Maurice White of Earth Wind & Fire Dead

Parkinsons is an evil disease. My grandfather was unable to walk or speak for the last several years of his life, but while it can cause confusion, it doesn't rob you of your memory the way Alzheimer's does. It's living hell, pure and simple. I'm glad Mr. White found release, and sorry he had such a condition.

 

Me too, ha. I like IAm a lot too.

 

R.I.P.

 

Unless i'm mistaken, "Rock That!" either was nominated for, or won a Grammy in 1980.

You also cannot know that Bowie had a larger fanbase. It is just possible that a large percent of EWF's fanbase just doesn't read or participate on this forum because of its mostly rockist membership.

 

"I Am" is another one of my favorites from EWF. I have a few.
The album is jam packed with hits. (In the Stone,After the Love Has Gone,Boogie Wonderland,Star,etc.)
What a terrific swan song for a incredibly productive and successful decade.

 

As I now listen to their cover of Got To Get You Into My Life, I have trouble remembering why it did not click with my 17 year old brain when it came out. Such well played, sung and vibrant performances. RIP Maurice, your music and spirit will endure.

 

It clicked with my 17 year old brain. Back then it was the only way I would have listened to a Beatles tune (things have changed in that regard).
I can't say I'm surprised his passing has a relatively muted reaction here. It's music you can dance to. Not sure too many of the 'rawk types' on here ever did much of that. Demographics and all that.

 

I definitely would not call EWF's music "dance music", not that there's anything wrong with dance music. It did tale R&B to a higher level. Maurice White set out to put R&B music in the arenas like rock music, and he did just that! Dance music??? Their music crossed and mixed so many genres that it boggles the mind.

If a person thinks EWF was "dance music", I would suggest that they really don't know their music, or R&B music at all!

 

I have to say there isn't enough alcohol on the planet to get me out on a dance floor. I, personally, do not view EW&F as "dance" music but I could see how listeners unfamiliar with anything other than the hits may feel that way. To me it's just beautifully, well crafted music, a diverse mix of jazz, soul, r&b, funk and pop and if you feel like dancing when you hear it, by all means do so. But if not, just listen to those remarkable sounds this band produced. I think it basically comes down to demographics and there are a lot of rock fans here, people who love guitar, but we shouldn't be comparing thread lengths between Bowie and EW&F as both of them made our days happier and the music we heard better.

Here is one of my favorite EW&F songs and I urge anyone who is unfamiliar with their music beyond the radio hits to please listen. You will be happy that you did.

"Power"

 

The number of comments on each RIP thread does not determine the amount of quality music made by White & Bowie, but just that more people on here have listened to the music of Bowie. Think of it this way. Hockey(NHL) is my favorite sport, but if I go to ESPN or CBS Sports website, there will be a much larger number of comments on threads for the NFL compared to the NHL. That does not mean to me that the NFL is better(although a great Sport to watch), as when it comes to the Playoffs, Sudden Death OT in the NHL is provides greater Heart Stopping excitement, than any other Sport can provide. Just my own opinion of course. Of course, I spend more time on NHL.com to read about Hockey anyways, or Newspaper websites for my 2 favorite Teams.

If you got to read my comment in a prior post, I said that I think that White & Bowie both produced great music, and the only difference was that Bowie was still actively putting out new Music of a variety of Styles the past 25 years, and after White was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, it limited his involvement with the band(not sure if he even helped create any of the music on Earth, Wind & Fire albums since after 'Touch the World' from 1987, when I first got into their music). It was around the early '90s when I pretty much discovered and bought most FUNK/Soul Music from Bands(Slave, Gap Band, Cameo, Brothers Johnson, Fatback Band, Brass Construction, Con Funk Shun, Mass Production, Bar-Kays, Ohio Players, Brick, Midnight Star, Heatwave, Tom Browne-Trumpet Jazz/FUNK, George Duke-RIP, to name a few) from the '70s/'80s. I started preaching the P-FUNK Gospel to all, who would listen-'The FUNK not only Moves, but it ReMoves').

Outside of Bowie & White, I think only the future deaths(possible next 5-15 years) of Peter Gabriel, Joe Jackson, George Clinton(Never Underestimate the Music Powers of a Hairdresser), Bootsy Collins(Half Man-Half Bass), Pete Townshend, David Gilmour(Half Man-Half Guitar), Ray Davies Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry& Jagger/Richards will affect me as much. Fortunately, most of my favorite Music Artists are from the 1990s/1980s, so most of them should be on Planet Earth for another 20-50 years(Jeff Buckley a tragic exception with drowning death). But I always go back to explore older Music, so just got into Jefferson Airplane this past year(seeking out older Psychedelic Rock Music beyond early Pink Floyd-Syd Barret era and The Doors), and bam, one of the JA's main Guitar Players and Key Members dies last week(and their first female singer, but I skipped their first album anyways, as not interested in 'Folk' Music, that apparently was the type of music on their debut album, and Grace Slick replaced the other singer on their 2nd album-'Surrealistic Pillow').

 

Alcohol has never gotten me on a dance floor, but a few women have achieved that amazing feat!

I listened to the "All 'N All" remastered CD before work this morning, and, again, was floored by how beautifully and meticulously it was put together from the playing, EQ'ing, sequencing, crossfades, song selection, editing, mastering, everything!

When I listened to "Love's Holiday" this morning, for the first time in all the 39 years since i've been listening to the album, I realized just how cleverly they slipped the lead guitar solo into the song near the end. Brilliant mind!

 

I wouldn't call it "dance music" either. It's more of a spiritual thing.

 

That's really strange too, because, for at least the U.S., Earth, Wind & Fire had a LOT more singles on the charts than Bowie ever did, and more of them went to the top 10. (Since I know some smartass is researching this with his Joel Whitburn books, I want to say right up front that I stand by what I wrote because I used the plural "charts", and that includes the R&B Billboard Hot 100", of which Bowie rarely ever hit. Still, EWF had more top pop hot 100 singles, too.)

But, to be fair, Glenn Frey just passed away too, and they rivaled EWF, chartwise. They arguably had a smaller audience than EWF, and Frey still managed to get more posts in his thread, and he wasn't even liked by a lot of people. The reason I say Eagles had a smaller audience is because that band was mainly popular here in the U.S., where EWF was popular the world over, and not everyone here loved their music.

EWF is still making albums with the same frequency of David Bowie, probably even more so, and Maurice White still acted as the musical director. After all, he founded the band. It was his band. The band always respected that. He was the Godfather!

I was born in the early 60s and was around it all my life. The first James Brown I heard was the "Live At The Apollo" album recorded the same year I was born.

 

The love of Earth, Wind & Fire is passed on through generations of families. You rarely find someone who doesn't own at least one Earth, Wind & Fire album. My brother-in-law is a huge fan. He has a great music collection, but they are one of the few that he owns every album. I can still remember my niece, when she was a teenager, bringing a CD when she got in the car with us to go over to the coast for a beach day that she wanted us to play on the way there. She was always making compilation CDs from her dad's music. She had a lot of Earth, Wind & Fire on it.

 

RIP... My earliest musical memories are of Earth, Wind & Fire in the late 70's. My third LP was "The Best Of... Vol. 1", which was the soundtrack that summer of 79. Wonderful time, wonderful music.

 

I have 12 regular EWF albums, four compilations, and one boxed set. Three Philip Bailey albums, and, do not have Maurice's solo album.

 

Sorry, some of my replies are under your other points, as did not know how to separate out each of your points, so a few of my replies are in the tan section.

I know that James Brown is the Godfather of Soul. Is George Clinton the Godfather of FUNK? Would have been awesome if George Clinton/Funkadelic would have hooked up with The Doors back in the '60s to make some mind blowing music together.

Bowie and Clinton would have been an interesting collaboration. Starman & Starchild

 

I also still need to get MW's Solo album. I own 2 of the Bailey Solo CDs.
The Earth, Wind & Fire 'Dutch Collection'-2-CDs is my favorite Best of Collection that I own by them(outside of the 3-CDs 'The Eternal Dance').

 

James Brown is the Godfather of FUNK too! The man invented the FUNK! George Clinton was Brown's student! Brown was making funk records when Clinton was still doing doo-wop.

Well, George Clinton was Parliament/Funkadelic! But, I envision George Clinton pairing up with Sly Stone. Back in the day, I think a good pairing would have been Clinton and some band like Vanilla Fudge.

Nah! The Thin White Duke, the one who did "Fame". You know George Clinton loved that phase of David Bowie. Could you imagine if John Lennon would have joined in? Lennon loved that era of funk music too.

 

I did a needledrop of the 1986 album "In & Out", one he did with Nile Rodgers because I could not find it on CD. That's OK because I found a near-mint pressing.

Right now i'm wondering how Nile Rodgers feels because he just beat cancer two or three years ago and survived all these other superstars, including Bowie, whom he worked with.

 

Speaking of which, the Bass Player & Drummer of Chic died way too young. Not sure if it was Cancer or another disease.
I have 2 Solo Rodgers CDs(one was a reissue and one I found used). Good Stuff. I own the Chic 2 CD Collection, and like the guitar playing of Rodgers. He played on a good Duran Duran song(Pressure Off) last year. He was awesome on the recent Daft Punk song, 'Lose Yourself to Dance'(below).

 

Thank you for the music!

RIP

 

Dr. Bernard Edwards died from pneumonia. Tony Thompson died one month after being diagnosed with kidney cancer.

 

Apart from the music, the album cover art was a story in and of itself, mostly driven by Maurice's world view, or rather spirituality. These album covers are printed in my own and many fans memory because you could just stare at them and wonder about the often integrate detail of Nagaoka's painting and symbolism. There is a short article about the symbols here. What I found so interesting is how the cover art helps to 'get' the music and vice versa - when I think about the music I always think about the striking cover art.

 

Wow, one of my favorite Musicians, Jason Pierce(J Spaceman) who runs Spiritualized(their 1997 album, 'Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space' actually placed above 'OK Computer' in a few End of Year Magazine List of Best albums), almost died around 2003-04 with some rare type of pneumonia. He survived that continued to write brilliant music, the next year(actually was working on the album prior to becoming ill), including one of the greatest songs and videos the past 20 years below.