00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin Earthreine Fire have a wonderful new documentary out now on HBO and just before premiered at Tribeca and New York. The three OG's of the group, vocalist Philip Bailey, singer percussionist Ralph Johnson, and bass player Verdin White, stop by a broken record for a chat. As a music podcaster, I always had that famous old saying swirling around my head that talking about music is like dancing about architecture, and none more so than during this particular conversation. I mean, Earthwreine Fire is a music that, in all my experience of it is just impossible to intellectualize. It exists in us, and likely in them too, on a spiritual level and therefore also on an emotional level, and I don't think any amount of talking about their music could make us understand any better where it comes from or why it impacts us the way it does. What you can glean from talking about them, though, is they're beautiful people, warm, well adorned and committed, and I'm sure that's a big part of what makes the records deeply impactful and enduring. In our conversation, we talk about Maurice White, the founder of spiritual and musical leader of the group, who also is Verdein's brother. We listen to some of their music together and Phillip spills on what the song Reasons is actually all about. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my interview with Philip Bailey, Ralph Johnson, and Verdan White of Earthwin and Fire from Amazon Music Studio one twenty six. 00:01:53 Speaker 2: Man, earth Wind and Fire. That's it, Life and living Colors? Are you? 00:02:00 Speaker 1: I'm amazing, I'm amazing. I got done watching you guys documentary yesterday. 00:02:05 Speaker 2: Wow. 00:02:05 Speaker 1: I got to flip through your book, Ralph. I it was only sent to me yesterday, so I got to go through the full thing. Yet I read your book a long time ago, so we'll covered there. So I'm Steve. I've been listening to the music for a week. My spirit's high. Good deal, My spirits hi very good, very good. 00:02:20 Speaker 2: How you guys feeling feeling good, feeling fantastic. 00:02:23 Speaker 3: Enjoying this time, you know, at home, and then all the activities surrounding the documentary and the book, and so there's a lot going on right through here, and we're trying to keep it moving. 00:02:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing earth through the fire. It feels like you guys are ever present always, but it feels extra special right now with you guys, since the doc is coming out and I know it's premiering in a couple of weeks. 00:02:45 Speaker 2: It does. I mean, and you know, like I've been saying to the guys, because we're used to a lot of things, a lot of stuff happening, but I said, this is special. You know, you got to you gotta slow down and take a breath because this is special. You know, uh, not very many people get a chance to witness their body work done in a documentary. You know, Questlove. You know he's gonna you know, he knocks it out the park. You know, he's a music historian. Yep. And so yeah, we're just gonna take a breath and really enjoy this. 00:03:27 Speaker 1: You guys have had a lot of big moments throughout your career, but at this point you can feel when it is particularly big moments still. 00:03:34 Speaker 2: Exactly right, I mean, we're here because of that, right right? You know what are we talking about? You know, exactly exactly? 00:03:42 Speaker 1: Not have you guys every week if you want no doc? You know, open door for y'all. You know, The amazing thing about earthwin Fire is you guys are ever present. But because the music was always so, it wasn't even futuristic. It was just timeless in the real sense of the word, like like it could have existed in the sixteen hundreds or in three thy thirty or so. It never it's never felt like it's always felt. And I know they've tried to label at various times that I heard in the documentary progressive, soul, the different things. But you guys have always just sounded like yourselves. You guys have always had this uncannyability, unlike anyone else, to blend a bunch of styles in a way that just feels coherent and just feels soulful and beautiful. I just I don't know how you guys did that. Like, the documentary gave me a hint when it talked about Maurice journaling and his goals were to be, in just a paraphrase, his first goal was to be a band that can connect to everyone. Two number two was to be big. Three was to change the world. And I was like, that explains maybe why you guys sounded the way send But did that sound crazy to you when you heard it? From Maurice back then. 00:05:00 Speaker 2: You know, Maurice's vision was too one render a service to humanity, you know, so there was a a reason for doing the music that was bigger than himself are ourselves. And then you know, next it was to bring different genres of music together and make them commercial, so you know, you're there's something in there for everyone, you know, not on one particular song, but in the body of work, you know. So, and then the other thing was to bring Broadway to the stage, you know, to the concert stage. You know. The other one was to elevate the consciousness of you know, our listeners and to have a high degree of integrity as a musician, because he was like, he didn't want to further stereotype great musicianship. But we're all strong out you know. 00:06:10 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So all. 00:06:13 Speaker 2: Those things were and I you know, it was really really inspired. All those very clear, distinctive directions were something that he went about writing out and and and living out, you know, and we were young enough to buy into it, and uh, and then we were fortunate enough to work with a cast of so many talented people, from the record company to the writers, to the arrange arrangers, to the musicians. 00:06:49 Speaker 3: Engineer, you know. 00:06:50 Speaker 2: So it was it was a lot of things had to connect at the same time and they did. 00:06:55 Speaker 4: Yeah, and we were in the right place at the right time, in front of the right people with the right music, you know. And and the thing about it is, uh, the three of us who were sitting here, as Phillip said, we were young enough to buy into it and to be part of it and to grow within it and be able to express ourselves as well. 00:07:15 Speaker 1: And Philip said something about and I think they talk about it in the documentaries, you didn't want to be strung out. So no drugs, I mean being healthy and no drugs was part of that. 00:07:27 Speaker 2: It was more of a thing not to cut you off. But it wasn't something that was like, you know, everybody was squeaky clean or whatever. But Maurice led by example, and we were young enough for him to be an example to us, you know, and it was worth you know, we were looking at him and you know, you know, he didn't have to say do this or do that. It was like the proof was in the pudding, you know, like his actions were speaking louder than any words, you know, and so it's like, well, give me some of that vegetable suit. You know, you know what, let me let me check that out, you know at Johnny Wise miller on on Hollywood Boulevard, you know, and I had I was like, whoa, I felt a little light headed. 00:08:22 Speaker 3: You know, first protein drum. 00:08:27 Speaker 2: My, first healthy shake and stuff for healthy food. 00:08:31 Speaker 4: But it paid off. 00:08:32 Speaker 2: Hey, yes, it was wonderful. You know, it could have win. It could have been the opposite, you know, like you know, follow me this way led to nothing, but it was productive. 00:08:45 Speaker 3: Yeah, it was very positive, indeed, you know, and we just kind of continued on along those lines. 00:08:50 Speaker 1: It made it easy to maybe to buy Ino to Maurice because he had had that success early with Chess being a drummer, right, which was no small thing. I'm sure you know Verdin havn't been there like just to he's your brother one day and the next day he's drumming on these hit records and he's making a name for something. Moving to LA and starting to oh. 00:09:09 Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I was in college. I had it all planned. I was going to be a doctor. I was going to do this, I was going to do that. Then he called me one day after he had moved to California. After leaving the Ramsey Lewis Tree and said, you want to come to California, man, And that sounded like a little girl. I said sure, and I got the first thing smoking about a month later. I came out here in California was so different. It was just so different. I had never seen so many people, and I saw everybody, all the hippies and the music and boulevard oh yeah, all that stuff. And so it was a great learning experience as well, you know, and as I said before in some of our other interviews, the three of us became adults together. 00:09:52 Speaker 2: We grew up together. Yeah. 00:09:54 Speaker 4: Yeah, What year did you come to la Verdin June sixth, nineteen seventy, nineteen seventy. 00:10:02 Speaker 1: And what did it look like to you? Coming from Chicago? What did it? What did la look like? 00:10:06 Speaker 4: Totally different? Everybody friendly, everybody's saying hello, because you know, we come out of Chicago. Everybody you know, you know, holding their chest, you know, nobody they didn't open up to you. But California was like, it was just a totally different thing. You know. I'd wave to everybody, Hi, how are you? How are you doing? 00:10:23 Speaker 1: Hey? 00:10:24 Speaker 4: How are you? Because they were they were waving right back, you know, and so so. 00:10:29 Speaker 3: It was it was different consciousness. 00:10:32 Speaker 4: It was good. It was a great feeling. And and H and I also traveled. I was around an adult Maurice, who led me the right way, particularly in California, because I had never been anywhere. I had never been on a plane, I had never I never left home that that never did anything. 00:10:47 Speaker 1: And when you got here, you you were already and you joined the band. Were they already with Warner Records? Had that band with Warner with Warner Brothers? Right? 00:10:55 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:10:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, so you you come out even been anywhere, you come to California and you are you're playing base for a band that signed a major label. You're playing with your brother. I mean, it had to be a dream come true. 00:11:08 Speaker 4: We did the True records on Warner Brothers. And I didn't even look at it. I was so young, I didn't even look at it as a major label. I just look at it. We're going to make a record, you know, And and then you know, we just kept doing it, and you know, of course that evolved and out here in California, you know, that's where I met Philip, Yeah, an Ralph, do you guys. 00:11:31 Speaker 1: Want to talk about how you guys joined the band. 00:11:33 Speaker 3: I was playing at a club down on crunch t Ofu Boulevard. The building is still there, was called Maverick's Flat. I was playing at a club and uh, oh you know, you know famous, uh, the famous spot. And I was playing there and Dean and Maurice came into town. They saw me playing with this group called the Master's Children. And the next thing I knew, the guitar player at that time with the group, his name was Michael Beal, called me up and asked me if I wanted to audition. I said yeah, sure, so I did the audition and after the audition Verdeen called Maurice and Maurice said, well what do you think and verdein so, yeah, he's the cat, And we just kind of went on from there and kept going. 00:12:14 Speaker 1: Did you know Maurice was a drummer when play with Ramsey Lewis you did? 00:12:19 Speaker 2: Yeah? Live? 00:12:21 Speaker 3: Not live? No, I saw it on TV. But I mean, but think about this though. A jazz drummer wakes up one day and says, hmm, I'm going to start a pop, some pop R and B thing. I don't know what it's going to be, but I'm starting it and this is what it is today. Yeah, who does that? 00:12:40 Speaker 2: He was specific about what he wanted to do, you know, because and this was what was interesting on the documentary that when Bob Cavallo and uh, several other people talk to Maurice about, you know, the vision that he had was going to be better realized by having some younger guys. Yeah, everybody being Verdine's age, you know. Then you know, that's when they began to look around. And they had met me in Denver, where you grew up, right, yep. And the first band, our band had opened the show for for them their promotion show, and uh, through you know, Perry Jones, who was a mentor of ours. But yeah, you know, we were able to meet Maurice had Maurice had on bell bottom pants and he smelled like coconut oil. I remember that so distinctly because I'm a you know, a hick town called Denver boy, and we don't know nothing about no no, you know, send it oils. 00:14:03 Speaker 1: You know. 00:14:05 Speaker 2: So it's like I knew I could, I could. I smelled it cocainut, you know. 00:14:10 Speaker 1: Which also had hippies out, and yeah, you're right, Yeah, heck, yeah, that was hippie Nation. Were you into rock music at all? 00:14:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean very much. So, you know, being from Colorado, it was you know a plethora of music from indigenous music to you know, country to popped rocked very little R and B music on the radio that we only had it from certain hours of the day, you know, and then later on it became twenty four hours on one of the stations. But yeah, my education really in cultural music grew being in the fire. Yeah. Yeah. 00:15:02 Speaker 1: Would you guys listen to music together? Pick out what it was. 00:15:06 Speaker 2: Like a college? It was like being in a universe because you had Maurice's comrades, Don Myrek and Saderfield and and so they were they were older than us and had had a lot more experience overall musically, so they would you know, take us under their wing and mentor us, you know, and you know, into the music, and you know, so it was and we were always together. So it was like being on a traveling school. 00:15:47 Speaker 1: You just want to play two things, maybe just to illustrate the way the band evolved from those first couple of Warner records where you guys aren't involved yet and then and then kind of where the sound goes pretty quickly. 00:16:09 Speaker 4: Get it and let's stick back because that, yeah, I remember that. 00:16:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, Handwriting's on the Wall. 00:16:22 Speaker 2: Was that sweep? 00:16:24 Speaker 1: This came out on uh after you guys left Warner they put out the greatest Hits album look like that. It's never but yeah, yeah, yeah, and this, and it's just most like early on, you guys have more of a almost just kind of you guys are more funk and kind of in the in the it's it's less jazzy, you know, it's a little less jazzy blues rooted music. Not that the kids away from the blues, but this is great. But you go from like this kind of a thing and sweet sweet back with Melvin van Peebles to something like this, which is just one two years later. I want to wait for the vocal to come in real quick. 00:17:45 Speaker 5: Lesa to he wand I find in every week. 00:17:56 Speaker 3: Burd inside for. 00:17:59 Speaker 1: The clue no thing that was bound to do. Keep my head. It's like you you can hear the old band and then you can hear how it filled out even more with you guys. 00:18:15 Speaker 4: Theis is there, the genesis, You're there all the things in the beginning you know, you know, had it was growing, but the genesis of Earth Winning Fire was there. 00:18:25 Speaker 3: Yeah, with this right here is denying. This is the group that would go on to conquer the world. 00:18:31 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, you know yeah, conceptually you can hear that Maurice uh had a vision for the music from the first Earth Winding Fire because when you listen to Sherry Scott, you know, I think about loving you and all that kind of stuff. Well, you know, I'm I'm the second generation, you know, so like you listen ahead to the sky, you know, you can hear that it's not so out of the blue because it you know, it was there with those records that they were doing one you know, but this is just a different you know, it's like an extension extension. 00:19:15 Speaker 1: It really almost feels like it's like almost just like a music. It's like a chord, regular chord. Then you just had the ninth eleventh. 00:19:23 Speaker 3: Analogy. 00:19:24 Speaker 1: Who were the not you said that those were you know you want to say that. 00:19:28 Speaker 3: Well, you had Maurice Dean Phil, you had Johnny al Both on guitar, right right, You had Larry on keyboards. Yeah, you had myself from Freddy and then Andrew. 00:19:41 Speaker 6: Yeah, the nine yeah, and then even beyond that, then someone like on that Jessica Cleaves is on there too, but Jessica would leave and we would be left with the nine guys, you know. 00:19:53 Speaker 1: So it's just an unbelievable how did you guys? So, just like you said, this is a band. Maurice is a drummer, You're a drummer. D Phillips a drummer, Verdin and Maurice's brother Fred is a drummer. 00:20:07 Speaker 2: And Al McKay was a drummer, right, mkay was a drummer. 00:20:10 Speaker 1: You're a singer. Maurice is a singer. You're a singer. Jessica Scleeves is the singer. It's like a how did you guys balance the embarrassment of riches you guys had in the group? How did you orchestrate? How did you know if someone came in the study with the song? How did you know who was going to do what? 00:20:29 Speaker 2: Well? It kind of evolved, you know, and Maurice being the spearhead, he he didn't always know exactly what he wanted, but he knew what he didn't want, you know, and so you know, if there were ideas that that fit into you know, the consciousness of where he was going for the band, he would develop those ideas. 00:20:59 Speaker 1: Would you guys just try to if he knew what he didn't necessarily always know exactly what he wanted, but knew what he didn't want. Would that mean that you guys would just try to contribute things. 00:21:09 Speaker 2: Funny thing though, you could always tell when he didn't like something. He goes, yeah, yeah, pretty pretty nice little piece you got there. You know, he would say very little about it. He would call it, or he would say pretty nice little that was like that was like you know that, you know, that was a bless not yet, not yet. But if he if if there was something that you know, that you that you brought that you know, clicks with him, he would jump right he would jump right on it. 00:21:56 Speaker 4: You know. 00:21:56 Speaker 2: Like my first collaboration was evil, you know, and it was like it was surreal to me because I had this idea and I showed it to him, and then the next thing I knew, he said, you know that you know that little piece showing me, Oh, this is what I did with it? 00:22:15 Speaker 1: What how did you bring evil to him? 00:22:17 Speaker 2: What did you I had the sea plot, the evil thing, and I had lyrics and I had a melody and stuff, but he flipped. He flipped all that. He really heard you know what I was trying to do, you know, yeah, and it was inspiring to him enough to take the situation and flip it. Wow. 00:22:43 Speaker 3: Here's the question. So, at the time that you started writing with him, did you really really understand the value of the writing and the publishing side of it. 00:22:50 Speaker 2: Oh heck no, okay, yeah i't. I ain't understand that till yesterday. 00:23:00 Speaker 3: Oh man, Oh wow, okay, yeah, I'm still waiting to some money out there waiting for you to explain all that. 00:23:08 Speaker 5: Oh my god. 00:23:09 Speaker 3: Okay, yes, but you. 00:23:10 Speaker 1: Were code writer on that, right, You did get credit on yeah, ye yeah. 00:23:14 Speaker 2: That's why I said that was my first you know, real co written ye venture. 00:23:20 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:23:21 Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Earthen and Fire after the break. And for Dean, how did you? You are such a unique bass player. I mean, you have the lowen thing going, You kind of have that cool James Jamerson melodic harmonic complexity thing going like I mean, but you're almost like the best of all basis, like you have a little bit of everything of all those different styles in you, you know what I mean? 00:23:49 Speaker 4: Well, for me, first of all, you know, I love the bass. You know, I love the sound of it. When I when I first saw the bass, it spoke to me. It spoke to me, you know, you said, I want to play this. The bass came at me. Wow, you know, and and it was upright, bas basis bigger than I was at the time, you know. And uh, and then I was able to like really coming out of Chicago, you know, you know, you were you were talking earlier, the different genres of music coming out of Chicago, you know, R and B, jazz, pop. You know, there was a lot of different genres for me to pull from. So when I would hear something, I automatically hurt the bass within it. And then when I came to California, it really crystallized because we were able to I was able to really concentrate on on music, on the bass, and then later on putting the bass where the where the bass fit? Yeah, you know, you know, because at first when I started started playing, cut the bass up, cut the bass up. Well, you have to put the bass within the track of what it sounds like. In other words, you don't want to just to stand out right. You wanted to stand out in a certain way, but you wanted to be part of the song. 00:25:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. 00:25:06 Speaker 4: And that's that's what I learned when I came here and you played earlier two songs. But for me, the first two Earth Winy five records, I was sort of like winging it a little bit, you know, winging. But the record that crystallized from me was the Need of Love album really from me, the tune Energy, I'm gonna play That's what that's really when it came together for me because the records much more looser. You know, I was really hearing growing into it, growing into it, whereas I was just trying to hang on on the first record. You know, I did a record, whereas now I'm doing a record. So how do I how do I implant myself within the record. And the tune that did it for me was a tune called Energy. 00:25:54 Speaker 2: Was that I could feel it in my bones. 00:26:01 Speaker 4: Right right right, and then it then it goes left, It goes left into some Miles David stuff and I was right there with it too, man, you know, And that was those were those were things that couldn't be explained. Yeah, when you get to this section, you gotta do this here. It was like it just you just knew you had to hear it. It just it just switched, It just went, you know, because it started off as a drum solo with Maurice doing it, then got into the tunes and all of a sudden it just turned and it just kept it kept it kept going. 00:26:31 Speaker 2: Yeah. But you know, it's a you know that story. It's a testament to the fact that Verting was not only really really gifted as a musician basis, but he was destined. It was destiny, you know, because when you tell when he tells that story and you think about, you know, the what most musicians know at a certain point in their in their careers and their recording careers. He was so young to it, you know. Yeah, and and laying it down in a fashion in which he did was just very extraordinary. 00:27:18 Speaker 1: I think. Just to illustrate that too, and what what Maurice brought to a song and what you guys also collectively as a group brought to a song, I want to play a little bit of the creative source version of you can't high Love version. You can just hear the difference between how you guys get ahold. 00:27:32 Speaker 5: Of a song and you know, no, he wasn't in it, okay, and it's it's cool, but it's not a classic until. 00:28:23 Speaker 1: Right right, step got a whole Well, Charles Stephane, you saying yeah. 00:28:43 Speaker 4: And then res on the times I think coming. 00:28:44 Speaker 6: To him. 00:28:47 Speaker 1: You want my love and you have an. 00:28:54 Speaker 2: You know it's true. 00:28:55 Speaker 1: Try it's like you can hear the song actually now yeah, and there's still this crazy arrangement around it, but it doesn't distract from the song. 00:29:04 Speaker 4: That other version, where as we called it, it was a hippo version. 00:29:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was hip. 00:29:08 Speaker 4: Where's the other version of Can't Handle? Kind of remind me of a Fifth Dimensions? 00:29:13 Speaker 1: It was very much a. 00:29:15 Speaker 2: Concept. 00:29:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's the way it was. 00:29:18 Speaker 2: Interesting because the because Skip and Jerry and them were there, they were working with you know, the Fifth Dimensions writing songs and stuff, working with friends and the Friends of Distinction and all that kind of stuff. So you can kind of see where that where that was going vocal groups. But that dog on Charles Stepney was just you know, if there wasn't a Charles Stepney, there would not be an Earth on fire because he was just he was that important to you know, what we were to become so Maurice was the visionary, but Charles kitt was able to He was the consummate writer, producers, musician, arranger that he was able to to really hear where Murice's thought. He wanted to go and say, Okay, this is the way you arrive at that destination. This is the way you do it, and I could show you. 00:30:21 Speaker 1: For people who don't know you guys want to say, who Charles Stepney. I don't think it's a name everyone readily knows. 00:30:26 Speaker 2: You know, but yeah, and it's you know, it's it's it's a shame because Charles Stepney was the co producer and I take the co off. You know, he was the producer with Maurice on. 00:30:40 Speaker 3: The records, arranger. 00:30:43 Speaker 2: And the and the arranger and you know, and you know he he was able to guide me as a vocalist on how to sing, reasons and how they record, how to think, you know, and and when not to think. You know. But he was like a he was like a big brother and you know accounts he was. He was, he was He could be everything you know to us at just the right time. 00:31:15 Speaker 4: He was like our Quincy Jones, our George Martin like that. The Beatles had because we had these ideas, but he was able to walk us through it and as Phillip said, how to get there. But he did it in a way he would teach you, you know, like he would on basis said, okay, give me a double slop, and I didn't know what the double slop was, so we so we said, okay, we're gonna put it together. We're gonna see g and then you just go down. Then we go down to scale, go down, and he would teach you why you were doing it. 00:31:47 Speaker 2: He would, he would really teach you, and he would and it wouldn't always it wouldn't go above your head, you know, because you know, these these progressions and stuff. We might have not been a lot of the musicians may not have been as sophisticated as the ones they're playing in our band today, you know. But Charles was able to say, you know, play this triad and leave this out. You know, you play this and leave this, you know, and and derived at what he wanted to hear without overwhelming the musicians with the theory. 00:32:24 Speaker 1: And that's and that's a big part of the arrangements are such a crucial part of you guys, because just like in that song. It's like the arrangement is really insane, it's really crazy. It's a wild arrangement, but it doesn't obscure the song. It doesn't obscure what you guys are doing with the song exactly. It's very similar to Quincy or George Martin right like the way it's he could really take musicians and teach them something different, but not take away from the song. There was an album Charles step News his family put out an album of some of his stuff before and on it a couple of years ago. They have the early demo of That's the Way of the World on there. Oh and play a little bit of that? 00:33:07 Speaker 2: Is it like a salsa kind of thing? 00:33:10 Speaker 3: Whoa really? 00:33:11 Speaker 2: Because I remember I remember hearing That's the Way of the World, but it was a different groove. Okay, see go see. And this is how we would hear stuff that Charles would bring because he would be down there in that day basement tickering and stuff and he would. 00:33:36 Speaker 3: That's got how Larry started on that move synthesizer, and Larry took it and ran with it. 00:34:01 Speaker 1: But as cool as that is, I mean to to for for to turn up for this to be the fire result. 00:34:13 Speaker 3: Unbelievable. That's what the production is about, Yeah, finding it, and then it. 00:34:18 Speaker 2: Was about it was about the fact that we had all the right people at the right time, you know, like you know, if you take any of those ingredients out, it couldn't have been what it was. Al Macay it's so much a part of the greatness of what the earth Fire became because he was the guy who could take whatever idea and make it funky, you know, really really put a groove on it, you know, and uh you know, and because him and Vertein worked so closely together. If you got Verdein and al going in this in a certain direction, you got half the band is yeah, half the work is done. 00:35:12 Speaker 4: And Sweets would say, it's right here, it's right here, don't go nowhere. And he could hold that groove man for an hour and a half and it would just get better and better and better better. I mean uh like like like Philip said, you know, uh, shake up, I mean all those things that you can't put on paper. Yeah, so you and you would you and him would really like that. Yeah, we had like a sixth sense where it was gonna go wow. And even if the notes are wrong. They sounded good after you played it with him. 00:35:46 Speaker 1: That's amazing. More from Earth Wound and Fire after the break, I want to play a little bit of your point of like how a mkay could make anything funky when you stripped back. And also this Shining Star goes back to Colorado also because I didn't know until I saw the doc that you guys are out recording at Caribou ranching in Colorado and Maurice goes out for a walk and sees the stars and comes up that day for Shining Star. But for this opening groove, I mean, it's such a funky song, such a classic funk song, but when you listen to that opening, it really is just like a boogie woogie blues, like a like that opening man, just I mean, he made it so funky, and you right in there with the interplay with them Verdin, But it's just a blue. It's really just like a blues. It's like a fast waller, kind of like a riff or something. 00:36:53 Speaker 4: Also, to Philip had said earlier, there were so many people that helped us. Another major component was George Massenberg in terms of that sound. To get the sound out of those instruments, you know, particularly for Black Group sonically that when you heard it you would say, oh my god. George was a big, big. 00:37:13 Speaker 2: Part of that. It was inspiring his his what he would bring would inspire other stuff. 00:37:18 Speaker 1: Really. 00:37:20 Speaker 3: And he was an electrical engineer. He had a George had a room at the complex in the back where he would just if he wasn't in the studio working on music, he was back there tinkering outsider and iron and a transistor here, dialed over here. You know, he was always back there. 00:37:37 Speaker 1: And he has a I mean, his name in the engineering world is unimpeachable, but he wasn't George Massenberg. When you guys were starting with. 00:37:48 Speaker 2: Maurice hunted him down. He found he was I don't remember the exact story, but but when he when he heard about George, and I think he was living in the Washington D C. Area of Baltimore, Baltimore, Maurice actually you know, sought him out, you know, and uh brought him into into the fold. 00:38:13 Speaker 1: Iways wanted to ask you guys about We talked about Charles Stepney when an influence he had, but you know, he he died too soon, too young. 00:38:22 Speaker 3: And you in the middle of making Spirit on Spirit. As a matter of fact, we were about to cut the track Spirit. I was on the drums and Maurice got the phone call that Stepney had just passed, and we just went on and cut that track. But that's right after we got the news. I remember that clearly, Wow, clearly, And that and the man that had to be heavy, well yeah it was. 00:38:48 Speaker 2: It was very earth shattering. 00:38:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but you know, the thing that amazes me is like the next record you guys do after Spirit, all in all, he wasn't there to help guide you guys, and it is just one of the all time in my mind. Like it's hard to pick a favorite Earth Wind and Fire album, but all in all, the fact that you guys, it's not just you guys, and you're kind of mentor or maybe Maurice's mentor is not there, and you guys go in and cut, you know, I mean, all all in all starts off with serpenting Fire, goes into fantasy, Jupiter loves Holiday, Beijo, I'll write a song for you, which is a great feature for you. Philip and Magic Mind running Brazil doing Wayne Shorter's pont Day area, like just put an insane album. So you guys didn't miss a beat really, you know musically Yeah, well I'm sure you missed him obviously, but musically you guys were just you know. 00:39:49 Speaker 2: You can't take anything away from from Maurice's genius. And you know when we when we talk about step, it doesn't take anything away from from Maurice. It just gives Charles what he deserves. You know, it was very important that that we that we do that cause he meant that much to us. 00:40:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, do you remember the idea of having to make a record without him being around? 00:40:16 Speaker 2: Yeah? We were fortunate, like I said, not to be redundant. We're fortunate enough that if you work with us, it was you were accomplished in your craft. Reese didn't pick people to work with that were, you know, not excellent and what they and what they did. So all of the major people we knew, and you know, he would go after whatever he was hearing in his head. He would go after the right ingredients to add in there. 00:40:54 Speaker 1: Do you guys have a favorite Earth Wind and Fire album? 00:40:57 Speaker 4: There are kids, man, you know you're not thinking I would say this if you asked us, maybe ten twenty years ago, we could give you like one, yeah, but now the time is past. 00:41:06 Speaker 2: There's just so many of them and you love them all for different reasons of what they brought. I was heartbroken that Faces was did not do any you know what. 00:41:19 Speaker 3: The underrated because great material. There's a lot of. 00:41:23 Speaker 2: Great material on that on that record. I think some of the greatest works that that we did collectively, some of it are on Faces. 00:41:32 Speaker 1: That's a really good record. 00:41:33 Speaker 2: It really sail away. 00:41:35 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:41:35 Speaker 3: Yeah, one of my favorites offa there. 00:41:37 Speaker 1: I always wonderful I had to do with this, one of the first records where in a while where it wasn't the cover wasn't like psychedelic, It wasn't like the cover was it was just face. It was people. It was really simple and really it was beautiful in this way, but it was really simple, and you guys had these really almost like Funkadelic. You guys had really signature album covers for for for such a stretch. 00:41:58 Speaker 4: You know, in Faces, there was a young man with a boombox that was Chaka Khan's brother. Really yeah, yeah, you know, random shots of people and it was Faces. 00:42:15 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:42:17 Speaker 1: How much were you guys like connected to the other artists around like Shaka or even like you know, you guys do like a Wayne Shorter song. He's around with Herbie Quincy's making stuff like. 00:42:29 Speaker 2: Are you guys? We were managed by the same management group as Weather Report, and so we did several stints where we'd gig together. Whether that was fantastic just to hear you know, jos Avenue and Wayne and then you know, like play before us. It was like it was crazy. We played some colleges and stuff together, you know, but you know, interestingly enough, we were kind of in a bubble, right. I didn't really begin to really branch out, know people, till we got it. We broke up, you know, for those you a couple of years, and because we were just we're always working, always planning the work on tour and on tour. And you gotta have to understand that we went from mama's house to Earth went Fire, that's right, that's right. 00:43:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, you guys got plucked right out of home, right and then coming from my house, h I met a new brother, Philip and another brother, Ralph, so it's like it was just like an extension, so we didn't know anybody but us. 00:43:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing. I was reading through your book a bit last night and reading in a little bit about that that period where you guys you know, went separate, raised as a group for a while, and in it you really talk about wrestling with is this a break? Is this the rest of my life? And my am I doing music and. 00:44:02 Speaker 2: All that kind of break. 00:44:03 Speaker 3: The way it was done would cause you to think that, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, it was just like a meeting and then okay, run a break. That's how quickly it happened, and that's the way it happened, you know, So it would caused you to, you know, pause about your future. 00:44:21 Speaker 1: And you have success producing with Al McKay the Tempts, but then you also start doing construction and you're working at a stereo. 00:44:28 Speaker 3: Store federated Stereos Lebria. 00:44:30 Speaker 1: When I was reading through that, what struck me was now forty years later, you guys are it's like you guys never It's like that window, as probably emotionally fraud as it was at the at that point, was such a small window in the. 00:44:43 Speaker 3: Overall, the overall picture, the overall picture of the group, just the moment. 00:44:47 Speaker 1: You would never know that that moment happened, and the fact that the three of you without Maurice now sadly without so many people that we've lost, that you guys are able to continue to give the gift of earth when and fire to the world forty years after you guys coming back together in around nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty seven. That it's just it's it's mind. 00:45:09 Speaker 3: Well, one of the things that the book talks about is resilience and to bounce back. Yeah, you got. 00:45:17 Speaker 4: But in those forty years and those little glitches, you know, you know, it all wasn't roses. You know, we were growing, we were we were discovering ourselves, you know, and then, as I mentioned in the doc a lot of the bigger things that happened for us happened later. 00:45:36 Speaker 1: You know. 00:45:37 Speaker 4: Normally a lot of people would get accolades up at the top. We got a lot of ours on the back end, you know, as we call it, the back nine, you know. And part of that had a lot to do with, I think, with the technology of sampling of the artists coming along discovering us and and sampling our music in their music. H and so and the parents, you know, like your parents was telling you about us, and it started working that way, you know, like when we first started, you know how people say I love your music, we think your music's great. Now they come up to us and they thank us for making the music. Yeah, it's like a big thank you. Yeah, you know, well because it really is. And I'm embarrassed to say too. 00:46:20 Speaker 1: My first the first time I figured out who you guys were was from watching Fresh Prince of bel Air when I was a young kid, and they had a joke with the law firm that the dad worked for was first Win Admire, and I was like, that's so like first Win Amire. And then as you grow and you grow older and you just you absorb your music through the radio, through buying the records, through streaming, through hearing them in films or commercials or whatever, you just realize it's almost as if all that stuff that we were a top. We were kind of joking about about Maurice, where he was living healthy and drinking smoothies and proaching the shakes and eating healthy. And there's a great story in the dock about you guys meditating before the show. Yeah, like just insane, and the audience is losing their minds and you guys are just sitting there meditating for five, six, seven, eight minutes. But it's almost like all of that went into the music. And for those of us who weren't there while it was being made, while was being released, hearing it after the fact, it really does transmit, you know all it feels like all that spiritual work, it really does transmit. I think that's people relate to start. But then, but when Maurice passed, you know, we're gone a lot. You know, we travel a lot, so we're not home as as as much, you know, as a lot of people. 00:47:32 Speaker 4: When Maurice passed. When I got back, I had the biggest card, like from here to here from your neighbors. The neighbors had all signed a card because when you know, when the news hit, it was all over the world, of course. Yeah, and but my neighbors had signed this big card. 00:47:53 Speaker 1: That must have been a lot. Yeah, that must have been a lot. I mean, Maurice been a lot, and you guys all do man, you know absolutely, I was fortunately. I think the first Earth Wind and Fire show I saw was around two thousand and nine at the Hollywood Bowl. Marie just came out on stage for a seconds, right right. I was like Wow, it's amazing. 00:48:12 Speaker 4: You know, that's when he decided to write his book. 00:48:15 Speaker 1: I think was it before we wrap Philip, I'm gonna ask, would you mind telling the story of reasons? 00:48:25 Speaker 5: Oh? 00:48:26 Speaker 1: Well, here we go, here we go. 00:48:29 Speaker 2: You know, we were on the road and we were in we had just landed and I think it was at Philly or Atlanta. It's one of them. How much of issue you want to know? 00:48:39 Speaker 1: This is good for you, it's with the world. 00:48:43 Speaker 3: So are we recording this? 00:48:45 Speaker 2: Wait a minute, it's in the dock. It's in the docks. 00:48:49 Speaker 3: In the dock, I said, okay, if you've already put it in the doc failure. 00:48:52 Speaker 2: Well, we all, you know, like bands have groupies, you know, And so we were on a plane and uh there was this fine lady that was on the plane, and so like you know, like everybody like all the all the the the women chasing members who have their eyes on this particular lady. 00:49:13 Speaker 3: Right. 00:49:14 Speaker 2: So it just so happened that when we got off the plane, you know, our road manager, Leonard, you know, we had you know, eye signals. We know, we had our signals where we go, dude, So I gave him the signal we get to the hotel. She's in the in the in the lobby. I go to the room, Leonard hooks up. She's in the room, okay, And so you know, we have an evening together and the whole thing. And the next morning, you know how guys think that I conquered. The next morning, you know, I got up to go to the bathroom or something, but I hear her on the phone. She's talking to her baby, talking to her boo. You know, Oh yeah, I got, you know, giving him this story of what happened, you know, why she ain't home and stuff, you know. And so I get out the bathroom and she says to me, you know, something to the fact like, yeah, when I saw you, I just said this had to go down. So, you know, like my ego was like, okay, so that happened. So I'm having this conversation with Maurice, you know, on the plane and stuff. We're talking about this situation and stuff. And that's how the whole Reasons thing came about. That's how the whole the lyrics for Reasons and that whole concept. 00:51:06 Speaker 1: I mean for that to be one of the most romantic songs of all time. People playing their wettings anniversary. 00:51:18 Speaker 2: In the morning when I rise, you know, no longer feeling no, yeah, no longer feeling hypnotized. I find our reason had no pride, you know, and they were a lie. 00:51:31 Speaker 4: You know. 00:51:32 Speaker 2: It's like, dude, that kind of says it all right, kind of says it all right. But people were talking about I used that on our wedding. I said, huh, do you remember the first time you heard that? That's I'm like, man, I've heard that so many times up that I was going, But did you listen to the lyrics, take a moment and read them. 00:51:55 Speaker 1: People hear what they want to hear. 00:51:57 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what. 00:51:57 Speaker 1: I was shocked actually in hindsight to find out that wasn't even a single, right, No, it never was. Do you remember when did that start getting. 00:52:04 Speaker 4: Like so it just I guess album cuts in the seventh it was jumped that it was the live record. If you're listening to that, that that the record they roar when it first comes on. But that came home on the Gratitude Reil on. 00:52:17 Speaker 1: The Gratitude Gratitude, and it's the live version you always would hear on the radio a lot with yeah, yeah, yeah, But but that was a big song already even before the live one came out, because, like you say, when the audience. 00:52:30 Speaker 4: It's pandemonium, they were crazy. 00:52:31 Speaker 1: I'm shocked it was never a single off of the previous album. Uh, that's the way of the world. 00:52:36 Speaker 3: Shot. 00:52:37 Speaker 1: Thanks for telling the truth all these years later. There it is, oh Man, appreciate you guys, Thank you, Thank you. Congratulations on the documentary. That's going to be exciting to be out in the world and we're excited HBO and quest love and thanks for all the years of music. 00:52:53 Speaker 2: Man, Thank you, thank you, Thanks for having us great interview. Thank you. 00:53:00 Speaker 1: Thanks so much to Philip Bailey, Verdin White, and Ralph Johnson earth Wing and Fire for joining us on the podcast. Be sure to check out their great new documentary on HBO now, and be sure to check us out at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to see our video interviews and check the link in the description for a playlist of some of our favorite Earthwind and Fire songs, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.