by Greg Mayer
It’s been a bad few months for musicians: David Bowie, Glenn Frey, and now Maurice White, the influential, productive, and popular performer, writer, and producer, have died. And I must add to this sad list Cynthia Robinson, the iconic trumpeter of Sly and the Family Stone, who passed away in late November. As the Righteous Brothers sang, “If there’s a rock and roll heaven, you know they’ve got a hell of a band.”
While working with musicians as diverse as Barbra Streisand and The Tubes, White’s lasting reputation will rest most firmly on his co-founding of the seminal funk and soul band Earth, Wind and Fire. Combining the voices of Maurice White and Philip Bailey, with rhythm, harmony, and a large horn section, Earth, Wind and Fire had funk, soul, psychedelia, jazz and a touch of big band. They could be mellow as in “That’s the Way of the World”, or urgent, as in “Shining Star”. They scored hits from the 70s through the 80’s, and continue to tour successfully to this day, though Maurice had stepped back from performing due to Parkinson’s disease. Of late, they often toured with another band with a big horn section, Chicago, the two bands practically forming a small orchestra when they play each other’s music together (I saw them in Milwaukee a few years ago).
Here’s “Boogie Wonderland”, featuring a lot of screen time for Maurice, and the elaborate showmanship and costuming featuring the Neo-Egyptian styling that the band favored at the time.
It is a sign of the wide popularity and respect in which White and Earth, Wind and Fire were held that, when I attended a concert at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City in the 70s, featuring, of all people, the Outlaws and the Doobie Brothers, the warm-up music played over the speaker system for the crowd was Earth, Wind and Fire. Here’s one of the songs played at the Stadium:
And Cynthia Robinson was an early and key member of Sly and the Family Stone, practically the ur-band of funk. Sly Stone deliberately set out to create a band with musicians who were black and white, male and female, which, as the New York Times put it, along with “its hippie style, made it a living poster for the ideals of the counterculture.” Robinson was the trumpeter in the horn section, and also provided occasional, but crucial, vocals. In the clip below, from the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969, the band begins with “Everyday People”, then moves to “Dance to the Music”, featuring Cynthia’s vocals on both tunes; at about 2:50, “Dance to the Music” begins with her best known line. There are many recordings of “Dance to the Music” online but this clip, an extended version, shows her on camera as it begins (as well as showing her on “Everyday People”).
As Cynthia commanded us, “Get up, and dance to the music!”
Those were the years when good music was coming from many directions. I don’t think we knew how many until later. Believe Sly was at Woodstock as well.
Sorry, don’t people “pass away” to go to God’s mind explodingly boring waiting room? – I feel we’ve got so conditioned to say “pass away” that no one’s allowed to “die”. Even “no longer with us” is better if we don’t want to upset the feelings of relatives.
Thanks for the clips they are great memories – a sad last few months of losing great musicians
Doesn’t seem like we need to get into semantics here. After all, we can be pretty sure no one at this site is gonna use “pass away” in any godly sense.
IMO, the phrase has been such a common part of the vernacular for so long, I think nothing of using it myself. Ya gotta have synonyms, esp. when folks are dying in droves! 😉
Another death to observe is that of Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon. He died on Thursday, one day short of the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 14 landing.
Indeed.
GCM
Another recent death of a ’60s rock legend was that of Paul Kantner, founding member of the Jefferson Airplane, on January 28. Coincidentally, on the same day the original female vocalist for the band, Signe Anderson, also died. She only appeared on their debut album, The Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, from 1966, departing when she became pregnant and deciding against a life on the road with an infant. Grace Slick was subsequently invited to climb aboard and the J. Airplane took off to ever greater heights. While it’s sad that so many of these legends are dying, at least these latest did live to be “late middle-aged” if not actually “old” unlike so many of their long gone former contemporaries who never even made it to age 30.
I was going to mention Paul Kantner, too.
With his passing, we should forgive him his trespasses with Jefferson Starship.
Among my favorite songs of all time is Fantasy by E.W.&F. Whenever it comes on I pretty much have to stop whatever I am doing.
Nice tribute Jerry.
It’s so sad that White has passed away.
I was a huge EWF fan growing up (still am).
When the 80’s came and music became so straight-laced, paired down and synthesized, you couldn’t even find anyone using a real horn section anymore. (One of my most disheartening moments was going to see the Commodores at Ontario Place in the 80s, and they had replaced their horn section with an anonymous keyboard player using crappy keyboard samples instead. Totally deflating.
We missed the vibe EWF and others brought so much that I formed, with other funk-obsessed friends, a large tribute-type band playing EWF, Commodores, Brick, Brothers Johnson, Funkadelic etc (with real horn sections).
It was clear from the audience reactions that people were still starved for that kind of thing. (And to my surprise that band is getting together again for another gig, 20 years later, though I can’t join having bad tinnitus these days).
Anyway, as to EWF: Philip Baily’s singing seemed to have the rep for fronting their signature sound, but Maurice White was always my favorite singer in the band.
The last time I saw EWF Maurice had already stopped performing and Philip Bailey was also singing Maurice’s parts and doing a surprisingly faithful sounding rendition of Maurice in Maurice’s vocal range, given Philip’s rep for a falsetto style.
If you saw them with EWF, I’m guessing it was a similar situation.
Their live performances available on DVDs/Blu-Rays are fantastic too!
psst: this was posted by Greg Mayer. 😉
Whoops, I missed it Diane!
Thank you Greg!
(I know Jerry has some funk in his bones as well).
Absolutely. This could easily have been by him!
Damn, it sounds as if we could have grown up together. This is exactly the music I grew up on also. Not exclusively of course. I still have original vinyl of all these bands, and more.
Agree completely about the Commodores losing their horn section. I think their 1977 Commodore Musical Extravaganza tour was their peak. I was in Germany at the time and they played not more than an 1-1/2 hour drive from where I was living, and I didn’t go. I still feel slightly ill whenever I think about that.
Earth Wind & Fire is one of my foundational groups, meaning it was one of the groups that I listened to, and loved, when I first fell in love with music. They have remained a favorite through all the years. Gratitude shows the band at its best. Thank you Maurice White.
EWF’s “In The Stone” was one of the all time great stereo demos back in the day…
We also lost Gary Lozzio recently. He was the leader and vocalist of The American Breed. Their best known song was “Bend Me, Shape Me”. But he was actually best known in the business as a studio owner and recording engineer who was nominated for Grammies many times for his engineering of records for Styx and REO among others.
Greg, how could you leave Lemmy out of that list of recently deceased? How could anyone, ever, forget LEMMY, leader of the loudest band in the universe?
I thought that title belonged to Disaster Area
Don’t forget Lemmy, from Motorhead. LEmma is god.