the Earth, Wind & Fire name. I made it plain that I’d rather retire the name and leave EW&F as a performing act to the memory of our fans. Sensing my doubt, they collectively made one last plea. Bob started talking, with Art chiming in.
“Reece, every day all over the world those songs are played on the radio, television, and in films. That is your legacy, and it is intact. The band couldn’t even think of touring if Earth, Wind & Fire didn’t have multiple hit records. You conceived Earth, Wind & Fire, you financed it, and you took the risk. Now why not enjoy some of the benefit? Their touring would be a small way of enhancing the Fire’s legacy.”
I was silent. Art and Bob had made a convincing case. They also added that the tours would not be the kind of tours that had built the Earth, Wind & Fire brand, nor the kind of tour that we had just taken to Japan. They would be at smaller venues, with many corporate bookings. Translation: low overhead and high return.
In the end, after a month of pondering, I agreed. I actually felt I had made the right decision for everyone concerned. This would not be the first time a successful band had soldiered on without their lead vocalist. Philip’s songs wouldn’t be a problem, because he was still there. But since I sang the lead vocal on 90 percent of our hits, it would be a challenge for them to make it work.
I made a colossal error in not replacing myself as the lead vocalist in the band. I was advised to do so by everyone. The argument went like this: if EW&F were to be relevant as a present-day recording act and not just a touring act, it would need two distinct voices, Philip’s falsetto and a strong tenor voice. The signature sound of the band was created with two different and independent voices. The plan was to hold auditions and find a young cat to sing my parts.
If I found a cat that met the requirements and also exceeded them, it would compensate for whatever loss the band faced in my absence. Still, I knew that replacing a lead vocalist in a band is never an easy thing to do. You are not only replacing a sound; you’re replacing a persona. Additionally, I would have to find someone who possessed good stage presence and worked for myself, Philip, Verdine, and Ralph. Bottom line: I could have found someone, I should have found someone. But I just couldn’t let go.
At first I felt like my baby was being taken away from me. Despite all the people who contributed to Earth, Wind & Fire’s musical and business success, it was still my child—the child in my dreams of 1968, the child born out of a need to express myself, the child that would grow and be nurtured and ultimately render itself to humanity. And now it was being snatched away from me. I believe my feelings were symbolic of a lot of other ruminations, too. One, I loved performing. I loved the ego gratification and the validation. Most of all, I loved being a part of the greatest band on earth. When Magic Johnson retired from the Lakers due to HIV, he said what he would miss the most is “being one of the boys.” I can relate to that. To stand backstage with your comrades-in-arms as the houselights go down and 20,000-plus ear-deafening screaming people stand up—now, that’s a huge rush and a strong bonding element. I miss that feeling to this day.
Secondly, I was also in a massive full-on denial about my condition. I would have great days and then not so-great days, which gave me the luxury to dance around reality. I could still sing and produce records. In my mind, that meant I could still do everything, which of course I could not. I could not handle the physical toll of being onstage for two hours under hot lights, but in my rigid denial, I could.
As much as I tried to reinvent my life, when the band started touring without me, I felt a void. I tried desperately to ignore this feeling. The paradox was that I was tired of the road. Even in the years before Parkinson’s, I had had enough. And yet, when I was forced to give it up, as opposed to giving it up on my own terms, it messed with my head. For maybe a year or two, a few times a week I would think about being onstage.
Since depression and anxiety can sometimes be the most disabling thing with Parkinson’s, my neurologist said that maybe I should see a therapist. I did, and on my second visit, he recommended that I put an end to any and all musical activities. That was the last time I saw that particular therapist. He just didn’t get it. Therapists do a wonderful service for our society, but they deal in the psyche, which I believe can carry you only so far. If I were to gain anything from the therapeutic sessions, it would need to have a strong spiritual component as well. Music creation is a part of my spiritual life. Whatever healing would ultimately take place within me would come from the deeper parts of me, the parts beyond my intellect.
My innermost thoughts at that time were a merry-go-round of laughter, sadness, and relief. In a way, I would have never gotten off that treadmill of Earth, Wind & Fire if it had not been for Parkinson’s disease. And I needed to. It had been a very long, hard road, a journey for which I sacrificed pretty much everything else in my life.
Part VI
Contemplation
34
Time Will Witness What the Old Folks Say
In your eyes the somber blue
Reflects a place from deep inside of knowing not what to do
I’ll be your rock when you’re about to fall
Together, we’ll move on ahead and walk right through it all
—“Turn It into Something Good,” Faces, 1980
By the mid- to late 1990s, the glory days of my career were over. They had been over for some years. The struggle of those early years of 1969 to 1975 had been my proving ground. After 1975 and “Shining Star,” EW&F hit an unprecedented streak of success no one could have imagined. But it took hard work.
Toward the end of the century, Earth, Wind & Fire experienced a resurgence in popularity. We received the NAACP Hall of Fame Image Award, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In December of 1999 I found out that Earth, Wind & Fire would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, class of 2000. This was a distinct honor for the band and for all that we had achieved. As the March 6 ceremony date approached, though, I started to inform people that I did not plan to attend. I didn’t want to deal with being at such a high-profile event with Parkinson’s disease.
I got a lot of pressure from Art Macnow and friends to attend. Verdine gave it to me hardest. “You’ve got to go, Reece.”
“Don’t think I’m up for it, V.”
“Man, if you’re not there,
everybody will be disappointed.”
“Ah, man, it’s not that heavy.”
“The hell it ain’t! Reece, I’m telling you—you have got to go!”
I gave in. In the early spring of 2000, however, I was still experimenting with different drug therapies. There was no way I could perform with the band for the induction ceremony in the style that the public was used to. In effect, if I were to attend, I had to come clean.
One week before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame event, I disclosed to the Associated Press that I had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for eight years. At the various press events before the ceremonies, Parkinson’s was on everyone’s tongue. Reporters asked me a ton of questions that I did not want to answer, and many that I could not answer. What’s the prognosis? Why did you keep it secret for so long? What’s it like for you? This made me very uncomfortable. I felt that the band’s moment in the sun was somewhat eclipsed by my Parkinson’s revelation. I feel very bad about that.
Still, on the bright side, it was the first time the original band had been together in twenty years. At first it was a little weird, but after a while we kind of fell into the old routine, telling the same crazy jokes. All this humor reminded me of when we were young. And in fact, for brief moments on that induction weekend, we were all young once again.
When I stepped up to the podium to speak, the crowd got to their feet and applauded for what seemed to me too long. I was sincerely moved by their appreciation. I was even more moved by the eight applauding gentlemen standing behind me—Verdine White, Larry Dunn, Philip Bailey, Al McKay, Ralph Johnson, Andrew Woolfolk, Johnny Graham, and Fred White. These were the men who took the journey with me, creating a new and powerful cross-cultural sound in pop music. On this weekend we were all reminded by colleagues and fans that EW&F had come to represent something more. We had indeed gained a transcendent respect.
Our new-thought cultural respect was entwined with the feel-good nature of our music, the philosophical tone of our lyrics, and our spectacular live shows, which kept pushing the theatrical envelope. Our small yet constant emphasis on spiritual love and peace was laced into much of our music. Still, I have no illusions that my little corner of creativity is going to change the world—but I do believe strongly in the continuum of spiritual ideas. And during our time on that continuum, we contributed songs that sought to bring our world together and strengthen the inner man.
We had songs built on simple universal spiritual truths, like “Keep Your Head to the Sky,” “Devotion,” “That’s the Way of the World,” “Take It to the Sky,” and “All About Love.” Some—like “Open Our Eyes,” “Burning Bush,” “Gratitude,” “See the Light,” and “Touch the World”—speak to (but are not limited to) a Judeo-Christian lineage. Some—“Sing a Song,” “On Your Face,” “Turn It into Something Good,” “Share Your Love,” and “Celebrate”—are simply affirmations of positivity.
Still others—“Saturday Nite,” “Boogie Wonderland,” “Fair but So Uncool,” and “I’ve Had Enough”—are a repudiation of the party life. We testify that you can make it if you try with “Shining Star,” “Mighty Mighty,” “Getaway,” “You Are a Winner,” and others. Still others—“In the Stone,” “Evolution Orange,” “Jupiter,” “Fantasy,” “Serpentine Fire,” and many more—speak to an ageless, ancient, and transcendent spiritual wisdom.
The coda to our induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was deep gratitude. Still we knew the award was small-time compared to our legacy—the message in our music. Each member of Earth, Wind & Fire contributed in his own way to that heritage. My own Earth, Wind & Fire story, however, starts and ends with a spiritually motivated idea that I said yes to. And when you say yes to anything in your consciousness, it is my firm belief, the universe starts to conspire to bring that yes to fruition. The EW&F concept was so big and so grand that it would have existed without the band or myself. To me, the idea was just sitting out there in the ether, waiting to be picked up by someone with the courage to take it on. If another spirit had accepted the Creator’s invitation, EW&F would have been different. But I believe it still would have existed.
The morning after the induction ceremony, I had breakfast sent up to my hotel room. A copy of USA Today accompanied it, with an article about the previous evening’s events. When I read the piece, it was a moment I will never, ever forget. I just stared, transfixed, at the words “Maurice White, who disclosed his battle with Parkinson’s disease . . .” I didn’t read anything else in the article.
In an instant my situation became real to me in a new way. It wasn’t shock. It wasn’t fear, and in that moment, it wasn’t even relief. Seeing those words in print was like looking into two mirrors that face each other and reflect into infinity, leaving me nowhere to hide. I gazed at the words—it seemed like forever. Somehow I knew my life had changed dramatically.
My never-let-them-see-you-sweat mentality was so much a part of who I was, as a bandleader and as a man. I did not want to be identified as a victim in any way. I wanted none of that “poor Maurice” stuff. To say publicly that I had an incurable vulnerability was my vertical hitting my horizontal. It was the perfect storm of my public life crashing into my private life, the life that I had guarded so meticulously. It was also the beginning of a mourning process. Not for my life, but for the gradual yet persistent loss of some of my physical abilities—a mourning for things that had to be left behind, permanently. I would have to say farewell to the joys of playing tennis and playing the drums. As things fell away, Parkinson’s would force me to reassess long-held ideas about myself. Whether as a drummer, a singer, or a record producer, I, like many men, had a lot of self-identity caught up in my work. Music had been the essence of my total expression. In time, I would accept that I was more than my music calling. This was a monumental psychological and emotional shift. Additionally, I recognized that I was more than Parkinson’s, too. I was starting to grow and change in ways I could have never imagined.
I had never been afraid of change. The Buddhist philosophies of nonattachment that I learned in Asia decades ago helped. But human attachment dies very hard. And I knew that whatever lay ahead for me was going to be far different than anything I had experienced up until now. I realized that how I behaved in this wilderness called Parkinson’s disease would determine how long I would stay in this wilderness—the wilderness of my mind.
In this phase of my life, contemplation has become a big part of my days. I look back and hear the choir at Rose Hill Baptist Church singing an old Negro spiritual, “Build your hope on things eternal—hold to God’s unchanging hand.” I believe the Creator’s changeless and unceasing energy is still in the driver’s seat of my life, and he still has his hands on me. I find comfort in that belief. The vulnerability and frailty of being human, none of us can escape. Life is designed to be humbling. But there is something to be said for having gratitude and devotion to the Almighty for life just as it is, Parkinson’s and all. I am confident that this attitude is the way for my soul to evolve to the next level. It helps me accept my uncertainties as friends and not enemies.
Live a long life, and you start to lose people and push to do things while you still can. In February of 2003, my stepdad, Verdine Adams, died in Chicago. At Dad’s funeral I was reminded of my deep family truths. In traditional families, stories are told over and over again to one another. In mine, those stories exist too, but I’m not really a part of them. My family’s childhood reminiscences were not mine. I wasn’t there. As family members and friends described in detail who or what something was like, I couldn’t participate. It’s not that I felt left out, but I am reminded of the very peculiar circumstances of my role in Dr. Adams’s family.
In September of 2004 my pal Louis “Lui-Lui” Satterfield, who taught me how to assert myself and taught Verdine how to play the bass, died in Chicago. That same year my sister Patt Adams moved out of my home. She had been one of my closest confidantes for more than twenty-five years, and I was
sad to see her leave. Life was changing fast.
In some sense I started to take on new responsibilities to acknowledge the speed at which my life was moving. In 2005 I was approached by dancer/choreographer Maurice Hines to do a Broadway show based on the music of Earth, Wind & Fire. Hot Feet would be the result. Bill Meyers and I spent about a year working on the music, but the story was lacking. The script was based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Red Shoes.” Maurice Hines directed it; his choreography was outstanding, but he didn’t have enough of a story line to focus on. It was a commercial and critical flop.
In 2006 I came out of retirement to give my last public performance with Earth, Wind & Fire at the Grammy Awards. I had my drug therapies together, it was a good performance, and I had a great time.
The rest of the 2000s and beyond would be filled with a huge assortment of lifetime achievement awards for EW&F. Verdine, Philip, and Ralph would continue performing, and in their own way they continued to enliven the legacy of EW&F. They played at many significant events, most notably for a state dinner at the White House with President Clinton in 2000, in the 2002 Winter Olympics closing ceremonies in Salt Lake City, in the 2005 Super Bowl pregame show, and at the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize concert in Norway. But none of these was more significant to me than their invitation to perform at the White House Governors’ Dinner in 2009 by President Barack Obama. This was the first formal dinner of his administration, and he chose Earth, Wind & Fire.
I couldn’t help but feel deep, genuine pride when Verdine told me about the moment he met the president. “We walked in,” Verdine said, “and I thought about Mom and Dad. I said, ‘Boy, they would really be proud. Wow, we have come a mighty long way.’ The president came down to rehearsal and said, ‘What’s up, Verdine?’ I said, ‘Hey, Mr. President.’ He said, ‘Call me Barack.’ He said, ‘Where’s Maurice? Where’s Maurice?’ I said, ‘He’s back in LA.’ He said, ‘You mean Maurice ain’t here?—Darn.’ He was truly disappointed. You know what I mean! ‘When the president looks forward to meeting you—whoa!’”
My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire Page 34