[TV static drones]
Downloaded from YTS.BZ
[bright tone]
- This is the Home Box Office television network.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ
[bright music]
[vocalizing]
[rhythmic clapping]
And we love you.
Let me hear you say, oh, yeah.
audience: Yeah!
Let me hear you say yeah!
audience: Yeah!
- Yeah! audience: Yeah!
Yeah. Yeah!
Yeah!
[energetic music]
[scatting]
♪ ♪
- Earth, Wind & Fire kind of said, I have joy,
and I have imagination,
and I will force that onto the world,
whether they are ready for it or not.
- Maurice White and Earth, Wind & Fire
really embraced that music could have a higher purpose.
♪ Gonna bring it down ♪
- I always thought of Earth, Wind & Fire
as Jesus-less gospel music.
♪ All night long ♪
The funk was the funk,
but the chords were jazz, classical.
Meanwhile, it's sitting on this tribal African beat.
- Maurice wanted to show that it is not just Black.
It is not just white.
We are all one.
- They were reflecting back the joy
that we felt in our lives.
It made you feel like anything was possible.
From 1971 through 1983,
the group Earth, Wind & Fire sold 40 million albums,
had 30 hit singles, and won six Grammys.
- It's just like a whole world that they created.
- Astrology and numerology and mysticism.
It was magic.
It was theater.
- You're thinking they're coming from Africa,
or they're coming from outer space.
- It was really ahead of its time.
I think it took a moment
for everyone to go, what the heck?
What is--what is this?
- Like, where did these people come from
with this music that sounds like this?
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
Ignition, liftoff.
Liftoff.
♪ ♪
Hey.
♪ They got your name today ♪
♪ We got to get away ♪
- There's nothing like an idea whose time has come.
♪ Yeah, yeah, away ♪
♪ We've got to get away ♪
I'm serious, man.
- [laughter] - Then you're all in focus.
Okay, do you want some direction,
or do you to just hang out,
and we'll do whatever comes up?
Direct us for a while,
then we'll just hang out. Let's do it all.
Okay. Get tighter.
[ethereal music]
Maybe put a mic on Maurice.
- I think Earth, Wind & Fire came out of a need,
a dual need, a need for myself as an individual
to realize my total potential
in a sense of speaking.
And also, from another sense,
it came from a part of me
wanting to render itself to humanity.
Maurice was very driven,
very committed to the music and the concept of this group.
- Maurice, he was the visionary.
And the power belongs to the visionary.
[chatter, laughter]
- We'll take a break, and we'll do another one.
- People can't lead themselves.
They've gotta have somebody to lead them
to the promised land.
That's what it's all about,
reaching for new things, you know?
Life was about discovery for me.
I was always in search of myself.
[blues guitar music]
I was born in Memphis, Tennessee.
I was raised in Memphis, Tennessee.
It was a good beginning for me because it gave me
an opportunity to understand the balance
between good and bad.
There was a lot of separation in town.
- His birth mother, Edna, was his only family.
She was a wonderful mother, but a young mother.
I think she had Maurice at 17.
My mother was a singer,
singing around the house and all that.
She was very encouraging in the sense of pushing me.
- In Memphis, there was not enough opportunity
for Black women, and his mother
could not make enough money for both of them to live.
[soft music]
- When Maurice was not more than five years old,
his mother sits him down and says,
look, I wanna make a better life for you.
The best I can do here is to scrub white folks' floors.
- So she left Maurice to go to Chicago
in order to survive.
To not have a mother at that age, it's just so difficult.
There was a large void there.
- That scar that his mom did like that,
that did a number on him.
He ended up staying with this lady named Big Mama.
- She wasn't family, but she took him in.
He owed her everything.
- It was just her and I, basically,
as I coming up in the ghetto, you know.
- They did what they had to do in Memphis to get by.
Maurice started a newspaper route
in white Memphis in the morning.
- Way across town in a white area.
One day, white policemen
stopped him and harassed him for so long
and so much and beat him up so badly.
He was so hurt and so alienated.
He was terrified from that point on.
- There was a lot of limitations at that time.
I was alone,
but music saved me.
[energetic percussive rhythm]
♪ ♪
- Into Memphis to the tempo of "Beale Street Blues."
- Memphis has such a rich musical heritage.
I was influenced by the blues and gospel and jazz.
[scatting]
And I loved every bit of it.
When I was 11 years old, there was a drum and bugle corps
that came through the neighborhood.
And they had these shiny suits on,
and I wanted me a shiny suit at school.
I've always been really fascinated by the beat,
and I got so enthusiastic about it.
[energetic snare drum rhythm]
- Good God, he must have practiced
five hours a day, that guy.
- Music was his first love. It was his everything.
It was his safe space, bro.
Like, it was the one where that could not leave, period.
- When I graduated from high school in Memphis,
finally, my mother came and got me and said,
you're going to Chicago.
- Ten years later, she had reached a place in her life
where she wanted Maurice back with her.
[mellow music]
But she had started a new family,
so that's a whole different dynamic.
- Maurice's siblings were really, really excited
that our big brother was there.
I just remember looking at him because I'm thinking,
wow, he really does exist.
It was great because
I was spending the day with my big brother.
- We had eight brothers and sisters.
Our mother was a teacher's aide,
housewife, school teacher.
Father was a doctor.
- Maurice was very much aware that this wasn't his family.
It was the family that he never had.
- I think he thought, in some way, he was forgotten--
issues of abandonment.
Maurice had some guard up.
He felt like if you let people get too close, they leave you.
[gentle music]
- It was during the time moving to Chicago,
I enrolled in the conservatory.
Eventually, I found that I had talent,
and so I went after pursuing it, you know.
[Marlena Shaw's "California Soul"]
As a result of me trying to find my way
and having faith in what I was doing,
I got a job at Chess as a studio drummer.
- ♪ Like a sound you hear that lingers in your ear ♪
♪ But you can't... ♪
- Chess records was one of the most successful
record labels for Black America in the 1960s.
♪ You hear it everywhere ♪
♪ No matter what you do ♪
♪ It's gonna grab a hold on you ♪
- It played on everybody's record--
Fontella Bass, Etta James, Chuck Berry,
Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Billy Stewart,
some of the great.
- 666 on drums and 666r on the bass drum.
- Charles Stepney, he had constantly
been a teacher of mine.
His approach to production was really unique,
taught me how to feel the music and get inside the song,
how to produce records.
It was like Chess University to me.
Those things that I learned from Charles,
I'll never forget.
I started doing things I couldn't believe.
From that point on, I met Ramsey Lewis at Chess.
- The man who had the ninth most popular hit
of the past year, Mr. Ramsey Lewis.
[energetic jazz music]
[applause]
Ramsey Lewis, he was huge.
They were like rock stars.
He had one of the first million-selling records
for a jazz trio.
- Ramsey brought jazz to the forefront
for the masses.
Eventually, he asked me to join the band.
- I'd get really close to the radio
and try to listen for him.
I knew if I was hearing it,
other people were hearing it too.
- Ramsey exposed me to a wider universe.
But I was very shy.
- He would set his cymbals up like this, flat,
so they would cover his face.
And he was kind of hiding behind there,
playing his drums.
And Ramsey told him, hey, man,
the crowd has to see your face.
- Ramsey was a role model for me,
and he taught me presentation.
- Maurice became the great drummer live.
[mellow percussion and piano duet]
♪ ♪
- The first time I met Maurice White was actually
at a Ramsey Lewis performance.
And I was impressed with the drumming,
and Maurice gave me drumsticks.
I may have played some sessions with him.
I was playing so hard, I broke the sticks, okay?
I did.
[applause]
During the period of time
where I was working with Ramsey...
all: We are the people!
- As a peace officer, I hereby command you...
- There was a pain that I felt in the community.
- It all kind of converged at the same time,
the assassinations of our leaders.
- It was just all around us in Chicago.
In December, police raided
Black Panther headquarters in Chicago.
- They have murdered Fred Hampton.
They are out to murder me.
It's like they'll murder anybody
that's Black in this country.
- Maurice was part of a generation
born into deprivation, discrimination.
The world is sending you a message that you don't count.
- But you have to remember one thing, and that's be strong.
- We spend more time--
- Black advancement was under fire.
But even in the midst of all of that, it fired Blacks up.
For the quick solution.
- On the South Side of Chicago,
there was a Black Arts Movement using Afrocentricity,
reimagining Blackness through a connection to Africa,
defining Blackness on its own terms.
- It kind of inspired me to get a bead
on my own African evolution.
[soft kalimba notes]
I got exposed to the kalimba,
or I just started fooling around with it.
- The kalimba is the thumb piano
used by some African poets, storytellers,
keepers of history for meaningful connections
in the universe.
[applause]
[playing gently]
- One night, when I was with Ramsey Lewis,
I picked up the kalimba and started to play,
and they liked it.
[playing energetically]
- That was amazing because it brought me closer
to knowing more about what I was so curious about.
And that was Africa.
- Say, I'm gonna teach you some very
important words in Swahili.
I want you to repeat after me.
- Me and Maurice, we were a songwriting team.
We got aware that you could make money with jingles.
Love is upendo.
all: Love is upendo.
Pride is kiburi.
all: Pride is kiburi.
Watu wazuri.
all: Use Afro Sheen, Afro Sheen, Afro Sheen, Afro Sheen.
- ♪ Watu wazuri use Afro Sheen ♪
- You do the watu wazuri, use Afro Sheen commercials?
Yeah.
- Oh, I'm sorry, yo. I got super--wait a minute.
[chuckles]
- ♪ Watu wazuri use Afro Sheen ♪
- The watu wazuri means beautiful people.
- ♪ Watu wazuri, use Afro Sheen ♪
- The message that Black is beautiful...
all: ♪ Black is beautiful ♪
- And our beautiful Black African history.
- Isn't it beautiful? - Yes.
All right.
- We had not heard anything like that before.
You know, we are somebody.
We can feel good about ourselves.
- It was feeding into little souls like mine.
It was Black positivity.
[drumming]
- For brothers and sisters, it was a revolution.
It was just time to shine.
[upbeat funk music]
♪ ♪
Hey, on a solo.
- So I started having visions of this group
and create this music to see ourselves in a different way.
I was inspired by reading a book
called "Laws of Success" by Napoleon Hill.
- It introduced me to a new form of awareness,
positive thinking.
- Whatever the mind can conceive and believe,
it can achieve.
You're capable of doing anything.
- Napoleon Hill said, when you want
to manifest something into reality,
there is a process for it.
Write it out clearly.
Tell the mind what you want over and over and over again.
- It's like this thing kept on formulating in my mind.
[muted upbeat music]
I wanted to reach a universal audience.
To evolve consciousness through the music.
And change the world.
I finally drew a picture of my vision of this group.
[music swells]
♪ ♪
And that's what I set out to do.
- So he decided to leave Ramsey Lewis.
- To give up the height of success,
touring around the world, for the harebrained idea
of achieving an artistic dream is almost unthinkable.
- You have to follow your heart
and follow what's important for you.
And don't be afraid to do that, to take chances.
[upbeat funk music]
- Maurice said, I wanna go out to California to start a band.
Are you interested?
I said, hell, yeah.
- California was a whole different thing.
I played tennis.
I'd ride horses, go out driving in my Jeep.
[laughs]
- In the early '70s, Black people are really
stretching out and growing.
There are countercultures.
There are Black hippies now.
- Mostly new-age consciousness
and eating right and living right.
- There was a health store, so we used to
go there and eat all the time--
Organicville.
- One day, Maurice White came in,
and we locked eyes.
[ethereal music]
And all of a sudden, I heard music.
And I got chills.
And he flashed me his smile, and it was over.
I told my mom, I met someone.
She says, yeah?
Is he Jewish?
And I laughed.
I said, no, Mom, he is not Jewish.
We were interested in learning,
continuously learning.
- Yeah, I was doing a lot of study
about metaphysics, outer space, and inner space.
[deep, steady breathing]
- Maurice was learning that the universe
is this one powerful force.
But instead of looking up, look in.
We are the vehicle in which the power comes through.
- We exist now, on this plane,
which is called a physical plane.
But if you tune in to the universe,
you can more or less elevate yourself consciously.
[deep, steady breathing]
- He told me he wanted to bring
that mysticism into his band.
I said, cool.
Do you have a name for your band?
- I was into astrology real heavy.
And I was looking at my astrological chart.
I started to put the elements together.
And I had Earth in my chart, fire in my chart, and air.
And I changed air to wind, and the rest is history.
[Earth, Wind & Fire's "Help Somebody"]
Earth, Wind & Fire is basically
that of the true elements of the universe.
It just had a ring to it.
[rhythmic clapping]
So I had three songwriters
who worked with me all the time,
Don Whitehead, Wade Flemons, Sherry Scott.
And this is who I formed the group with.
- ♪ No man should have to face his problems all alone ♪
♪ Alone, alone, oh, no ♪
♪ Reach out and help the weak man ♪
♪ And make him strong, strong, strong ♪
♪ Now, now, now I wanna help somebody ♪
♪ I'd like to help you, you, you ♪
♪ Now, don't that make you wanna help somebody ♪
♪ Too, too, too ♪
♪ The love... ♪
We flowed so effortlessly.
No one had the upper hand.
We were all good at what our particular contribution was.
- ♪ Helping hand will make you a better man ♪
♪ Doo wah doo way ♪
♪ Let love prevail ♪
- Verdine, I invited him to come out
and join the band because he started
to soar as a bass player after I bought him his first bass.
- In high school, I would be the classical bass player,
you know, jazz, lugging it around on the bus.
It just spoke to me.
[scatting]
- When I got to California, I was not well-traveled.
I had never been on a plane.
Maurice looked at me.
I looked like a country bumpkin.
He said, we gotta go get you some clothes.
- ♪ Reach out your hand and help somebody ♪
- And don't forget, now, I'm 18, 19.
The band, they were older.
They knew so much.
I didn't wanna blow it,
or Reese might get another bass player.
[laughs]
♪ Help somebody today ♪
[static crackles]
As we float through time
as energy...
- We were, like, preoccupied with innovating
new sounds, trying new things,
Filling all space...
- The vibe was just experimental jazz,
wasn't designed to be commercial.
- We would just go wherever the spirit led us.
- Breathing air filled with prana.
Awaiting the timeless times of nirvana.
- Maurice was doing the hustling,
pushing us out there.
Eventually, we got a contract with Warner Brothers.
We call on you because we
love you.
- We were playing Black colleges.
We were a college group first.
- At the time, I was in the band called Friends & Love.
We opened for Earth, Wind & Fire.
I had never heard no Black people
playing no music like that.
[chuckles]
- Dressed like little jazz geek kids, you know,
looked up to him because it was harmonically complex
and exciting and orchestrated.
And it was just banging.
[energetic funk music]
♪ ♪
We were a niche band,
but we weren't connecting with the wider audience
that Maurice wanted.
We didn't sell very well.
The record companies didn't know what to do with us
because we wasn't your usual R&B Black band.
- We struggled for about 18 months,
trying to get it together.
There was some resentment being built.
When we gonna get some more work,
so we can make some money?
Some of the guys were much older with the attitude,
well, look, I know as much as you do, business-wise.
- I don't think they wanted Maurice to be the leader.
I think that was a problem amongst them.
They all wanted to be the leader, you know.
But it was Maurice's group.
- We were called into a meeting,
and everything was up in smoke.
What I noticed, Verdine wasn't there,
and Maurice wasn't there.
- Maurice did not like confrontation.
- He did not like uncomfortable conversations.
He--
He was chickenshit.
You know, that's just the truth.
We heard we were no longer a member of this group.
Well, I couldn't think straight because, I mean,
this is my brother.
Man, what kind of nonsense is that, you know?
Reese is gonna get rid of all of us.
- He would say to me things like,
people are in your life for a season,
and when it's over, it's--
[reverberation]
[inhalation]
[exhalation]
- Start by focusing in your heart.
Breathe in the energy of the universe,
the shakti of the universe.
- The first band didn't come together, you know.
But I wasn't ready to give up.
Let it fill your whole body.
He believed in his dream.
He would visualize, visualize, visualize...
[ethereal music]
Writing down affirmations
up until 1:00, 2:00 in the morning.
- I just wanted a younger approach,
more commercial approach,
a new sound, a new energy.
Verdine was the first person.
- We solidified, I'm keeping this dude in the group.
- I got Ralph, hired him as a drummer.
- They had seen me play at a club
called Maverick's Flat.
When the opportunity comes about, man,
you walk into something that totally changes your life.
- I just put it together, piece by piece.
[upbeat funk music]
♪ ♪
This is Phil Bailey.
- What sign are you, brother? - I'm a Taurus.
Taurus, the bull. Right on.
It was divine destiny
to join a group that I already admired.
- Maurice White is the leader of the group,
so like the pilot of our ship.
- Being a leader, you have to be able to, like,
keep it on a good level.
I always try to be an example.
- Reese was ten years older than us.
We were learning so many things
because we're, like, 21 years old.
It's our first rodeo.
Incense for $1, 25 of them.
[indistinct chatter]
- We were anxious to see where Maurice was gonna take this.
[soft music]
- There was a circuit that the artists would travel--
the Regal, the Howard, the Apollo, the Uptown.
There's a bunch of theaters that's a little hostile.
And if you wasn't great, the audience would boo you
and throw you off the stage.
- I remember playing there with the Commodores.
They're going to give you an opportunity to present.
What they're not gonna do is lie to you.
Only the strong's gonna survive.
- One day, we get a chance to go to Philadelphia,
and we're doing the Uptown Theatre.
[bombastic funk music]
The revue is five doo-wop groups
and Earth, Wind & Fire.
These groups had on tailor-made suits
cut to the nines, everybody looking tight,
everybody looking alike.
That's what was expected at the Uptown.
- Although we were cool, we were different.
[funky music]
♪ Yeah, what about the... ♪
With afros, no shirts,
wearing dashikis and Capezios.
♪ Hey, hey ♪
We were outsiders.
They were going to hate us.
Oh, I was scared to death,
scared out of my wits, you know?
- Maurice thought, I'm gonna defy the odds.
[apprehensive music]
♪ ♪
He tells all of us the plan.
It's a bold move.
Acts have gone on before us.
It was time for us to go up.
We got a new group from California,
Earth, Wind & Fire.
People's mouth open, and then you got laughter.
[laughter]
So Maurice says, sit down on the floor.
Sit down in the lotus position.
- We got in the lotus position, folded our legs,
man, and we just meditated.
[exhaling]
And they were just looking at us crazy.
- Minute one, what are you thinking?
I'm too scared to think.
- I'm going, okay, now, this is either gonna work
or this is gonna be a total disaster.
- You have cups and stuff thrown up there on the stage.
- Get them guys off the stage! Get them out of there.
We're sitting there looking like this,
so one eye like this, and oh, my God.
- Three minutes into that mission,
what are you thinking?
- Now the heart's beating fast.
The mouth is dry.
- We sat there and looked at that audience
for at least five minutes,
Six, seven, eight minutes.
- Finally, it calmed down just enough.
- I guess they got tired of heckling us,
and Maurice starts playing the kalimba.
[soft kalimba music]
♪ ♪
- He tells me to get on the congas.
[soft drumbeat]
Then he tells over to Ralph, start a groove.
[soft percussive rhythm]
And then bass line.
[funky bass melody]
♪ ♪
And then we went.
[energetic funk music]
♪ ♪
- We started hearing people clap a little bit.
Yeah, that's the fire, the fire.
- And then we proceeded to kill.
[laughs]
♪ ♪
- Sometimes people are afraid of change.
Through all of that, they won them over
with a new experience.
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
- Maurice said, this is the day that we found out
that we got something.
That was an endorsement to do what he was saying
philosophically and musically.
- To lead a band of Black guys, right,
you know, of cats, you gotta be really tough.
And Maurice was tough.
We had something big to accomplish, you know?
- I get a call from Maurice White.
And he tells me he's got a group.
So I go and I see Earth, Wind & Fire.
This is good stuff.
I thought, this could be a successful band.
Jim Brown has them, but Reese wanted different management.
So I said, I'd like to manage you.
Maurice brought the band out to my house
to sign the contract.
I said to him, why did you bring everybody?
I'm only signing you.
I believe these kids were part of Maurice's vision
but not the cause of it, the impetus of it.
It was him.
Then I put together a deal with Columbia Records,
with Clive Davis.
- When people like Clive Davis comes into your life,
it's giving you the major opportunity to, like, be big.
The first experience of recording
that we all did together was the "Last Days and Time,"
then "Head to the Sky."
[cheers and applause]
["Evil" playing]
♪ ♪
- ♪ Evil running through our brain ♪
♪ We and evil is about the same, oh, Lord ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Well, yeah ♪
♪ Ooh, yeah ♪
I was a little bit shy in the beginning.
But after I discovered a sound for myself,
I was a whole different personality.
♪ Yeah, evil ♪
For the band, what we try to do
is to bring the nine together as one.
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
- Maurice definitely had a vision,
and he let us express ourselves very freely.
♪ Yeah, well, well ♪
[cheers and applause]
- There was always a book to read.
- We would stay up late at night
and talk about everything--
cosmic consciousness.
Spirituality, metaphysics.
- Everyone else in the group got into
transcendental meditation, positive self-betterment.
- Maurice had a lot of elixirs,
so many drops in the water,
and supplements and all of that.
- We have one of his green juice recipes.
Oh, wow.
[juicer hums]
Items--greens.
This is intense.
Sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, spotted bananas,
so they gotta be ripe.
Soy lecithin granules, brewer's yeast flakes,
bee pollen grains, vanilla extract,
chlorella, pycnogenol.
I don't know what it is.
Very simple diet, you know.
[laughs]
[mellow music]
♪ ♪
- After a gig, we would come into a hotel lobby.
It was very important for us to find
a group of ladies that could corn row our hair
while we played chess.
Chess was a thing with us.
- Reese wanted to always do either arenas or stadiums.
That's where his head was.
- For us to go to the next step,
we needed to go on as opening act.
So we finally joined up
with George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic
at the Washington Armory.
[driving beat]
- P-Funk--raw.
Raw.
- George Clinton just went wild and loose
and just let himself be himself.
- When I passed two guys in diapers,
I knew, okay, this is definitely gonna be
some different kind of stuff.
Oh, my.
What a position to be in.
[applause]
- We went up there, packed house,
smelling like weed everyplace.
So we go out and do our thing--
the flower children, love, peace, and granola.
We got, you know, polite applause.
And then, man...
[cheering]
Out came George and his guys, followed by a cloud of smoke.
And, man, they started this groove--
mm, da, da, da, mmm, mmm, da, da, doo, doo, doo.
- Bang a dang, boom, bum, boom, bum, boom, bang a dang,
boom, bum, boom, bum.
- This thing, that's all he did.
And all the heads in the audience.
["Get Off Your Ass and Jam" playing]
- Y'all ready to give up the funk?
I want you to free your mind,
and your ass will follow tonight.
They proceeded to lay it on.
- ♪ There once was a man from Peru ♪
♪ Who went to sleep in his canoe ♪
♪ He was dreaming of Venus ♪
♪ He took out his penis ♪
♪ And woke up with a handful of goo ♪
♪ Put your foot on the rock ♪
Yow.
[chuckles]
♪ Everybody say shit ♪
♪ God damn ♪
♪ Get off your ass and... ♪
- Funkadelics came on and literally
funked us out of there.
- To this day, we remember that groove.
all: Na, na, na, doh, dank, doh, dank, doo,
da, da, da, dun dank, dank, dank, dank,
da, da, da, dun, dank, dank.
- And for, like, about ten years straight,
every time I'd run into George,
George would say Verdine, remember that time
we tore y'all up, man?
And then the funk started.
[laughter]
And I was like, God--
♪ Say God damn ♪
♪ I want to hear you say, shit, God damn ♪
Maurice said, okay,
this will never happen again.
But then Jessica Cleaves,
she left Earth, Wind & Fire for P-Funk.
Yeah.
There's a switch.
We just kept going.
That Monday, we were back in rehearsal,
full blast on more work.
And find the funk.
[funky bassline]
♪ ♪
Al McKay was added to the band.
And his specific job was to make us funky.
- I was a rhythm guitar player,
so I kind of took the idea of being a drummer
rhythmically to guitar.
So that's kind of been my calling card.
- We had to work on the one to get that thing.
- Making that space for the music
to breathe on the one.
- When Freddie came in, Maurice's brother,
the band got tighter.
- Maurice needed a drummer where the rhythm section
could be solidified.
I wanted to be on the stage.
I wanted to play with my brothers.
- The concept of Freddie and I being double drummers,
you didn't know what to expect musically,
but you knew it was gonna be big and powerful.
- I'd just start playing a groove.
And I used to hear Maurice--man,
he'd be in the bathroom combing his hair or something.
And he would hear it, and he'd just start singing something.
♪ Ah, yes, sir ♪
♪ Well, hey ♪
- The song just kind of wrote itself--
I mean, no sweat.
- All righty, let's check out that "Soul Train" line now,
the "Soul Train" gang to the music
of Earth, Wind & Fire and "Mighty Mighty."
["Mighty Mighty" playing]
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ That's right, hey, hey, hey-a ♪
♪ Walk around ♪
♪ Why wear a frown? ♪
♪ Say little people try to put you down ♪
♪ What you need is a helping hand ♪
That's when the funk starts.
♪ At your command ♪
♪ How's your faith? ♪
♪ 'Cause your faith... ♪
- "Mighty Mighty" was their first
legitimate hit of Black radio.
♪ To yourself be true ♪
- We jumped, I mean, jumped sky high.
We had never heard our songs on the radio like that.
♪ Oh, yes, sir ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
- My goal was to get it on pop radio.
But I couldn't get it on radio other than just Black radio.
- You know, we are people of the mighty mighty,
people of the sun--
very Afrocentric, fist in the air.
But Bob Cavallo thought the message
that white stations got was
"mighty, mighty, kill the whitey."
- Earth, Wind & Fire were making music with joy.
But I think it could be perceived possibly
as being aggressive
for a lot of white radio stations.
- But Maurice wanted his music to be appreciated
by the whole world.
He wanted a 50/50 crowd.
It wouldn't be a white crowd or a black crowd.
It'd be both.
So I knew I had to promote Earth, Wind & Fire
to the white audience, who had very little
to know about them.
And that was my goal with the next gig.
- An ad appeared in Southern California newspapers
announcing California Jam, a 12-hour rock concert.
- California Jam was a highly anticipated,
big Woodstock-type concert in Rancho Cucamonga.
And it was televised.
- It's gonna be the biggest rock concert
that has ever had this press coverage
from all over the world.
It was 250,000 people.
We'd never seen that many people in one place.
- Earth, Wind & Fire was the only Black act on the bill.
- It was a whole nother audience for us, you know.
- Sometimes you have to go against the grain,
do things that everybody else wouldn't do.
We'd dare it, you know. We were daring, you know.
But you gotta be that way.
- Let's boogie with Earth, Wind & Fire.
You ready to boogie?
[thunderous applause]
[whirring tone]
[ethereal music]
♪ ♪
- That was the beginning of the theatrics
of Earth, Wind & Fire.
["Time Is On Your Side" playing]
- ♪ We bring a message from the heavens ♪
♪ We're talkin' 'bout a message, hey ♪
♪ It's that time is on your side ♪
♪ No more need in running ♪
♪ No more need to hide ♪
♪ No more need to cry, oh, Lord ♪
♪ Time is on your side ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ No more need in running ♪
♪ No more need to hide ♪
♪ No more need to cry ♪
♪ Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya ♪
♪ Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya ♪
♪ Whoo! ♪
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
We were warmly received.
It was the opportunity that we needed to open up exposure
to Earth, Wind & Fire.
How you feel?
- Every time I am able to accomplish something
and create a reality from an imaginary principle,
that's something that verifies my faith.
- And they put it on ABC on a Friday night,
on national TV.
It was a great confidence booster
that we could really cross over into the mainstream.
- For the next album, Maurice wanted excellence in sound--
more controlled, more orchestrated,
more symphonic, more together.
[mellow funk music]
♪ ♪
- We wanted, like, a retreat, and away from everybody.
So we recorded at Caribou Ranch in Colorado.
[instruments warming up]
Sig Shore was doing a movie called
"That's the Way of the World."
So we wrote songs around the movie.
Then I called Charles Stepney.
He had been my mentor working at Chess.
- Charles was producing records--
Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton, the Dells too.
Charles was a great writer,
great piano player, great arranger.
- Left channel front, right channel front.
- When we were working on "That's the Way of the World,"
well, he's thinking about orchestration and arrangement,
what he can do with horns and strings.
["That's the Way of the World" playing]
♪ ♪
- That low trumpet register thing
was a very warm kind of sound.
The elegance of the horns,
the groove of the song.
These arrangements provoked
some kind of spiritual response in Maurice.
♪ Hearts afire ♪
♪ Creates love desire ♪
♪ Take you higher and higher ♪
♪ To the world you belong ♪
- It's gospel. It's straight gospel.
God, I can listen to it and feel my heart chakra
just open up.
♪ That's the way ♪
♪ Yow ♪
♪ Of the world ♪
♪ Yow, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Plant your flower ♪
♪ And you grow a pearl ♪
- There is one line that has always stood out.
"Children are born with a heart of gold.
The way of the world makes his heart grow cold."
That has always stuck with me.
And we've always tried to help to make that a lie.
♪ A child is born ♪
♪ With a heart of gold ♪
♪ Way of the world ♪
♪ Makes his heart ♪
♪ Makes his heart so cold ♪
♪ That love, that love, that love ♪
- Charles became like the coach
of our whole existence.
We wrote together.
We produced together, played together,
the whole trip, you know.
♪ Love desire ♪
♪ High and higher ♪
[vocalizing]
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
We were maturing.
You know, we were getting a little bit more sophisticated.
And then, also, Maurice wanted a crisp sound through mixing.
Maurice did a real deep search to find George Massenburg.
- It was the beginning of a great relationship
because I was so particular
about everything I did musically,
and the same with him electronically.
A dream of better sound.
I was the geek, the geek engineer.
I heard where I thought Maurice was trying to go
and how I might make it better.
- Caribou Ranch, we were up in the mountains,
you know, and the stars were so close,
like you could reach up and just
pull a star out of the sky.
That stimulated an idea to write
a song called "Shining Star."
- From my recollection, "Shining Star" started out
as a jam, actually.
["Shining Star" playing]
♪ ♪
- There was Al McKay playing that raised 9 chord.
We just kind of took it from there,
and things start to grow...
♪ Yeah ♪
Additional keyboard lines...
♪ Huh ♪
Synthesizers...
- ♪ When you wish upon a star ♪
The horns...
[horns blare]
Organs,
bongos.
- ♪ But when you wish upon a dream ♪
- There were a lot of good ideas,
but it was dense and all over the place.
So I started cleaning shit out, cutting instruments out,
to keep only the essentials.
And my thought was,
let's get these vocals bright and clean...
- ♪ Shining bright to see what you could truly be ♪
♪ What you could truly be ♪
- Simple, elegant ideas clearly presented.
Band comes in, and I play it back, my mix.
- ♪ Shining like a light on you ♪
- And the group's doing this kind of thing.
And Al McKay is looking at Maurice.
And that's your first glimpse of your fight.
Maurice comes over, he says, hey, man, turn it up.
[music warps]
And I mean, turn it-- turn it way up.
So I turned it the fuck up.
- Once you strike that first note,
there's something that happens.
- Bum, buh, bum, dunk, dunk. - Dunk, dunk, dunk.
Guitar is coming in.
- That's an Al McKay groove all day long.
- And then, all of a sudden, it's almost like
that's the fuse being lit.
- Shh. - And then you hear it.
- Wow. - Bah!
[horn blares]
Oh, my God.
♪ Yeah, hey, huh ♪
♪ You're a shining star ♪
♪ No matter who you are ♪
♪ Shining bright to see ♪
♪ What you can truly be ♪
What you can truly be?
- I had all four quad monitors just flat-out roaring.
And the cats were dancing.
- ♪ Shining star come into view ♪
♪ To shine its watchful light on you, yeah ♪
♪ Give you strength to carry on, yeah ♪
♪ Makes your body big and strong ♪
♪ Don't you hear me now? ♪
♪ Born a man-child of the sun, yeah ♪
♪ Saw my work had just begun ♪
- The arrangements were amazing.
I just loved the way it sounded.
And so, at some point, I was, you know,
inspired by what it did.
["I Wish" playing]
♪ ♪
It was.
That was definitely an influence, hearing that song.
♪ ♪
♪ Looking back on when I was a little nappy-headed boy ♪
Another thing that inspired me was the message in that music
because it was talking about how people, within themselves,
there's a greatness.
There's nothing they can't do.
- You're a shining star, no matter who you are,
like, you're absorbing these affirmations
and these kind of powerful, positive lyrics
to see ourselves as more and to be more.
Maurice was on to something.
He was ahead of his time in terms of understanding
the importance of music and helping us,
as a people, set our intentions
by keeping our head to the sky.
- That was the first pop hit we had.
It was a turning point in the group's career.
["Sing a Song" playing]
♪ ♪
- Our audiences started changing,
coming together as one race, as one people,
as love and peace.
- Fans from all around the world,
all denominations of color and the whole--
so the music wins, eventually.
- That's when things really started to break,
and we started doing our own concerts,
and we were the headliners.
♪ A way, yeah ♪
♪ Sometimes it's hard to care ♪
♪ Sing a song ♪
♪ It'll make your day ♪
- I'd like you all to give yourselves a hand.
Whoo!
Thank you much.
♪ Sing a song ♪
♪ It'll make a way ♪
- There was more people outside that had tickets,
you know, couldn't get in.
Tore all the doors down...
- [laughs] - Trying to get in.
- So we just, you know, just having a ball.
♪ Sing a song ♪
♪ Sing a, sing a, sing a, sing a, sing a song ♪
♪ Sing a song ♪
♪ Sing a, sing a, sing a, sing a, sing a song ♪
♪ Sing a song ♪
- A third of record income is from abroad.
They're a global hot property now.
♪ If you sing a song today ♪
- The winner is Earth, Wind & Fire.
- The first Grammy was quite a thing, you know.
It's something that you live for.
- As we got bigger musically, we got bigger personnel-wise.
[energetic music]
- Reese wanted to get a horn section because the sound
had expanded so much.
So we brought the Phenix Horns...
♪ Let's meet today ♪
Which was Don Myrick...
- He plays so beautiful, don't you agree?
Louis Satterfield...
♪ Yeah ♪
Rahmlee Michael Davis
and Michael Harris--
four horns, like a Mack truck, man.
♪ ♪
- We were having a really good run.
There was a period there where everything we touched
turned to gold.
[applause]
["Saturday Night" playing]
♪ ♪
Okay, that smile. That's it.
♪ ♪
- We started recording the next album, "Spirit."
We were doing big arrangements on the record,
beautifully arranged by Charles Stepney.
You know, man, we were in it then.
- ♪ Shining down its harvest light ♪
♪ Music all around... ♪
- But then Maurice got a phone call in the studio
saying that Charles had just passed.
[somber music]
He had a heart attack.
Yeah, just out of the blue, boom.
He was out of here.
I couldn't believe it, you know.
- It was like he was in wonderment,
like, how could this be?
I just talked to him.
And one minute he's there, and then you're not?
- It affected me very deeply, you know.
I was very emotional.
My dad, he had triggers.
Charles dying brought up past trauma.
[music warping]
- Back then, where he grew up in Memphis,
it was a rarity of having a father in the house.
- Maurice's father was John White.
He was absent during most of Maurice's childhood.
He owned a nightclub and was part of that music scene.
But he was also this gangster figure.
From what I understand,
one day he went into one of his establishments,
and somebody who was not his same skin color shot him.
- He is killed before Maurice is five years old.
- When he talked about his life as a child,
his knee would go--tschoo--
like that.
After Charles passed, it was hard for him to accept.
But the world doesn't care
who's gone and who is not gone.
It just keeps on rolling.
Maurice learned almost everything from Charles.
Maurice was like, oh, my God.
Now what do I do?
[inhalation]
[exhalation]
- I started studying Egyptology.
I went into the pyramids just to meditate.
It gave me new energy, and I was able to evolve
into a different person.
It seemed like I was getting help from the other side.
I was just fascinated with the whole thing,
the artistic value of Egypt,
the contributions that they made to society.
- Look at how the pyramids were built,
with the science and the technology.
They are humanity at its finest.
Maurice begins learning about Afrofuturism,
the idea that these ancient civilizations are not
just symbols of Black people's past,
they are also the future and the infinite possibilities
that exist throughout the universe,
the concept of space travel,
the existence of beings on other planets.
- The whole space concept, aliens,
just opened up a door for me.
- My dad talked to me sometimes
about astral projections.
He was like, there was one time I felt
like I was out of my body.
- He would come back to the studio
with these outrageous stories of being
picked up and taken in a spaceship to another planet...
[lively funk music]
And meeting with extraterrestrials.
And we didn't know how to deal with this.
We just, you know, hey, man, that sounds cool.
- I saw "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
And I had a vision to write the song "Fantasies."
And then all the words started to come.
♪ Every man has a place ♪
♪ In his heart, there's a space ♪
♪ And the world can't erase this fantasy ♪
♪ Take a ride in the sky ♪
♪ On our ship, fantasize ♪
♪ All your dreams will come true miles away ♪
♪ Our voices will ring forever ♪
♪ Until the 12th of never ♪
♪ We all will live, love forever ♪
♪ As one ♪
Everything that I had studied,
I was trying to share it with the public,
so maybe it could help to find themselves.
That's why, on the album, "All 'N All,"
it has a lot of symbols.
[ethereal music]
Through their album artwork,
I think he was shining a light on our history and our future
and how it's related.
He's inviting you into this world.
- We had a lot of costumes that were influenced
by Africa and space.
- The real statement wasn't really made
until Bill Whitten stepped in--
very elaborate.
We changed our whole look.
- We decided to expand the show.
We wanted to more or less emulate theater
in order to get your attention.
[energetic music]
- Maurice wasn't afraid to spend the bread
and contact whoever was on the A list of entertainment
to help Earth, Wind & Fire.
- And the winner is George Faison for "The Wiz."
[cheers and applause]
- Having choreographed "The Wiz,"
it was otherworldly for me.
We had a black Dorothy.
That gave us another kind of sense of pride.
- Maurice and I went to New York to meet with George,
and George had all these great ideas.
- They asked me to stage them for their next tour,
"All 'N All."
- When it came on, we were great musicians,
but we wasn't organized in our presentation.
- So could you tell me, can all Black people dance?
No.
And that's very true.
[laughter]
- You trying to tell me the funkiest band
might have had a lot of left feet?
- They all could move to a degree,
but they were kind of raggedy country,
and they weren't as polished and theatrical
as I could make them.
Because I wanted them to be great.
I saw the greatness.
This is everybody.
Here we go.
- One day, George is looking at the front of the stage.
And he says, hey, Ralph, come off the drums.
Stand here next to Maurice.
Take this microphone, and start singing.
- It was geometry and symmetry and stuff like that.
We didn't really need two drummers,
and Freddie could go deeper.
That's how I got out front.
- It's about evolution, you know?
I always had a lot of ideas.
We had started to investigate, like, magic.
- The magic of Doug Henning.
[cheers and applause]
- Doug Henning, at that time, was the biggest
magician in the world.
He had a show on NBC.
[energetic music]
So Maurice calls him.
Everyone wondered, Maurice, are you that crazy?
It was so out of the box.
Magic, music, dance.
That was a choreographic nightmare.
- Somebody could have got killed not doing things right.
[explosion]
We rehearsed every day for six months.
It was really the first production
that an African American group had really done,
putting all of those ideas into one show.
- We didn't know what kind of effect
it would have on the people.
There's always a bit of fear when you face the unknown.
[chatter, laughter]
[ominous music]
Dressing rooms are this way.
The stage is this way.
I wanted to go see them,
just to see if they could pull that off.
- Back in that day, there were certain concerts
you had to go to.
That show sold out.
It was must-see.
I was there to photograph.
Reese would let me crawl in... [laughs]
To be as unobtrusive as possible.
♪ ♪
You had the anticipation--
20,000 people.
And then, you know, the lights go out.
Folks rush to their seats.
[chaotic noise]
Presenting
the mighty elders of the universe,
Earth, Wind & Fire.
[gong reverberates]
- It was one of the first concerts I ever went to.
These guys came out,
and you're thinking, what the heck?
[otherworldly whooshing]
And I was like, oh, shit.
[energetic music]
♪ ♪
[singing indistinctly]
♪ ♪
- I remember just looking around the arena.
It wasn't even a show. It was just musical theater.
It was just spectacular.
♪ Oh, oh ♪
It was almost like a sermon.
♪ ♪
Verdine is intense.
The look in his eyes when he's playing--
like, Verdine would have been a great punk rocker, man.
He uses the whole instrument, and just a deep groove.
I love Verdine.
You now, he's-- what a dude, man.
♪ ♪
Wait a minute.
When you have the magic,
you've gotta get the crowd in your hands.
♪ ♪
[cheering]
So the whole place is mesmerized,
having Verdine levitate as he's playing.
And brother did not miss a note, okay?
He playing sideways.
Okay, now he's got you.
- You know, there's people that can
pull a rabbit out of a hat,
but they can't make an elephant disappear.
[cheers and applause]
He was making the elephant fly.
- Was there ever a fear that a cord might break
or something fatal might happen?
No.
I probably would think like that now, but--
but not then.
["Serpentine Fire" playing]
♪ Hey! ♪
♪ ♪
[vocalizing]
♪ ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ When I see your face ♪
♪ Like the morning sun ♪
♪ You spark me to shine ♪
♪ Tell all the world ♪
♪ My need is fulfilled ♪
♪ And that's a new design ♪
♪ ♪
♪ As long as you're near ♪
♪ There is no fear of a victory ♪
♪ ♪
♪ But when I'm away ♪
♪ Influences stray my mind to disagree ♪
♪ I wanna see your face ♪
♪ In the morning sun ♪
♪ Ignite my energy ♪
♪ ♪
♪ The cause and effect of you ♪
♪ Has brought new meaning ♪
♪ In my life to me ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Gonna tell the story of the morning glory ♪
♪ All about the serpentine fire ♪
♪ Surely as life begun ♪
♪ You will as one ♪
♪ Battle with the serpentine fire ♪
♪ Oh, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Yeah! ♪
♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪
- Here were these Black men up there
doing something as celestial and elegant
and as beautiful as that.
It was just another kind of example for us.
[explosion]
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
I'm a Black kid in Hawaii.
You don't have a lot of people who look like you
and are achieving.
And I'm saying to myself, well,
if they can do that, what can I do?
[cheers and applause]
- They were trendsetters at that particular time.
[mellow music]
♪ ♪
- Prince, Michael Jackson, all them guys,
they were down there taking notes, man.
- Michael really wanted to be Earth, Wind.
That's why he's coming to the shows as early as '77
with a big yellow legal pad.
- Prince confesses to me later that, Jesus,
I saw that show, and I almost quit.
I don't know if I can compete.
I loved it. I was a fan.
I felt the sound and the spirit
of celebrating the past
but looking forward to the future
and what's possible in this world.
- There are songs that make you feel every emotion.
They make you wanna cry.
They make you wanna dance, make you wanna fall in love.
Like this one.
["Reasons" playing]
[cheers and applause]
- A lot of my memories are high school gym dances.
I mean, "Reasons," that song lasted a long time.
Oh, it did.
- So if you walked all the way across the gym
for that slow dance and she said yes,
you were locked in for about--
- Well, on the flip side, if you said yes to a dude
that was a little too sweaty and a little too--
you were stuck.
You were stuck.
- ♪ Now I'm craving your body ♪
♪ Is this real? ♪
♪ Temperature's rising ♪
♪ I don't wanna feel ♪
♪ I'm in the wrong place to be real ♪
- I thought "Reasons" was going down the list
of all the reasons that he loved this person.
- When you have a falsetto like Philip,
he could say anything, and you're gonna be like,
this is so beautiful, and it's so romantic, you know?
♪ Love ♪
- How can people think that this song is a love song?
♪ I'm longing to love you ♪
Let's talk about "Reasons."
There was a sister that was fine as hell.
She came to the hotel, got to my room.
Bam, bam.
I feel like... [imitates knuckles cracking]
You know, I'm just the champion. [laughs]
So early that morning, I hear her--
yes, honey?
She's talking to her dude.
- ♪ And in the morning when I rise ♪
♪ No longer feeling hypnotized ♪
♪ For no reason, our reasons ♪
♪ Our reasons had no pride ♪
♪ After all our reasons why ♪
♪ All our reasons were a lie ♪
♪ All of our reasons were a lie ♪
It's just a sex call.
That's it, you know?
So if you played it at your wedding, I'm sorry.
[laughs]
- My whole child-- everything is a lie, I guess.
It's just--well, it's crazy.
I think I like it even better now.
♪ Only you ♪
- Give your love to beautiful sound of Mr. Philip Bailey.
[cheers and applause]
- Maurice felt that he's living his dream.
I felt so proud and so good.
One day, Maurice said, come here.
He said, I love you, but I don't wanna get married.
I said, I feel that I want you to be my life partner forever.
He said, okay.
So we're in it for life, right, no matter what happens?
I said, yes, right.
And that was, to me, our marriage ceremony.
- ♪ In the morning light, yeah ♪
- He was just not the marrying kind.
I don't think he could make that level of commitment
or emotional connection, I don't believe.
- And I told Maurice, I said, we're gonna have a baby.
He said, are you--really?
Kahbran looked just like him as an infant.
He became a father but an absentee father.
♪ Oh ♪
Maurice was on the road.
- I remember, as a kid, it was hard for him
to give hugs at first.
But then I remember, once we started hugging,
he'd be the one to hold on.
It felt like he'd be like... [exhales sharply]
He didn't know how to be a dad, right?
Earth, Wind & Fire was the most important
thing to him all the time.
- Yeah, I stayed in the studio 12, 14 hours.
I think I'm too much of a perfectionist,
to a great extent.
'Cause the things I hear, don't nobody be hearing them,
man, be saying, what's wrong with you, you know?
Man, I don't know.
It just bug me till I get it right, you know?
Yeah.
[mellow music]
- Maurice wanted to be the best,
and he was always wanting to outdo
anybody else that came along.
And we all kind of adapted that attitude.
Maurice always said,
don't ever take success for granted.
Don't do it.
Don't get comfortable.
- After a while, I was inspired
to expand my musical horizon,
create another side of my career.
- White has invested in an entertainment
complex in Los Angeles.
Welcome to The Complex.
- What is The Complex all about?
- It's a concept of bringing together
creativity under one roof.
We have two recording studios,
a sound stage for video and film.
We have rehearsal facilities for any and everybody.
- Maurice bought a studio and opened a record company.
And they had a party.
And we were not invited.
It was a slap in the face.
I was constantly busy.
I was also producing a lot of different acts--
Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond,
Jennifer Holliday, Deniece Williams.
And I had The Emotions.
[The Emotions' "Best of My Love"]
- The Emotions was with my two sisters.
We were signed out of Maurice's production.
We had, of course, "Best of My Love."
♪ Whoa, whoa ♪
♪ You got the best of my love ♪
♪ Whoa, whoa ♪
♪ You got the best of my love ♪
- He's the best producer ever because Maurice,
you know, he goes for everything big.
♪ Whoa, whoa ♪
♪ Oh, you've got the best of my love ♪
♪ Goin' in and out of changes ♪
Maurice took on a lot.
You know, sometimes it was a gamble.
- It didn't look like it to the public,
but everything operated at a deficit.
Running The Complex was expensive.
In addition, the tours were a boondoggle
around Maurice's neck.
So they had the magic, theatrics,
the four Phenix Horns,
three female background singers, and the band--
60, 70 on the road.
It was like the Mardi Gras at hotels.
It was just too many damn people.
- My mom, she was one of the costume designers.
I believe she spent almost $1 million
on fabric and other supplies in one year.
- Maurice told me that, from '77 on,
he came off the road at the minimum
of $1/2 million in debt for every major tour they did.
He had a huge cash flow problem.
- It's not all glory and lights up here, you know.
- It's a whole nother trip. - A lot of work.
- A lot of things they don't know about.
A lot of heavy pressures.
That's right.
- He couldn't not invest in not giving the best.
He believed in his vision, man.
- Maurice was under a lot of pressure
and had to make a record, I think for the advance.
["Boogie Wonderland" playing]
- I figured, okay, the disco is here.
It's not gonna go away.
Let me do a real good disco record.
♪ Dance ♪
- Called The Emotions in to sing it with us.
♪ Boogie Wonderland ♪
♪ Ha, ha, dance ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Boogie wonderland ♪
- ♪ Midnight creeps so slowly into hearts of men ♪
♪ Who need more than they get ♪
♪ Daylight... ♪
- "Boogie Wonderland," it became such a big thing.
- ♪ Who has laid too many debts ♪
♪ The mirror... ♪
- That is our one and only offering
to the disco music scene.
- ♪ Says, baby, uh, uh, it don't work ♪
- ♪ You say your prayers though you don't care ♪
- ♪ You dance and shake the hat ♪
"Dance."
It just--you know, it wasn't that I didn't like it,
but it didn't go into my soul.
It didn't go into my core like their music did.
♪ Yeah ♪
- ♪ All the records are playing ♪
♪ And my heart keeps saying ♪
♪ Boogie Wonderland ♪
- There was a pressure kind of over your head
that you had to try to sell as many albums every time,
just like before, you know?
- My other guest, David Foster,
he has done session work for Rod Stewart,
Dolly Parton, George Harrison.
- I was just starting as a record producer.
I'd had a couple of hits.
It was a goal of mine to reach
and work with Earth, Wind & Fire.
["In the Stone" playing]
♪ ♪
Maurice did ask me to come up to his house
and write with him.
We'd sit at the piano.
And I was trying to get a hit every time out.
That was my mission.
Maurice and I were totally inspired,
and we worked from 7:00 p.m. till 7:00 a.m.
And in those 12 hours, we wrote the genesis
of almost every song on the "I Am" album.
- ♪ I found that love provides the key ♪
- He brought a new life to Earth, Wind & Fire,
like his applications are on top, okay?
So it gave us a new sound, a new energy.
- "I Am" did really well-- double-platinum status.
♪ Is written in the stone ♪
♪ Written in the stone ♪
- In the studio with the guys in the band,
I was a control freak.
I never hesitated to tell anybody
to try something different or to play this,
or you're playing a wrong chord.
Like, the fan thing went out the window the minute
the red light went on.
You know, it's good.
We get a kick out of working with different people,
and they get a kick out of working with us.
- David Foster coming in the band was hard on the band.
They said, man, we should be in there writing them songs,
not that white boy.
But David Foster happened to bring the goods.
It became more complicated because Maurice
was bringing this person for that or that person for that.
Every person he brought in was to make Earth, Wind & Fire
superlative.
- We played lesser and lesser roles.
And then Maurice started producing records
without our involvement.
We were definitely like a session musician.
You just come in and do your part.
Sing on this, sing on that.
♪ Oh, do, do be us ♪
You should be behind.
- As far as the rules of what we had to do,
Maurice made them.
We followed them. Simple.
- The idea of a democracy is an illusion in a band.
I felt unappreciated and betrayed.
[cheers and applause]
["After the Love Has Gone" playing]
Everybody in good spirits?
[cheering]
All right.
You know, uh...
love is a subject that always seems to come around.
It's always...
- Okay, let me tell you something.
Yes?
- Maurice was not exactly the most faithful person.
He had other women on the road.
- ♪ For a while, to love was all we could do ♪
♪ We were young and we knew ♪
♪ And our eyes were alive ♪
♪ Deep inside, we knew our love was true ♪
♪ For a while ♪
- Maurice, in fact, got someone pregnant
while he was on the road.
I didn't find out until maybe
a few years after she was born.
Everyone but me knew.
♪ Begin the dance, yeah ♪
♪ Something happened along the way ♪
♪ And yesterday was all we had, oh ♪
- And then he had another son from someone else.
- ♪ And yesterday was all we had ♪
- I'm Maurice's youngest son, that we know about.
[laughter]
♪ After the love is gone ♪
♪ Oh, yeah, yeah ♪
- Around the time when my mom was making costuming,
my dad pursued her, and they had a connection.
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
- He and my mom had a pretty tumultuous relationship.
He was continually pulling back.
By the time I was born, they'd been seeing each other
for, I believe, around 20 years at that point.
I said, how can you do that?
And he said, I'm a star.
It was like, I can do whatever the fuck I want.
♪ Love, love has gone ♪
And I said, you know what?
That makes me feel unworthy.
I am not unworthy.
♪ After the love has gone ♪
And I moved out.
♪ Yeah ♪
- He couldn't believe I did it, and I did it.
♪ Oh, oh ♪
♪ Oh ♪
- It was really tough for me to want to pursue
a relationship with him.
Even as a child, I was questioning my mother.
You know, I'd ask, why is he so distant?
And she explained it to me in what I think
is a beautiful way, and it's how
I articulate it to this day.
Everybody has a door in their heart
they let love in and out of.
And he had enough trauma when he was younger
that it closed the door for him,
and he could only get it open so far.
But when he was in his bag and making music,
that door would open as wide as it could.
[electronic warbling]
[energetic synth music]
♪ ♪
- The '80s was really kind of strange
because music was changing a lot.
We are in an evolving stage right now.
I think it's all evolving
around the changing technology.
- Bands were kind of navigating
the transitions that were taking place sonically.
Now you're in the drum machine era and the synthesizer era.
But Earth, Wind & Fire was known
for their big horn sections and amazing arrangements.
Maurice needed a whole different-sounding record.
- Maurice and I got together through my wife,
Wanda, of The Emotions.
Maurice was digging some of the things
that I was playing with The Brothers Johnson.
Maurice came over to me, and he said, hey, Wayne,
you got any tunes for the Fire?
Reese and I were going for hits.
So I gave him four songs,
and he decided to cut three of them,
one being "Let's Groove."
♪ Let's groove tonight ♪
♪ Share the spice of life ♪
♪ ♪
- "Let's Groove" wasn't a true Earth, Wind & Fire song,
that metaphysical kind of vibe.
It was just one tune to bridge them over into the '80s.
- ♪ It's all right, all right ♪
- "Let's Groove" was a hit record
that we needed at the time.
We were relieved because we said,
we made it in on the 1-yard line, you know.
- ♪ Gonna tell you what you can do with our love ♪
♪ All right ♪
♪ Let you know, girl ♪
- You're trying to stay relevant,
but, I mean, there were some badass bands out there.
♪ All right ♪
♪ You will find peace of mind ♪
- Each decade brings new music, new artists,
new superstars.
Mike hit the home run with "Thriller."
Lionel hit the home run and, of course, Prince.
- ♪ We can boogie on down now ♪
♪ Boogie on down ♪
- We were vying for our place.
Where are we in the scheme of things?
- ♪ We boogie on down, on down ♪
- That magic, that combo, it's very hard to keep
something like that going.
Maurice was a private guy.
He didn't let me see him sweat, but
he had a lot of things going on at one time.
To the outside world,
there was this positive love image presented.
But to us, it was totally different.
Maurice was always separated from everyone.
There was only certain people that could do an interview.
If you take a picture, you must stand here,
just definite positions.
And there were things that were done intentionally
to just make you feel small.
[instruments playing]
Gotta do it differently.
- For one thing, we knew we weren't getting paid right.
Yes, things were expensive,
but we were generating millions of dollars
and only making $2,500 a week.
I think it was less than some of the roadies.
For the first eight years.
Maurice took everybody's publishing.
- My first royalty check, Maurice handed it to me.
He said, here's your royalties for the record.
And I looked at Maurice.
It was like, what's this?
[laughs]
- Maurice was very slow to give up
any kind of credit to anybody.
The whole damn band
should have gotten co-production credit,
but he had to be perceived
as the single champion of the sound.
Some of the other guys
thought we deserved better than that,
and I'm inclined to agree.
- There's no reason to go through
that kind of a treatment without being paid.
If you're not making any money,
why be there and be treated that way?
[somber music]
I never came back.
- The Phenix Horns left to work with Phil Collins.
It was just bad blood.
- And then him and Al fell out, and Al quit.
- The party's gotta end sometime, you know.
- It was a big blow because, after that,
the band's sound changed.
["Magnetic" playing]
♪ ♪
- The thing is is trying to keep a band together
and stay commercial but yet artistic.
It's a very hard thing to do.
♪ No self control ♪
♪ A chain reaction as my body lets go ♪
♪ A strange kind of light ♪
♪ The tempo takes me and the circuit excites ♪
♪ Magnetic ♪
♪ The rhythm of a dangerous... ♪
- The Earth, Wind & Fire brand shifted.
- With all my heart, I think that "Faces"
was the last great record.
The rest of the stuff is suspect.
- What is it about "Raise!," "Powerlight,"
and "Electric Universe" that has you feeling
that it's not up to par?
- Maybe it's because we had very little to do
with any of those records.
♪ A new kind of beat ♪
I found them unlistenable.
Seemed to me to be Maurice reaching for an audience.
But it didn't have that groove.
♪ Suck you in ♪
♪ You'll never last ♪
♪ Step in the light tonight ♪
♪ Come make the sparks ignite ♪
♪ Step in the light ♪
- That time had Maurice searching.
You know, success has many fathers,
but failure is an orphan.
- I think the stress of all of it was starting to get to him.
Beyond anything else, he was fatigued.
- Constantly touring all the time
and then doing all the other work, too,
I was always the one who had to carry the load.
- He had decades of emotional blockage.
You push your feelings down for only so long.
They have to go somewhere.
And if you don't let them out, man, some shit can happen.
[melancholy music]
[whirring]
[phone rings]
- We were called to a meeting at The Complex.
We all gathered.
Maurice came down.
He said, guys, you know, I've been thinking.
I wanna go my own way.
And I think that
I'm gonna put Earth, Wind & Fire on the back burner.
Are you kidding?
My heart sunk down to my toes.
I was like, Jesus.
He said that, as of today,
we're going to stop employment.
And we have to get our wardrobe out of the lockers
because they were gonna be sold.
We were pretty much in shock at that point.
- I was upset about the way it was done.
You can't call a meeting and say, okay, it's over
with no warning at all.
- I don't think anybody was as close
as Maurice and I were,
so it was definitely a shaker.
But it was over.
- Everybody just kind of went their own way.
We were all estranged.
My credit card bounced.
Me and my wife, at that time, panicked, sold the property,
and moved to Denver.
- I was on a construction site.
I also was working at a Federated stereo
on Sunset and La Brea, selling stereo.
That was a tough period.
So yeah.
- I'm sure it was devastating to some of them.
But I had to let it go at that point.
I needed a break, and I took a break, you know.
Yeah, I needed it.
- These guys were that family that he created.
And he essentially did to them
what was done to him when he was a child.
He left them before they could leave him.
He'd call me.
And I said to him, you're still holding on to the...
[exhales sharply] Non-forgiveness of what
your mother did to you.
You've got to release in order for you
to be free of what happened to you.
And he couldn't do that.
- Breathe out all of the separateness,
all of the feelings of unworthiness,
all of the attachment to your pain,
whether it's physical or psychological.
Let the breath be the transformation.
[inhalation]
[exhalation]
[clears throat]
Testing one, two. Testing one, two.
- I'm good, right? - Yeah, we're great.
You ready?
Hi, this is Maurice White in Los Angeles.
Hope you enjoy my new--do it again.
Hi, this is Maurice White in Los Angeles.
Hope you enjoy my first solo effort, "Stand By Me."
♪ When the night has come ♪
♪ And the land is dark ♪
♪ And the moon is the only light we see ♪
- Maurice put a lot into that record.
♪ No, I won't be afraid ♪
But it didn't work.
And I think the failure really stung.
[Philip Bailey and Phil Collins' "Easy Lover"]
- Philip Bailey embarked on a solo career
without his former colleague.
- It was time to do something else
and get a chance to find out who I was.
My solo career gave me that autonomy
to play with different musicians.
I chose Phil Collins to work with because the Phenix Horns
were working with him.
♪ Easy lover ♪
And I had a across-the-board hit
with a song called "Easy Lover."
♪ Like no other ♪
♪ Before you know it, you'll be on your knees ♪
"Easy Lover" was a pop smash.
Nobody called me to wish me success or happiness.
- What did you think of Philip, the solo artist?
- I thought he was very good. - Yeah?
- I expected him to be successful.
He should have been because he came out
of Earth, Wind & Fire school.
- What did you think of Maurice the solo artist?
- I always saw Maurice as being a solo artist.
[laughter]
- Well, there's some truth there.
[soft piano music]
♪ ♪
- Years later, following the success
of my solo career, the record label came up to me and said,
y'all need to talk about putting
Earth, Wind & Fire back together.
I said, well, I'm not opposed to speaking with Maurice.
We sat down many times and talked and cry
and put it all out there, you know.
I said that I would work with him, not for him.
- Verdine and Maurice were not speaking.
And I said to Shelly, Verdine's wife,
this is ridiculous. They're brothers.
So Shelly and I had to bring the two of them together.
- It was good. We had a chance to talk.
And he did say he never should have done that,
that he should have thought it through.
That was his personal regret.
I waited.
And sure enough, the phone rang.
With all that had gone on,
you had to come back into this situation with a clean slate.
And that's what we did.
After that, we were ready to put it back together.
["System of Survival" playing]
- We tried to get all nine guys back.
We got five of them back, five of the original guys.
♪ System of survival ♪
- You told me that part of the deal of coming back was,
Maurice was gonna start sharing responsibility,
sharing authority.
- Has that happened? - Sharing the money.
[laughter]
- The soul super group announced plans
to take it on the road.
- The 11-month tour that will take Earth, Wind & Fire
to 80 cities cost over $1 million to produce.
- ♪ Says life is filled with give and take ♪
- We went out on the road thinking,
this is gonna be the second coming.
♪ System of survival ♪
- We're gonna get right back to it.
♪ System of survival ♪
We had these arenas booked.
Here we go.
[cheers and applause]
Then the band takes the stage.
There would be nobody out there.
[melancholy music]
Crickets.
- We found that people had moved on.
A lot of the houses, we had to cancel.
We lost so much money.
We were in no-man's land.
We're clearly not playing stadiums anymore.
So now we have to reconfigure.
- We had to do small venues, you know.
- So now we're back where we began.
- Stage production had to get smaller.
It took some adjusting.
We soldiered on.
We were able to lean on each other and go to work.
And we started to gain traction.
It was gradual.
It was a gradual thing.
We started doing arenas and stadiums again.
[cheers and applause]
And then the music started being played on commercials.
["Shining Star" playing]
On television.
[canned laughter]
- ♪ Your dream will take you very far, yeah ♪
And in films.
♪ You're a shining star ♪
♪ No matter who you are ♪
♪ Shining bright to see ♪
♪ What you could truly be ♪
♪ You're a shining star ♪
♪ No matter who you are ♪
- And then a lot of hip-hop will be sampled, right?
- When I was in high school, I heard "Shining Star"
with ODB on it.
- ♪ Shining Star for you to see ♪
♪ Yeah, know what I'm saying? ♪
♪ This is what you call ♪
♪ This was making history right here ♪
♪ Know what I'm saying, the fifth element ♪
♪ Earth, Wind, Fire, Sunz of Man ♪
- My dad was not just inspirational
but recycled by these groups.
I think that was one of the moments where
it sort of clicked how much of an influence
he'd had on the world.
[upbeat funk music]
- They influenced a whole new generation of people.
Even with myself, the earliest memories I have of music
is listening to Earth, Wind & Fire on long road trips.
- My dad taught me how to play "Shining Star" on the bass
when I was eight years old.
And I feel like it really kind of shaped me.
- The first concert that I went to
was Earth, Wind & Fire at Caesars Palace
in Las Vegas.
It was a sound so big and lush, I wanted to do it.
That victory lap in the '80s
that we didn't get a chance to do...
We took them in the '90s.
And we've been taking them ever since.
And that's a testimony to Reese's vision.
- Reese, thank you for taking the chances
that no one else will take.
And thank you for being a visionary.
Thank you.
- Reese's vision to do music that helps humanity...
Reach a universal audience,
evolve consciousness, and change the world.
[ethereal music]
He made it happen.
[cheers and applause]
The music lives, you know.
It's ageless, everlasting.
- For Earth, Wind & Fire! Yeah!
Is this a stage or what?
[cheers and applause]
- Give it up for Earth, Wind & Fire, everybody!
[cheers and applause]
- During that whole time period,
it was clear that Maurice wasn't as strong
as he was in the past.
And that was when I recognized that, oh, wait a minute.
Something's going on.
[melancholy music]
- I noticed that he would always
put his hand under his thigh.
It's like, what?
And my thought is, what's he hiding from me?
- We found out that he has, uh,
Parkinson's disease, and there's no cure.
- In the '90s, I decided to stay home.
It's interesting, watching it.
It's almost like something's missing.
And it's me.
There was a peace,
an opportunity for self-reflection,
that came during that period of his life.
Because he didn't have a father,
he didn't want to continue this cycle.
I think that my pops felt like
he was gonna make up for lost time,
almost in a redemption arc kind of way,
to lend some greater part of himself to being a father.
- My dad and I got really close when I was 21.
He, to the world, was this very like--he has to live
a healthy life kind of guy.
But Jack in the Box spicy crispy chicken sandwich
on sourdough with extra cheese, he loved that.
We would just do it together-- and Dr. Pepper.
The way we connected was over music.
Every Sunday, he would have me
play him stuff that I was listening to.
And that's how we did it, literally
until the day he died.
♪ ♪
My brother called me. He was like, Dad is gone.
That was tough.
That was really tough, you know,
because we'd been with him all our adult lives.
- I met Maurice White when I was 17 years old.
I was just a baby.
Maurice was much more than a mentor to me.
He was a father.
- As for me, there is no question that, by far,
he has been the single greatest
male influence in virtually every aspect of my life,
across the board.
He wasn't perfect,
and I won't be able to say that
he didn't do maybe some dastardly stuff
sometimes because he's human.
But I've accepted what happened.
He was my brother, and I'm gonna focus
on the good times that I had with him.
- You know, Maurice is like those beings
from the pyramids.
They only come along once in a lifetime.
[contemplative music]
- My dad believed in metaphysics.
[inhalation]
He told me, it's all energy.
[exhalation]
There's more to life than this.
You are eternal.
He was like, you know, I'm not gonna be here,
but I'm not gonna be gone.
- Maurice--ooh, I just got chills.
I feel you, baby.
- He left us all of this wonderful, wonderful music.
And if we miss him, all we have to do is
put on one of these records, and...
and we all know that joy again.
- ♪ Ba-dee-ya, ee-ya, ee-ya ♪
[cheering]
When we went in,
we wanted to bring all of America
into the White House in every event that we did
to really make it the people's house.
The Governors Ball was one of the first big events
that we hosted.
And the question was, how do we shake this up?
How do we take the first big black-tie event
and turn it into us and make it our house?
Well, Earth, Wind & Fire.
- So suddenly, you have all these folks
- in formal wear and-- - Getting up.
- Earth, Wind & Fire's jamming,
and suddenly, you're looking around,
and everybody's dancing.
Everybody's moving.
- When "September" comes on, you go dancing.
["September" playing]
- Hands go up, fingers get to snapping,
you know what I'm saying?
Feet get to moving, you know what I'm saying?
Hey, kick drum, come in.
Like uh-huh.
[horns blare]
It's a celebratory song.
It's like everybody knows that record.
When I was pregnant,
and I told Maurice our son, Kahbran,
was due around September 21st...
He said September 21st, huh?
I said, yeah, September 21st.
♪ Do you remember ♪
♪ The 21st night of September? ♪
♪ Love was changing the minds of pretenders ♪
♪ While chasing the clouds away ♪
That song would resonate
with every single kind of audience.
It's jubilant. It's happy.
You feel good celebrating that spirit.
- When he turned the microphone to the audience,
they knew exactly what to sing.
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Ba-dee-ya ♪
- Tell me about the genesis of ba-dee-ya.
- [chuckles] The genesis of ba-dee-ya.
- ♪ Ba-dee-ya ♪
- What does ba-dee-ya mean?
- It's whatever you want it to be.
- ♪ Ba-dee-ya, ba-dee-ya, ba-dee-ya, ba-dee-ya ♪
♪ Ba-dee-ya, ba-dee-ya, ba-dee-ya, ba-dee-ya ♪
♪ Ba-dee-ya, ba-dee-ya, ba-dee-ya ♪
- When I hear "September," I just think
people of all ages, all backgrounds, dancing together.
- It felt like family and having barbecues
and seeing my family do electric slide.
It's gatherings. It's birthdays.
It's wedding receptions.
- ♪ Now December found the love we shared in September ♪
That's what it's about.
Music is for everybody.
And very few bands transcended those boundaries.
♪ Hey ♪
♪ Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember ♪
- Earth, Wind & Fire had that capacity
to reimagine and reset limits.
♪ Was ringing, oh, oh ♪
- They just decided, you know what?
We're going up to the sky.
- ♪ Do you remember never a cloudy day? ♪
♪ And we'll say ba-dee-ya dee-ya dee-ya ♪
♪ Ba-dee-ya, dee-ya, dee-ya ♪
[music fades]
[inhalation]
[exhalation]
["Fantasy" playing]
♪ ♪
- I have a day to live. What am I gonna do?
I'm gonna write me a song.
[laughs]
Quick.
[laughter]
Hey, hey, hey.
Let me play now.
- ♪ In his heart there's a space ♪
♪ And the world can't erase his fantasies ♪
♪ Take a ride in the sky... ♪
Okay, don't say anything
for about three minutes.
Awesome.
[all grunting, humming]
Hey, he's pulling my finger.
- Look at the lens. Look at the lens.
- ♪ Our voices will ring forever ♪
♪ As one ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Every thought is a dream ♪
♪ Rushing by in a stream ♪
♪ Bringing life to the kingdom of doing ♪
♪ Take a ride in the sky ♪
♪ On our ship, fantasize ♪
♪ All your dreams will come true miles away ♪
♪ Our voices will ring together ♪
♪ Until the 12th of never ♪
♪ We all will live, love forever ♪
♪ As one ♪
♪ Come to see victory ♪
♪ In a land called fantasy ♪
♪ Loving life, a new degree ♪
♪ Bring your mind to everlasting liberty ♪
♪ ♪
[bright tone]