An Elemental Legacy

Earth, Wind & Fire: An Elemental Legacy
By Mark Anthony Neal—SeeingBlack.com Contributing Editor

When a young Maurice White was a drummer for the Ramsey Lewis trio, he was perhaps simply hoping to be able to sustain himself as a musician. Some 40 years later, White is internationally known as the figurehead behind one of the most popular bands ever produced in the United States. Some would have us believe that Earth, Wind & Fire was little more than a funk and soul band from the 1970s, but their peers were not Kool & the Gang or the Dazz Band, but legendary pop bands like The Eagles and Chicago. White’s highbrow spirituality befit an era tailored for heady optimism and even headier creativity in the music industry. The product was one of the singular musical entities of the post-Civil Rights era and, at their musical peak in the late 1970s. Earth, Wind & Fire embodied that best that Americana offered. Thus is only fitting that the legacy of Earth, Wind and Fire is finally treated to the musical tribute it so richly deserves with the recently released Interpretations: Celebrating the Music of Earth, Wind & Fire (Stax).

Earth, Wind and Fire’s legacy is best understood in two parts: before and after Charles Stepney. The group was largely the brainchild of Stepney and White. In the late 1960s, Stepney was a producer and arranger at Chess Records and, in that capacity, he produced a multiracial band known as Rotary Connection. The band, which included a young Minnie Riperton as featured vocalist, consciously pushed the boundaries of soul and 60s rock. With the subsequent demise on Rotary Connection, Earth Wind & Fire was, in part, an attempt to build a better band, which shared Stepney’s eclectic vision of popular music. What Stepney and White achieved in those early days, with albums such as Last Days and Time (1972), Keep Your Head to the Sky (1973) and Open Our Eyes (1974), was an example avant-garde soul, that largely remains unmatched save examples like Fertile Ground and The Family Stand. That’s the Way of the World (1975), which includes breakthrough commercial hits like “Shining Star,” “Reasons” and the title track, remains the highpoint of Stepney’s collaborations with the group. But with the sudden death of Stepney in 1976 (at age 43)—during the recording of Spirit (1976), Earth, Wind & Fire transitioned into the hit-making entity that it is remembered for today. Tracks like “September” and “After the Love is Gone” are far cry from songs like “Mighty, Mighty,” “Evil” and “Devotion,” but the post-Stepney Earth, Wind & Fire established itself as the quintessential pop band, equally at home with The Beatles (Sergeant Pepper’s “Gotta Get You Into My Life”) and disco (“Boogie Wonderland”).

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