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!”