January 26, 2021 • 46 mins
Rick Rubin connected with Earth, Wind & Fire's Verdine White to talk about the early days of the band and about their producer, Charles Stepney, who Verdine calls their George Martin. Also Rick reads to Verdine a poignant note from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea about what makes Verdine’s bass playing so special. Earth Wind and Fire are the black Beatles. Their influence simply can't be overstated. You’d be hard pressed to find a wedding or graduation party in the last 50 years where their music didn’t bring generations together to dance and sing their hearts out. Earth Wind and Fire’s music is intricate, combining melody with mysticism and jazz to create some of the most instantly recognizable and profound music of the 70s.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, Earthwin and Fire are the Black Beatles. Their influence
can't be overstated. You'd be hard pressed to find a
wedding or graduation party in the last fifty years where
their music didn't bring generations together to dance and sing
(00:37):
their hearts out. Do you remember love is changing? Earth
Winn and Fires music is intricate, combining melody with mysticism
and jazz to create some of the most instantly recognizable
(01:00):
and profound music of the seventies. Earthwin and Fire's groove
is emmets, and that's not an accident. Verice White you
start to Earthwin and Fire in nineteen sixty nine, spent
years as a jazz drummer around Chicago before becoming a
front man, and the group's rhythm section was held down
by his brothers, including Verdine White on bass. Earthwin and
(01:22):
Fire might have been Maurice's musical vision, but the band's
spirit always came from his younger brother Verdeen. His sheer
joy for music can't be contained on stage with the
sequined outfits and long pressed hair, Verdein dances with as
much dexterity as he plays bass. Ferdine has been leading
the group along with Philip Bailey since the nineties, when
(01:43):
Maurice stepped back from the band due to Parkinson's disease,
which he ultimately passed from. In twenty sixteen, Rick Rubin
connected with the Verdeen to talk about the early days
of Earthwin and Fire and about their producer Charles Stepney,
who Verdeine calls They're George Mark. Also, Rick reads to
Verdeine a poignant note from the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Flee about what makes Verdein's bass playing so special. This
(02:11):
is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm
justin Mitch Wind. Here's Rick Rubin and Verdine White. What's
happened in Good to see you? Good to see you too.
How are you? My friend? Very well? How are you?
I'm fantastic so good to see you. Yeah, I wanted
(02:31):
to I was just talking to Flee about that we
were going to be speaking. I want to read to
you what he says. He said Verdein was the guy
who who played massive pop hits where he rocked virtuoso
bass playing in the context of memorable grooves that doesn't
exist anymore, and how Earthwind and Fires music appealed more
(02:53):
than any other band of all time to all all ages,
all ethnicities. And when I was a kid in middle school,
this is Flee talking. The black kids like p Funk,
the white kids like Kiss and led Zeppelin. Everybody loved
earth Wind and Fire. Old, young, black, white, Mexican, Asian. Amazing,
And I think I've always strived for based on earth
(03:15):
Wind and Fire. Oh wow, and then beautiful it's heavy.
I love. I've known three for a long time, A
long long time, you know, yeah, yeah. How how much
do you guys practice historically? When we do it? We
do soundchecks every day. I never miss a soundcheck. When
we do big production rehearsals, it's big. It's a lot.
If rehearsals start at ten o'clock in the morning, I
(03:37):
am there at nine. If it starts at eleven, I'm
there at ten. If it starts at four o'clock in
the morning, I'm at three o'clock in the morning. I
still do the same things. Those same rituals don't have
never changed for me. Amazing. It brings up were there
any rituals that your band would do before you would
go on stage? Was there any any practices what we
(04:00):
still do. We call it the circle. We get into
the circle. You know, we throw everything out of the day.
You know, for us, it's the start of another day,
you know. You know how you meditate in the morning
and then you meditate in the evening, it's really at
the beginning of another day. So we throw everything out
(04:22):
and we tune in as to what we need to do.
And we have honorary members sometimes that have come to
our circle, you know. You know Russell Wilson, you know,
he was in our circle one evening. Dion World was
in our circle. And we invite people in sometimes to
the circle because it's a sacred circle, beautiful, and we say,
for that night, you are in the band, you are
part of the music tonight. And a lot of people
(04:42):
want to get into the circle because they want to
feel what we are feeling. And although we are in
all individuals, we all have different things, different lifestyles. When
we get into that circle, we get into that the
earth when the ebf or the fire vibration, you know,
which we tune back into. You know, my late brother Maurice,
we tune in all the work he did, all the
(05:04):
records we did. The late Charles stepped me, our arranger, producer,
you know, thing like that. So we tune right back
into earth wind and fire, all those qualities, you know,
as we talk about we buy into it. Have you
always been doing this forever? Wow? Since the seventies, forever beautiful.
We have programmed books of back in the day when
(05:25):
we were in the circle, our choreographers, when we had dancers,
the dancers were in the circle. We've always done that.
So when we go on stage, we are you know,
Umfordane White, we have Philip Bailey, we have Ralph Johnson.
You know, the three of us are the leaders now
you know what I mean, Philip and I. But we
get into the things that we created. Don't forget that
we created earthwin and fire. So we go right back
(05:46):
to that place, you know, that sacred space of that thing,
you know, beautiful beautiful. I'm so glad you do it.
It's it's just such a beautiful thing. So you really
unifies the players into being not themselves anymore, but into
this thing, this thing earth wind and Fire. Is that
would that be accurate? That's right of what that is
(06:06):
or what we created and what we stand for, what
our intentions have been. You know, because we've been around,
I mean, we've had a record out every generation, right,
you know, you know, right now we have this song.
I would make a train of a Christmas but we've
had records out. But now what happens with us? The
older people turned the younger people on to us, and
(06:27):
they go back and start listening, you know. And what
I find now that the other generations and other musicians
like Flee knows our work, but the younger musicians want
to know what it's like being us and how do
you get there? You know? Yes, And I think what's
going on with the younger people. I don't think they're concerned.
(06:47):
I think it used to be I want to be successful.
Now I think they want to be immortal and leave
a legacy. And they look at us as guys that
have done that, so they want to know how do
we get that? Because success comes and goes, you know,
depending on the culture, depending on what the wind, like
a tennis ball or golf ball. The cross winds could
throw you off, right, you know, but when you're when
(07:10):
you're when you turn out to be a legend or immortality,
it stays forever. And so so few of your contemporaries
have managed to keep going, Like who were the bands?
Who would you say were the competition in the early
days when in the early days there was people like
Ohio players right, war Man Rule, right, you know, groups
(07:35):
like that Commodore's right Linel on them, you know. And
I do see Lionel and I spect a line of
quite a lot. And so those who are contemporaries at
that time, and at that particular time, we were just
kind of starting out and we were growing up. But
the but Maurice, because he was older than us, ten
years older, he was more mature, so he knew kind
of like where we were headed, you know, where we
(07:56):
ended up being. He was already there. You know, he
was I think kind of when I look back at it,
he was kind of waiting for us to catch up. Wow,
and and and and Reese. Although he was you know,
he was a great leader. He was a tough leader.
He was really actually patient with us too, you know,
and a lot of the stuff that we would do
he'd laugh at because he said, Okay, when they get
past that, then we'll have a good talk, you know.
And Maurice didn't really write his book until he saw
(08:20):
us at the Hollywood Bowl. Maurice came out that brought
him out walked him out to the fans and people
gave him a standing ovation. That's when he decided to
write the book because he said he knew that it
was in good hands. And that was our first time
playing with an orchestra and you know, ninety pieces, and
when we played the Hollywoo Bowl last year was beautiful
Brooke Box Office Records again Thomas Wilkins. And then we
(08:43):
kind of got out of you know, we're sort of
more into the like, you know, the Earth Winning Fire
what it means, not into the successful part of it,
because we kind of did that, you know, because success
kind of dictates you or me. But our thing is
you and me, so that's where we are amazing. It's
one of the things. It's like if I listened to
any other and I'm not limiting Earth Wind and Fire
(09:06):
to funk, but let's talk about funk just because it's
such a it's one of the pillars of Earth Winning
Fire as funk. And if I look at the other
funk music that I've listened to, there's always almost always
a looseness about it that you guys never you guys
always had a precision beyond any other band, making any
(09:28):
music related, it always seemed much tighter, much more precise,
much more like fanatical in a way, like just like perfect.
It was always perfect absolutely with us. We were never
what you call a jam jam band, you know, don't
forget number Reese's background was, you know, jazz, you know
(09:49):
what I mean. We come out of Chicago, you know,
Chess Records, you know things Maurice did you know, But
there was a precision to the music, you know, with
the late child Stepney with the horns, which people like
Quincy respected, you know, because Quincy's work was very precise.
With Michael Jackson, you know what I mean. So you
know it was always precision everything. You know, everything's on
the dot as we are now, as we are now.
(10:09):
You know, if we're get a little loose, we talk
about it, you know, we say, listen, we gott to
tighten this up here, because you can get a little loose.
You know, you can get a little loose. You can
forget where those bars are, you know, you know, on
maybe on the fourth night, when you're a little tired,
you might forget, you know, done about you know, you
have to remind yourself to be just a little bit
more on the dot you know. Yeah, as it relates
to bass playing, from the time that a song would
(10:33):
come into existence, how would the bass evolve into what
we hear on the record version? Like how close would
it be from the first time you play it? Let's say,
tell me about the process of developing the bass. But
the process would because Maurice is a drummer, so I
would hear all the songs, and he'd played me a
lot of the tune, so our groove was pretty natural.
(10:55):
But I would always go back and we'd go back
and listen again before we record, and then he said,
what you want to do right here? What do you
want to do? And then I kind of learned in
a very unorthodox style from classical to you know, R
and B and might And the best teacher I ever
had was the late Louis Saddafield, who was a trumpbone
player in the Phoenix Horns, who went to college with Maurice,
(11:15):
and so I had a chance to kind of do both,
you know, look at the paper, throw the paper away,
and then create my own style. So a lot of
times I would just listen to see what I was
gonna do. Would it be a demo, would he be
a recorded demo. Sometimes it could be a demo. Sometimes
it could be when we were sitting in the room
and he would just start playing. Then I would just
start playing, and then while I'm playing, I would imagine,
(11:36):
you know, I'm gonna try this when I listened to
it back. So I would just spend time just listening.
And sometimes if Maurice was writing with somebody, I'd lay
on the couch and just listen while he was doing
and I said, wait till I get that, wait till
I get to my part. I knew what kind of
like what I was gonna do, you know, but I
had room to do it in, you know. And some
of the songwriters they said, I never intended the base
(11:56):
to sound like that, you know what I mean, because
they sort of had a preconceived idea of what basios
sound like. And I kind of broke a lot of rules.
You know. I was not your normal guy, you know,
you know, I wasn't. I wasn't the perfect guy for
a guy who was stuck in their ways. That's part
of why the band sounds so original. Love that's like
that's one of the keys. It's like they are several,
(12:18):
but that's certainly one of them absolutely, and you know,
and what's really interesting about it, Rick is that you know,
there's an Earthlin and Fire song being played somewhere in
the world every minute and fifteen seconds every day, every
hour of the day. Beautiful was the majority of the
basic tracks cut live as a band. Yeah, so everybody's
playing together about and people thought that, you know, we
(12:40):
were playing with a click track. Never did wow. Never. Wow.
It's amazing just because again because of the precision, they
almost sound inhuman, you know, like it's so perfect. It's
like it's just beyond perfect in how tight everything is
and the horns, you know, being that's another part of it,
is like the horns are so fast and tight and
(13:03):
it's unbelievable. It's just unbelievable to hear that kind of precision. Yeah, well,
you know, Maurice was a stickler for that. Maurice was like, uh,
you know, we think we worked hard, but nobody worked
as hard as Maurice. You know, he wrote it, he
produced it, he performed, and he was a hell of
a performer too, and a great drummer, which he does
in blot Up. The younger generation don't know how great
of a drummer he really was. He played on Rescue Me,
(13:27):
he played on Billy Stewart Summertime, This Maurice, you know,
and he played on those great records with Ramsey Lewis.
So he had she had. He had a very extensive background.
By the time he got to Earth and Fire, he
knew who he was. You know, this was he had
no doubt who he was as a person and as
an artist. This was not like something he was, you know,
trying to find his way. He knew exactly what he
wanted and he dragged me along with him. So I'm
(13:48):
happy for that. You know, no, absolutely beautiful and that
you had a beautiful life getting to play music. It's
like what better, what better contribution can you make then
making something that enlivens you and the people that get
to share it. And with my older brother Idol what
you know what I'm saying, You know what I mean?
Sometimes when I do interview, you know, people said, Jenner,
(14:10):
what would the older Verdeen tell the younger Verdeen? And always,
you know, you know how they do, you know, they
get those questions, you know what I mean. You know
it's not you know, it's not a sprint but a
journey kind of thing. You know, right, I said that
didn't apply to me because I was the younger guy,
was already doing what he was doing. You thought about
and being with Maurice, you know, it kind of broke
a lot of rules being a young person too. You know,
(14:31):
let me know that I could do it, and you know,
if you stay on it, this is what you're gonna do.
Hard being in a group with so many people. Yeah,
but you know, we got a lot of love of
respect for each other, you know, And don't forget now,
you know. You know Philip Ralph myself, you know, we
became adults together, so you know, that's a different point
of view. You know, what year to Philip join? Do
(14:52):
you remember, like seventy see from seventy one? Yeah, really
I didn't. I didn't realize that for almost fifty five years. Wow.
And what happened when the first Earth and the fire
broke up and on the Warner brothers, Philip used to
come and hang out and I I spent the afternoon
with them, you know, and we got along so well.
(15:12):
But I had saw him play in Denver with the band,
but he had moved to California and then he spent
the whole afternoon and it was just so great that
liked them so much, you know, And and I called
my mother, I said, so he even plays harmonica, you
know what I mean? And never saw anybody play harmonica, right,
And then when Reese was formulating and things like that,
that it was down to two other people, and Marie said,
(15:33):
who should we get? Said we should get Philip because
that's because he's a really good guy, you know what
I mean, the spirit of it, you know what I mean.
And it would only take a good person to go
to journey that we ended up going. You know. In
the last week, I had a conversation with two different artists,
one with Farrell and one with Q Tip, two great
artists referenced this week Earthwinn and Fire being the reason
(15:55):
they make music again again. It's just like it's it's
beautiful to see it from different people, different ages, in
different genres, how inspirational it was and continues to be.
It's just it's beautiful, beautiful to be part of something
so that has informed people's lives in such an important way. Yeah, yeah,
(16:16):
I think what's going on with this this uh, with
the quarantine that we all are in, and it's a
collective experience that we're all having. You know, as we know,
people are going back you know to really great works,
great books, they're going back to great movies, they're going
back to great records. And I think, of course our
work is part of what they want to go back to,
you know, and that and their ears are actually open
(16:38):
more now they're having the opportunity to listen better. You know,
we've had in the great society and the politics right
and things like that. We're headed for a great awakening.
I would call this next phase the great awakening for us.
We'll be back with Rick Rubin and Verding White after
the break. We're back with more from Verding White of Earth,
(17:00):
Winn and Fire. Tell me about Charles Stepney. What was
his involvement as producer? What did he do, because you know,
producers do differ things. Tell me about him and his
involvement in the process. Well, Charles, first of all, was
a great friend of Maurice's and they worked together at
Chess Records. And then Charles had done a lot of
(17:21):
arrangements for Ramsey Lewis with Maurice, and Charles was the
one that brought Many Riverton on the scene. You know,
The first album was called Come to My Garden, which
was a great, great, great great record, and they just
stayed in touch. And then Charles had done the Last
Days and Times record for us, the first record we
(17:41):
did for Clive Davis on Columbia Records. Charles did that.
Then Charles came back again and worked with us on
Open Our Eyes That's the Way of the World, the
breakthrough record for us and the Spirit Record, which he
passed away on the Spirit Record. And Charles was our
father figure, big brother. He was the one that Maurice
would listen to the most. Charles will said, we're gonna
(18:01):
do it like this, and Reese would do it. And
Charles was great for myself and Philip and all of us,
all of us together, and he was actually took our
George Martin, even though you guys are from Chicago, you
consider yourself a Chicago bandy. You can side yourself California band.
I say California now, you know, because I became an
adult here. You know. We came from Chicago, which brought
(18:22):
a certain sensibility, you know to it, you know, yeah,
and a good foundation, you know, because I came from
a good family background. My mom and dad. My dad
was a doctor, my mom was a school teacher, and
we had a lot of music around the house. So
that was good. That's what I brought to California. And
then when I got with Maurice, you know what I mean,
you know, working with him closely and living with him,
I had a chance to figure out where he was
(18:43):
coming from. And he would talk to me about music
a lot, you know, and so that so and then
we became Californians. He did too, you know what I mean,
because we got into yoga, we got into meditation, we
got into eating good, we got into you know, uh,
going to seminars at the booty Tree, you know, things
like that, you know what I mean. So we became
actually California, you know, the Californias started eating yogurt. So yeah,
(19:06):
how how important was the spiritual aspect in addition to
the music? Like what Riese was sort of always open,
you know what I mean. You know, he was always open,
you know, and it was always loose. It was never
like heavy. It was not like a dogma, you know
what I'm talking about. It was loose. We didn't get
in each other's way spiritually, things like that. It was
just a progression, you know what I mean. And then
(19:26):
you know, we adopted you know a lot of the
California stuff, which was actually kind of natural. Of course
we didn't do that. You couldn't do that in Chicago.
That would be too weird, lighting incense, you know it be.
And but it was we got into the California thing,
you know, which was wide open. I don't think we
ever would have made it as big had we not
come to California. It opened your mind to new things
(19:48):
being in California, you think, right, and new creativity because
don't forget now this is where everybody came you know,
this is where everybody's still. This is where eybody is
coming back to now, you know what I mean, because
of the just the openness of thought, of possibilities. You know,
there was You came from a musical household. Tell me
about the actual music that would be playing in the house.
What do you remember, first member as a kid, what
(20:10):
might be playing in the house. Anything. It was nine
of us, so it was noisy. So you get it.
You get in where you fit in. And so in
one room, my sister would be listening to the radio
station w v O M of Chicago, she used to
listen to Pervous band The Blues Man. My dad would
be listening to Maheley Jackson because he loved Mahley Jackson,
(20:31):
you know, things like that. My mom loved Little Roles,
uh live at the Copa, you know. And then and
then me and my brother Monte and my brother Freddie.
You know, we thought we were cool. So we we
would be listening to you know, you know, Miles Davis
four and More and uh and Miles in the Sky.
We love that record. You know, we were teenagers. So
(20:53):
if you if you didn't, if you told people you
listened to Miles Davis, you were cool even if you
didn't listen to it. The fact that you're doing so.
We so we were. We were the hip guys. We
wanted to be. We were cool lighting incense in our bedroom.
So that's kind of like what was going on. And uh,
my baby sisters were just babies at the time. But
but it was it was a lot of hot, very
(21:14):
free farm household, very free form. Was never uh it
was not that strict. It was actually for that era,
it was quite loose, you know what I mean. You know,
you know, it wasn't like spankings I'm gonna get you
when I'm spankings, you know, things like that. You know.
Also interesting for the how eclectic the band was. To
grow up in an eclectic household makes sense. It's like,
(21:35):
it makes sense because it was never Earthwind and Fire
was never one thing. You know, it always felt bigger
than one thing. We may talk about funk being a backbone,
but it was not just that at all. Were so
many funk bands were just that. I would have to
say a lot of those funk bands, A lot of
those guys grew up together, you know, probably buddies in
(21:55):
schools and things like that. But in our in our world,
you know, Maurice was the leader, so he had traveled
around the hole. We hadn't been anywhere. So a lot
of the things that he knew he turned us on
to him. You mean, so he turned us on a
lot of different philosophy that he was into and things
like that. We went to Egypt, you know what I mean,
And recent I went to Egypt and Israel and things
like that. So you know, he was a world guy.
(22:17):
You know, he was a very different type of person,
you know. And and then don't forget now, you know,
Fire was formulated. He formulated it in the in the sixties,
which was at the first wave of cosmic consciousness. Obviously,
you know things like that. It was like the precursor
to what everybody now has a yoga bat now, And
now everybody has a yoga bat. They didn't used to.
(22:38):
They didn't they didn't you know, they didn't even know
what it was. Now everybody has what you know, I
was going to ask about you talking about Miles Davis,
So I's going to ask you about the influence of
jazz in the band, right, How did jazz work itself
into or the fact that that you guys listened to
jazz growing up, did that influence Earth Winning Fire? Well,
(23:00):
you know, Maurice was the ultimate jazzer of the band,
you know, and uh and Charles Stepney played jazz too,
great jazz, So it was really good for us to
kind of turn us on and Philip and myself and
Ralph and and uh, we rouse a really big jazz
are really excellent, you know about the history of jazz. Really,
(23:21):
he's really the expert in the band of jazz. And
Philip is too, and uh and what was great about
it for me being around Maurice but then I had
a chance to hang out with a Philip a lot.
He would play me music and us being the same age,
you know, he could maybe explain it to me what
was going on, which Maurice just threw us in there.
You gotta jump in and fit in, you know, okay
because the music is taken off, and so I could say, hey, man,
(23:43):
so what did he just say? You know? So it
was it was good that I had a chance to
you know, grow in this band listening to jazz, you know,
because I sort of kind of caught the tip end
of jazz playing upright to bass guitar. So when you
were playing upright, did you learn playing jazz and classical? Yeah?
And it was good for technique. But then right right
(24:03):
at the doorstep was bass guitar, Fender bass that you
know that you guys like myself, and then Stanley Clark
and Marcus Miller, Nathan Eaves, uh, Michael Henderson. You know
that that wave started. So so that's when I kind
of like started when it kind of was like jazz
funk jazz pop influence. You know, did you ever have
(24:26):
an opportunity to play upright bass on any earth Wind
and Fire records. Only one. It was only one and
that and I did it on a on one of
our shows. I write a song when I did it
on that section. But I actually sounded better on bass
guitar really actually, you know what I mean. You know
it's I'm glad I played it because it was good
for technique. It fights back when I practice. Uh, the
(24:47):
practice is on upright, are horrible. The ones on bass
guitar fun. I took a lesson from Ron Carter and
Uh at his house and the and it was a
horrible lesson. He said, man, this this was not good.
And this is not good, just not good. I said, Serranti,
I said, I'm practicing. I said, but tonight you'll see
what I really do. You're done about it. So he
came to Matt at the Swift Garden and he thought
(25:08):
he was in the wrong. He thought of a basketball game.
There were so many people you're talking about, you know
what I mean? So I said, I said, Ronnie, this
is what I this is what I really do. You've
done about you know, But I said, I love to
practice anyway, and I wanted to have the opportunity of
hanging out with Ron Card and taking a lesson even
if it was horrible. So cool, so cool. So you've
you've gotten to make albums consistently since I guess first
(25:29):
album in nineteen seventy seventy one, is that about, right? Yes?
Seventy right those yea seventy seventy one right right, it's
like fifty years unbelievable. And the technology keeps changing, right,
popular music keeps changing. Tell me about your experience in
watching the changes and and reacting to the changes, either
(25:53):
by swinging with what's going on or by not, you know,
like just choosing, well, we're not this is what they're
doing now, we're just gonna do this instead. Talk to
me about just what you saw the changes in the
way music has been recorded. Let's say where we've watched
the changes you know, from four track, the eight track, right,
(26:14):
twenty four track, right, we went through that phase, right,
which we watched and we were part of that. Of
then we watched of course you know, CDs right, DVDs,
all of those things pro tools, you know what I mean.
So it's just part of just the evolution. And I
think that if you have a pretty much of a foundation,
(26:35):
you can swing with it, you know. I think if
you don't have a foundation, You run to the technology
without and forget the music. Yeah, you know we had
we had a strong musical background, so we could say, well,
how did this fit into our music? Beautiful? Let's talk
about James Brown for a minute. What was James Brown
an important figure musically? First? When the fire? Would you say?
(26:59):
Sort of like he wasn't like first as funky as
he was. And I know I'm going to get some pushback.
No, no no, no, it's fine. It's interesting. I really wanted
to understand the inspiration is a big part of how
we get where we're going. We still bring ourselves to it,
but it's interesting, like what's coming through that gets us
where we're going. What I loved about him was his
(27:19):
live performances. That's what I loved. That's the one, you know,
the one. If you wanted to see some James Brown stuff,
watch the Tammy Show. Yeah you know what I'm saying.
And somebody told me it took ninety minutes for those
girls to stop screaming after you guy, after he did
what he did, you know, you know what I mean.
And he was just one of them, you know, it
(27:40):
was James Brown, it was Miles babys. It was John
Coltrane for us, you know what I mean, and things
like that, you know, but also the Beatles and the
Beatles that those guys, I think what they did they
were sort of like I think they were the ones
that that busted the door wide open if you go
back and listen to like when they would mop tops
(28:01):
and I want to hold your hand and all the
way down the Abbey Road. The work they did was
really incredible and what they did was really good. What
the record that showed how hip there was was Rubber Soul.
That was the one. Rubber Soul was the record. And
it was almost like the joke was on us because
they knew so much about what they were doing, and
(28:21):
it just kept I mean different, different, different, and you
could and you could really think that Sergeant Prepper really
actually was the record of samples really when you really
look back at it, with the machine going backwards and
things like that. And then they had somebody like George
Martin to make musical sense of what was in their
ears but they were listening to. They did something in
one group that everybody has bitten off of, you know.
(28:43):
The first of all a group that got massively big
which everybody dreams about. Right, hit records, right, important records, right,
cultural icons forever right, spirituality with transldental meditation of mahaichi
ya yogi. Right. So they're like sort of like more
of a than a group, that's sort of like an entity.
That's how they look at their work. I think, I
think of the Beatles is proof of God. It's like that.
(29:06):
It's do you know, it's like it's too much, it's
too much. This is not this is not the work
of for boys from a little country town you know
in the north of England's right, it's much bigger than that.
It's much, it's much bigger. It really it changed the
world that everybody has bitten off of in one way
(29:26):
or another. You know, when I talk about Miles in
the Sky, that's when Miles started going towards the rock thing,
you know what I mean. That's when Miles got hit,
you know, in the sixties, you know, things like that,
and that's when a lot of music changed, you know,
because of the chord changes and the songwriting. You know,
that was the first time artists wrote their own songs
in a band. So great work by them, really great work.
(29:48):
They were the first ones that you know, did movies,
you know. Yeah. So Actually another piece that makes sense
is if I think of if I compare Earthwind and
Fire to other funk bands, earth Wind and Fire always
had songs, where funk bands often had great grooves that
weren't necessarily songs. Right so, and same whole truth if
(30:10):
we look at James Brown versus the Beatles. James Brown
always had the groove, but it wasn't always about the song.
It might just be about the pocket. But the Beatles
had the songs. And don't forget number Race was a
song person before he got to Ramsey. He was a
session drummer, so he did commercials, so he did understand
probably the intro, the chorus, diverse, the hook, what is
(30:32):
it saying? You know? Actually we did the cover the
Beatles Got to Get You My Life in the Sargent
Pepper movie. And what happened was that George Martin had
had unch Maurice and myself about the movie, but he
didn't have time to work with us because he was
working with Aerosmith and the BGS and Billy Preston, you know,
and he said, why don't you guys just do your
(30:53):
own thing and that's what we did, and it was
the number. It was the biggest song on that movie,
Beautiful because the movie was it was a huge flock.
I mean, you know when you go back, people don't
know that now, but it was not as big as
they thought it was going to be. But we had
the record and we still play the song today. I
remember going to see in the theater as a kid.
I've may have been one of a few people in
that theater, but I was in the theater watching that. Yeah.
(31:15):
And we shot in Cobra City and we were in
the middle of we had just got back, had a
day off from one of our tours, and we had
to shoot everything, like, you know, in one day. You know,
that's how fast it was going. You know, Robert Stigwood,
you know, back back then, you know, more and more
and more, let's go, let's go, let's go. You know. Yeah.
Did you meet Stigwood? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting character.
(31:37):
I've only heard about him. I've never met him. Yeah,
he was. He's very nice to us. You know, we
were kids at the time, so everybody was nice, you know.
And but what one of the significant thing is it
was Michael Schultz of the African American director. He was
one of the first to do a big budget movie.
That was a big budget movie, you know, but it
was a great time to be part of a movie
and and things like that. You know, we'll be back
(31:59):
with Rick Rubin and Verdine White after the break. We're
back with more from vert in White of Earth When
in Fire, just picturing the world that you were in then,
you know, right, did it feel different than the other
things that were going on? Could you tell that your
band was different? Well, when we definitely were in the
(32:22):
Earth when and Fire bubble, you know what I mean,
because don't forget now, we were doing something that had
never ever been done before, you know, you know, no
group had ever tried the things you know that we tried,
you know. And and at that time, you know, we
were getting ready to go to Columbia Records when Clive
was president of Columbia Records, and Clive gave was everything
we needed to do it, you know what I mean.
(32:42):
So we felt really secure, you know, and we knew
we could do it. We knew we were gonna do
really good if we just keep at it. We didn't
really know what was going on with everybody else actually
we knew, but we didn't, you know, we weren't part
of it, you know. And in today's world, if an
artist doesn't break really on their first project, they tend
to go away, and you guys got to really build
(33:04):
over a period of time. It was really was it
like the fourth or fifth album that really broke through.
It was the That's the Way the World record with
Shining Star on it, and that about about fifth would
you say that about fifth? Way we had last certain
times right head to the sky, open our eyes right then,
that's the way to what that was? What four right for?
(33:26):
So for those first three albums, you guys already had
been touring playing like clubs. We were playing not clubs
a lot, but stillent unions, you know, gymnasiums and and
on with like I said, groups like Ohio Players and Mandrel,
you know, those kind of things. And then the show
that broke us big was a show called Soul in
(33:48):
nineteen seventy one seventy two out of New York City,
and they played the show about nineteen times. It was
a TV show, a television show called Soul. Wow, I'd
never heard of it, Yeah, right, it's an obscure show now,
but back it was a very important show. It was
before shoul trained. Not a lot of dancing, but it
was a show that had a lot of artists on it,
and it was show had politicians on it like Jesse
(34:10):
Jackson and the Last Poets right at that time, you know.
So we were kind of in that thing at that time.
That sounds great. I want to I'm gonna try to
find old episodes. I've never I've never even heard of
it before that time. Yeah. Man. Then and the show
opens up with Maurice playing Colombo. Wow, yeah, so cool.
You know. It was it was like, you know, an intro.
It was like brothers and sisters, you know what, we're here,
(34:31):
Earth and Fire and I the blah blah blah blah blah, right,
you know, and uh, and it was. It was eclectic show,
but it was very powerful show. And we fit right
in at that particular time, I understood. And that's really
what broke things open, you think. Yeah, you know. And
then we were playing a lot of colleges. We want
to road a lot. So those records were selling like,
you know, two to three hundred thousand and half a million,
(34:52):
so we were on our way that that's the way
of the world. It just didn't. It just wasn't a unicorn.
It came out of nowhere. It was a build up
to that. Did it feel like you were it was
a constant build or was it kind of a plateau
at a good level until it exploded? Now it was
a constant build. It just kept going, and we kept
healing it out and feeling it and it kept getting better.
(35:14):
But it wasn't like a thing like you oh man,
we got a big hit record. We just kept going,
you know. It was like we just kept growing, kept
you know, kept going. You know, so then when things
did explode, it seems like you'd be able to handle
it better based on doing all the work leading up
to it. You know, some artists, when good things happened
really fast, they kind of flame out. Right. It was
(35:36):
a little overwhelming, you know, because it was big. You know,
when it gets big, it kind of bounces back off
of you, you know. But we were I think the
fact that we had done records before, you know, we
had enough. We had enough with ourselves not to like
go crazy crazy cool. Do you remember the first experience
of thinking, Wow, this is really getting big. Yeah, I mean,
for me. It was like when I heard That's the
(35:58):
way of the World. You know, we recorded it Cariboo
Ranch back and then remember Cariboo you know Jim Vercio's
plays right and uh. And after Maurice mixed the record
and edited and everything, he let me hear the record.
I said, man, goose pimples. It was like, I mean,
is that us right? You know? Is that us? Is it? Like?
Is it that? Is it that good? And and actually
(36:18):
it was great for Maurice because after step had passed,
Maurice had to take over, you know, as a producer,
so you know, so he had to you know, he
had to wear like three or four hats, you know
what I'm done about. And one of the things that
I'd have to say, nobody who ever played drums came
off the drums and ever did what Maurice end up
doing and and became an icon and became a you know,
musical leader and things like that, and helped the industry too.
(36:40):
If it hadn't been from Maurice, that would never would
have been African Americans doing concerts. And and we actually
had to keep up with him, you know, you know,
he was just one of those rare people that really
kind of knew exactly what he wanted. Even in the
beginning of those records that we did, they were not hits.
The genesis of the sound was there, you know, you
could still you can still hear it. You know it
was there, you know, the foundation of the sound. You know,
(37:03):
the transition from playing in gymnasiums to what was the
next step after gymnasium as things got bigger, theaters than arenas,
than stadiums, and so when we play theaters and arenas
and stadiums now there for different reasons, Like we did
(37:24):
the Classics with the Eagles and everybody a couple of
years ago, so that was great, a lot of fun.
A lot of that audience probably had never seen us before,
you know, on the stage with the Eagles. The arenas
are are good because they put our big production in there,
you know, so a lot of the people can see
us on the big screens. Theaters are great because we
get a chance to play longer, and we can play
(37:47):
songs from some of the jazzy things in the theater
because it fits the environment. You know. It's like if
you're gonna watch, you know, a great movie, it's better
in the theater. Absolutely. I call it like in the theater,
it's great. A lot of ghosts in those theaters, you know. Yeah,
I think I think you can hear the music better
in the theater than in arena as well. It's just
like it's a more musical experience. Yeah. Well, that arena
(38:07):
stuff is all show business. Yeah, you know, it's some
show business. You know. It's big. That means you're big,
and that means the box office is great. That means
you're successful, and it means you're hot. You know, that's
what you know. You know, that means you're happening. Yeah,
as much fun playing big show, small show, just playing
And do you know it when you're in it? Or
does the music kind of take over in a way
(38:29):
where once the show starts you could be anywhere? Yeah?
Well I think for us now, we all know each
other so well, we kind of know what that thing is,
you know. We know, Okay, it's an arena, so we
got to strap in and find out where the space
is so to feel good. It's like greatest hits. It's
greatest hits, yeah yeah, and it's it's star time. Yeah, yeah,
(38:51):
you know what I mean. And when you do a stadium,
it's like you're on the moon. They can't catch you. You
You know how people say, so what you guys play
that tonight Dodger Stadium and people don't say anything to
you because it's bigger than them, you know. Yeah, And
in place like Dodger Stadium, it's more like it's the event.
You get to say you were there, but it's rarely
about like the intricacies of the performance because you're too
(39:14):
far away and the sound just dissipates. But if you
find a space, you can really nail them, like you know,
we found at Arena space. And then when Philip at
the end told audience, wave your hands in the air,
we had sixty thousand people waving their hands in the air.
And because what's great about social media and things like that,
they get a chance to tell their friend what they
just saw. Whereas before in the seventies, if you did it,
(39:35):
nobody knew except the people that came. Yeah, so now
word spreads. And when you talk about playing, like doing
shows with bands like the Eagles, in this recent round,
that probably was more like in the very early days,
you probably got to play with bands much more, a
much more eclectic group of bands like I think, didn't
(39:57):
you guys played with like The Loving Spoonful and right
we opened up for John Sebastian. Remember John was in
The Loving Spoonful. Yes, and John let us do a
tour with him, credible and we played Lincoln Center with him,
and Clive Davis came to see John. Yeah, but he
came to see He saw us and said, listen, I
like those guys. I want to get together with those guys.
(40:18):
That's how that happened. And to this day John and
I are great friends. Just wonderful person, just really great,
just really good. Always sweetheart, always sweetheart, you know beautiful.
Tell me about signing with Clive and he said that
he gave you what you needed to do, you needed
to do, right. It just sounds like it really worked out.
Your experience with Warner Brothers before that wasn't it didn't
(40:39):
work as well. But how was the relationship with the people, Well,
what warners At the time, Joe Smith was at the
running the label. Joe was you know, Moe was there,
but Mo was actually doing reprise, you know, you know,
Frank Sinatra's label, and that's when Moe came later, you know,
but we only did two records for Joe. And then
(41:01):
Clive had heard about us. But Warners they weren't really ready.
They weren't really ready for a group of color, you
know what I mean. And Joe was cool. We got
out of there, you know what I mean. And then
Clive saw us, you know, Clive bought the contract from Warners.
But Clive, you know, he was you know, running CBS records,
and CBS Records was on fire, you know what I mean,
you sliding the family stone. You had all those great groups,
(41:22):
you know what I mean that that Clive had, you
know what I mean. And and he was the one
that opened up that door for us, brought us to
the groves in the house, you know, in London, so
everybody could take a look at us. And it was expensive,
so really earthly. The fire was like the great American
experiment that worked because it hadn't happened. Don't forget now,
the only game in town was Motown right when you
look at it, you know, for where the African Americans
(41:42):
could go to be successful at that nature, to be
that big hadn't happened yet. It hadn't happened yet. What
we did hadn't happened. You know. So after we happened,
then that's when you saw Funkadelas. That's when you saw
Bootsy Collins, That's when you saw probably James Brown was
the only one in the sixties that got big. But
he was by himself though he was the only game
in town. And as we said, it wasn't it wasn't
(42:03):
based on in my opinion, it wasn't based on the songs.
It was just based on he had the sound nobody
had at that time, that's right. And then he was
so great live that when they put him on a
Tammy show and Ed Sullivan lights out. So after you
know that, when we came along, it was a whole
different generation of artists. And then don't forget now, African
American radio had gotten big, you know what I mean,
(42:26):
went from AM to FM stereo. So ye had great
disc jockey's planned records, like you know the late Frankie
Crocker that was breaking all those great records. But in
different genres though, absolutely, But you guys played. You guys
played on all radio. Wasn't just urban radio. You guys
played on everything. I mean, right, I heard you on
every station. But Clive was always great and even to
(42:46):
this day, we always get a big hug from Clive.
We've done this his you know, the Clide Party all
a lot, and we've done his documentaries and things like that,
but always always would be for Evan debt it because
he gave us the big break that opened the door
for us that stayed open. He's historically known for having
a lot to say about songs. Would he get involved
(43:08):
in that way or would he just be supportive at
that time? Of supportive, I think when he went to Rasta,
that's when he got into it, you know, because Clumbia
was Clumbie was. It was so big, you know, it
was so monolithic, you know, big, big, big corporation. But
he was there for us anyway, you know what I mean,
whatever we want to do, we could do it. And
Claude love Maurice, so you know it was it was
(43:29):
he always trusted Reese, beautiful. Tell me a little bit
about your music listening habits now. I listened to everything.
Sometimes I go back to the past to see if
I still liked it when I liked it before, to
see if my years on one point I'm having a
chance to like really do some nice work. You know.
Of course, we will do an Earth on the Fire
album at some point. But recently I've had a chance
(43:50):
to work with my drummer, John Paris from the band
and Neil Pole. Great engineer, great producer, great writer. He
just got nominated for two Grammys. So we get a
chance to talk about music, chop it up, work on tracks.
You know, it keeps me active and things like that,
and I still practice. I still you know what I
like about the quarantine Actually, it's really you know, it's
(44:10):
been kind of cool because I've had a chance to
really be creative, you know, absolutely, you know, with no
judgment on it, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Have
you ever played on anyone else's records? Oh yeah, I
did a flow rider DJ Cassidy, a lot of yeah, man,
a lot of stuff. And then what happens is when
I work with other people, the session is like three hours,
(44:31):
but they they asked me questions in the terms of
eleven hours. And what I saw for Rell about a
year ago, he was humming to me. When people meet me,
they hummed the songs he was humming, uh running, you know,
they hummed the songs. So it might start out as
a two hour session, but they want to know everything,
what was going on, what was you know, they want
(44:53):
to know what the world was like. Yeah, you know,
they want to know what it what it smelled like,
you know what it sounded like. So when I do sessions,
they're like eleven hours, not because we're playing. They just
want to you know, they you know what I'm saying
so funny. And then and then now I'm getting adopted now,
so if I work with an artist, you know, they said,
(45:14):
you know what, I'm gonna make you my uncle, you
know what I mean? You know, and they said anything
I can bring you, you know what I I mean? Could
you want some coffee? You know? And but they want
to know, which I think is really great, you know
what I mean that obviously they they respect you enough
to want to know what happened. I worked with llokoj
and uh and you know, he's great, big muscles and everything.
(45:36):
He did the introduction for us at the Kennedy Center
Honors and he said, gentle man, I had a post
all y'all stuff, mad about my bedroom. And I'm saying, wow,
you're talking about And then and then I said, listen,
I gotta take a picture because I need some street cred. Amazing.
Thank you for talking to me about music and about
your life, and thank you for making the world a
(45:59):
better place. Thank you man, and thank you for letting
me on your show. Already a pleasure, sir, Love you.
Thanks to Verdie and White for bringing us into his
inner Earthwin and Fire circle. You can hear all of
our favorite Earthwin and Fire songs on our playlist at
broken Record podcast dot com, and be sure to subscribe
to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken
(46:21):
Record Podcast, where you can find extended cuts of new
and old episodes. Also follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel,
Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from
Nick Chafee, and it's executive produced by me LaBelle We're
a production of Pushkin Industries and if you like Broken Record,
(46:43):
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast.
Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond Bass
Pushkin, Earthwin and Fire are the Black Beatles. Their influence
can't be overstated. You'd be hard pressed to find a
wedding or graduation party in the last fifty years where
their music didn't bring generations together to dance and sing
(00:37):
their hearts out. Do you remember love is changing? Earth
Winn and Fires music is intricate, combining melody with mysticism
and jazz to create some of the most instantly recognizable
(01:00):
and profound music of the seventies. Earthwin and Fire's groove
is emmets, and that's not an accident. Verice White you
start to Earthwin and Fire in nineteen sixty nine, spent
years as a jazz drummer around Chicago before becoming a
front man, and the group's rhythm section was held down
by his brothers, including Verdine White on bass. Earthwin and
(01:22):
Fire might have been Maurice's musical vision, but the band's
spirit always came from his younger brother Verdeen. His sheer
joy for music can't be contained on stage with the
sequined outfits and long pressed hair, Verdein dances with as
much dexterity as he plays bass. Ferdine has been leading
the group along with Philip Bailey since the nineties, when
(01:43):
Maurice stepped back from the band due to Parkinson's disease,
which he ultimately passed from. In twenty sixteen, Rick Rubin
connected with the Verdeen to talk about the early days
of Earthwin and Fire and about their producer Charles Stepney,
who Verdeine calls They're George Mark. Also, Rick reads to
Verdeine a poignant note from the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Flee about what makes Verdein's bass playing so special. This
(02:11):
is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm
justin Mitch Wind. Here's Rick Rubin and Verdine White. What's
happened in Good to see you? Good to see you too.
How are you? My friend? Very well? How are you?
I'm fantastic so good to see you. Yeah, I wanted
(02:31):
to I was just talking to Flee about that we
were going to be speaking. I want to read to
you what he says. He said Verdein was the guy
who who played massive pop hits where he rocked virtuoso
bass playing in the context of memorable grooves that doesn't
exist anymore, and how Earthwind and Fires music appealed more
(02:53):
than any other band of all time to all all ages,
all ethnicities. And when I was a kid in middle school,
this is Flee talking. The black kids like p Funk,
the white kids like Kiss and led Zeppelin. Everybody loved
earth Wind and Fire. Old, young, black, white, Mexican, Asian. Amazing,
And I think I've always strived for based on earth
(03:15):
Wind and Fire. Oh wow, and then beautiful it's heavy.
I love. I've known three for a long time, A
long long time, you know, yeah, yeah. How how much
do you guys practice historically? When we do it? We
do soundchecks every day. I never miss a soundcheck. When
we do big production rehearsals, it's big. It's a lot.
If rehearsals start at ten o'clock in the morning, I
(03:37):
am there at nine. If it starts at eleven, I'm
there at ten. If it starts at four o'clock in
the morning, I'm at three o'clock in the morning. I
still do the same things. Those same rituals don't have
never changed for me. Amazing. It brings up were there
any rituals that your band would do before you would
go on stage? Was there any any practices what we
(04:00):
still do. We call it the circle. We get into
the circle. You know, we throw everything out of the day.
You know, for us, it's the start of another day,
you know. You know how you meditate in the morning
and then you meditate in the evening, it's really at
the beginning of another day. So we throw everything out
(04:22):
and we tune in as to what we need to do.
And we have honorary members sometimes that have come to
our circle, you know. You know Russell Wilson, you know,
he was in our circle one evening. Dion World was
in our circle. And we invite people in sometimes to
the circle because it's a sacred circle, beautiful, and we say,
for that night, you are in the band, you are
part of the music tonight. And a lot of people
(04:42):
want to get into the circle because they want to
feel what we are feeling. And although we are in
all individuals, we all have different things, different lifestyles. When
we get into that circle, we get into that the
earth when the ebf or the fire vibration, you know,
which we tune back into. You know, my late brother Maurice,
we tune in all the work he did, all the
(05:04):
records we did. The late Charles stepped me, our arranger, producer,
you know, thing like that. So we tune right back
into earth wind and fire, all those qualities, you know,
as we talk about we buy into it. Have you
always been doing this forever? Wow? Since the seventies, forever beautiful.
We have programmed books of back in the day when
(05:25):
we were in the circle, our choreographers, when we had dancers,
the dancers were in the circle. We've always done that.
So when we go on stage, we are you know,
Umfordane White, we have Philip Bailey, we have Ralph Johnson.
You know, the three of us are the leaders now
you know what I mean, Philip and I. But we
get into the things that we created. Don't forget that
we created earthwin and fire. So we go right back
(05:46):
to that place, you know, that sacred space of that thing,
you know, beautiful beautiful. I'm so glad you do it.
It's it's just such a beautiful thing. So you really
unifies the players into being not themselves anymore, but into
this thing, this thing earth wind and Fire. Is that
would that be accurate? That's right of what that is
(06:06):
or what we created and what we stand for, what
our intentions have been. You know, because we've been around,
I mean, we've had a record out every generation, right,
you know, you know, right now we have this song.
I would make a train of a Christmas but we've
had records out. But now what happens with us? The
older people turned the younger people on to us, and
(06:27):
they go back and start listening, you know. And what
I find now that the other generations and other musicians
like Flee knows our work, but the younger musicians want
to know what it's like being us and how do
you get there? You know? Yes, And I think what's
going on with the younger people. I don't think they're concerned.
(06:47):
I think it used to be I want to be successful.
Now I think they want to be immortal and leave
a legacy. And they look at us as guys that
have done that, so they want to know how do
we get that? Because success comes and goes, you know,
depending on the culture, depending on what the wind, like
a tennis ball or golf ball. The cross winds could
throw you off, right, you know, but when you're when
(07:10):
you're when you turn out to be a legend or immortality,
it stays forever. And so so few of your contemporaries
have managed to keep going, Like who were the bands?
Who would you say were the competition in the early
days when in the early days there was people like
Ohio players right, war Man Rule, right, you know, groups
(07:35):
like that Commodore's right Linel on them, you know. And
I do see Lionel and I spect a line of
quite a lot. And so those who are contemporaries at
that time, and at that particular time, we were just
kind of starting out and we were growing up. But
the but Maurice, because he was older than us, ten
years older, he was more mature, so he knew kind
of like where we were headed, you know, where we
(07:56):
ended up being. He was already there. You know, he
was I think kind of when I look back at it,
he was kind of waiting for us to catch up. Wow,
and and and and Reese. Although he was you know,
he was a great leader. He was a tough leader.
He was really actually patient with us too, you know,
and a lot of the stuff that we would do
he'd laugh at because he said, Okay, when they get
past that, then we'll have a good talk, you know.
And Maurice didn't really write his book until he saw
(08:20):
us at the Hollywood Bowl. Maurice came out that brought
him out walked him out to the fans and people
gave him a standing ovation. That's when he decided to
write the book because he said he knew that it
was in good hands. And that was our first time
playing with an orchestra and you know, ninety pieces, and
when we played the Hollywoo Bowl last year was beautiful
Brooke Box Office Records again Thomas Wilkins. And then we
(08:43):
kind of got out of you know, we're sort of
more into the like, you know, the Earth Winning Fire
what it means, not into the successful part of it,
because we kind of did that, you know, because success
kind of dictates you or me. But our thing is
you and me, so that's where we are amazing. It's
one of the things. It's like if I listened to
any other and I'm not limiting Earth Wind and Fire
(09:06):
to funk, but let's talk about funk just because it's
such a it's one of the pillars of Earth Winning
Fire as funk. And if I look at the other
funk music that I've listened to, there's always almost always
a looseness about it that you guys never you guys
always had a precision beyond any other band, making any
(09:28):
music related, it always seemed much tighter, much more precise,
much more like fanatical in a way, like just like perfect.
It was always perfect absolutely with us. We were never
what you call a jam jam band, you know, don't
forget number Reese's background was, you know, jazz, you know
(09:49):
what I mean. We come out of Chicago, you know,
Chess Records, you know things Maurice did you know, But
there was a precision to the music, you know, with
the late child Stepney with the horns, which people like
Quincy respected, you know, because Quincy's work was very precise.
With Michael Jackson, you know what I mean. So you
know it was always precision everything. You know, everything's on
the dot as we are now, as we are now.
(10:09):
You know, if we're get a little loose, we talk
about it, you know, we say, listen, we gott to
tighten this up here, because you can get a little loose.
You know, you can get a little loose. You can
forget where those bars are, you know, you know, on
maybe on the fourth night, when you're a little tired,
you might forget, you know, done about you know, you
have to remind yourself to be just a little bit
more on the dot you know. Yeah, as it relates
to bass playing, from the time that a song would
(10:33):
come into existence, how would the bass evolve into what
we hear on the record version? Like how close would
it be from the first time you play it? Let's say,
tell me about the process of developing the bass. But
the process would because Maurice is a drummer, so I
would hear all the songs, and he'd played me a
lot of the tune, so our groove was pretty natural.
(10:55):
But I would always go back and we'd go back
and listen again before we record, and then he said,
what you want to do right here? What do you
want to do? And then I kind of learned in
a very unorthodox style from classical to you know, R
and B and might And the best teacher I ever
had was the late Louis Saddafield, who was a trumpbone
player in the Phoenix Horns, who went to college with Maurice,
(11:15):
and so I had a chance to kind of do both,
you know, look at the paper, throw the paper away,
and then create my own style. So a lot of
times I would just listen to see what I was
gonna do. Would it be a demo, would he be
a recorded demo. Sometimes it could be a demo. Sometimes
it could be when we were sitting in the room
and he would just start playing. Then I would just
start playing, and then while I'm playing, I would imagine,
(11:36):
you know, I'm gonna try this when I listened to
it back. So I would just spend time just listening.
And sometimes if Maurice was writing with somebody, I'd lay
on the couch and just listen while he was doing
and I said, wait till I get that, wait till
I get to my part. I knew what kind of
like what I was gonna do, you know, but I
had room to do it in, you know. And some
of the songwriters they said, I never intended the base
(11:56):
to sound like that, you know what I mean, because
they sort of had a preconceived idea of what basios
sound like. And I kind of broke a lot of rules.
You know. I was not your normal guy, you know,
you know, I wasn't. I wasn't the perfect guy for
a guy who was stuck in their ways. That's part
of why the band sounds so original. Love that's like
that's one of the keys. It's like they are several,
(12:18):
but that's certainly one of them absolutely, and you know,
and what's really interesting about it, Rick is that you know,
there's an Earthlin and Fire song being played somewhere in
the world every minute and fifteen seconds every day, every
hour of the day. Beautiful was the majority of the
basic tracks cut live as a band. Yeah, so everybody's
playing together about and people thought that, you know, we
(12:40):
were playing with a click track. Never did wow. Never. Wow.
It's amazing just because again because of the precision, they
almost sound inhuman, you know, like it's so perfect. It's
like it's just beyond perfect in how tight everything is
and the horns, you know, being that's another part of it,
is like the horns are so fast and tight and
(13:03):
it's unbelievable. It's just unbelievable to hear that kind of precision. Yeah, well,
you know, Maurice was a stickler for that. Maurice was like, uh,
you know, we think we worked hard, but nobody worked
as hard as Maurice. You know, he wrote it, he
produced it, he performed, and he was a hell of
a performer too, and a great drummer, which he does
in blot Up. The younger generation don't know how great
of a drummer he really was. He played on Rescue Me,
(13:27):
he played on Billy Stewart Summertime, This Maurice, you know,
and he played on those great records with Ramsey Lewis.
So he had she had. He had a very extensive background.
By the time he got to Earth and Fire, he
knew who he was. You know, this was he had
no doubt who he was as a person and as
an artist. This was not like something he was, you know,
trying to find his way. He knew exactly what he
wanted and he dragged me along with him. So I'm
(13:48):
happy for that. You know, no, absolutely beautiful and that
you had a beautiful life getting to play music. It's
like what better, what better contribution can you make then
making something that enlivens you and the people that get
to share it. And with my older brother Idol what
you know what I'm saying, You know what I mean?
Sometimes when I do interview, you know, people said, Jenner,
(14:10):
what would the older Verdeen tell the younger Verdeen? And always,
you know, you know how they do, you know, they
get those questions, you know what I mean. You know
it's not you know, it's not a sprint but a
journey kind of thing. You know, right, I said that
didn't apply to me because I was the younger guy,
was already doing what he was doing. You thought about
and being with Maurice, you know, it kind of broke
a lot of rules being a young person too. You know,
(14:31):
let me know that I could do it, and you know,
if you stay on it, this is what you're gonna do.
Hard being in a group with so many people. Yeah,
but you know, we got a lot of love of
respect for each other, you know, And don't forget now,
you know. You know Philip Ralph myself, you know, we
became adults together, so you know, that's a different point
of view. You know, what year to Philip join? Do
(14:52):
you remember, like seventy see from seventy one? Yeah, really
I didn't. I didn't realize that for almost fifty five years. Wow.
And what happened when the first Earth and the fire
broke up and on the Warner brothers, Philip used to
come and hang out and I I spent the afternoon
with them, you know, and we got along so well.
(15:12):
But I had saw him play in Denver with the band,
but he had moved to California and then he spent
the whole afternoon and it was just so great that
liked them so much, you know, And and I called
my mother, I said, so he even plays harmonica, you
know what I mean? And never saw anybody play harmonica, right,
And then when Reese was formulating and things like that,
that it was down to two other people, and Marie said,
(15:33):
who should we get? Said we should get Philip because
that's because he's a really good guy, you know what
I mean, the spirit of it, you know what I mean.
And it would only take a good person to go
to journey that we ended up going. You know. In
the last week, I had a conversation with two different artists,
one with Farrell and one with Q Tip, two great
artists referenced this week Earthwinn and Fire being the reason
(15:55):
they make music again again. It's just like it's it's
beautiful to see it from different people, different ages, in
different genres, how inspirational it was and continues to be.
It's just it's beautiful, beautiful to be part of something
so that has informed people's lives in such an important way. Yeah, yeah,
(16:16):
I think what's going on with this this uh, with
the quarantine that we all are in, and it's a
collective experience that we're all having. You know, as we know,
people are going back you know to really great works,
great books, they're going back to great movies, they're going
back to great records. And I think, of course our
work is part of what they want to go back to,
you know, and that and their ears are actually open
(16:38):
more now they're having the opportunity to listen better. You know,
we've had in the great society and the politics right
and things like that. We're headed for a great awakening.
I would call this next phase the great awakening for us.
We'll be back with Rick Rubin and Verding White after
the break. We're back with more from Verding White of Earth,
(17:00):
Winn and Fire. Tell me about Charles Stepney. What was
his involvement as producer? What did he do, because you know,
producers do differ things. Tell me about him and his
involvement in the process. Well, Charles, first of all, was
a great friend of Maurice's and they worked together at
Chess Records. And then Charles had done a lot of
(17:21):
arrangements for Ramsey Lewis with Maurice, and Charles was the
one that brought Many Riverton on the scene. You know,
The first album was called Come to My Garden, which
was a great, great, great great record, and they just
stayed in touch. And then Charles had done the Last
Days and Times record for us, the first record we
(17:41):
did for Clive Davis on Columbia Records. Charles did that.
Then Charles came back again and worked with us on
Open Our Eyes That's the Way of the World, the
breakthrough record for us and the Spirit Record, which he
passed away on the Spirit Record. And Charles was our
father figure, big brother. He was the one that Maurice
would listen to the most. Charles will said, we're gonna
(18:01):
do it like this, and Reese would do it. And
Charles was great for myself and Philip and all of us,
all of us together, and he was actually took our
George Martin, even though you guys are from Chicago, you
consider yourself a Chicago bandy. You can side yourself California band.
I say California now, you know, because I became an
adult here. You know. We came from Chicago, which brought
(18:22):
a certain sensibility, you know to it, you know, yeah,
and a good foundation, you know, because I came from
a good family background. My mom and dad. My dad
was a doctor, my mom was a school teacher, and
we had a lot of music around the house. So
that was good. That's what I brought to California. And
then when I got with Maurice, you know what I mean,
you know, working with him closely and living with him,
I had a chance to figure out where he was
(18:43):
coming from. And he would talk to me about music
a lot, you know, and so that so and then
we became Californians. He did too, you know what I mean,
because we got into yoga, we got into meditation, we
got into eating good, we got into you know, uh,
going to seminars at the booty Tree, you know, things
like that, you know what I mean. So we became
actually California, you know, the Californias started eating yogurt. So yeah,
(19:06):
how how important was the spiritual aspect in addition to
the music? Like what Riese was sort of always open,
you know what I mean. You know, he was always open,
you know, and it was always loose. It was never
like heavy. It was not like a dogma, you know
what I'm talking about. It was loose. We didn't get
in each other's way spiritually, things like that. It was
just a progression, you know what I mean. And then
(19:26):
you know, we adopted you know a lot of the
California stuff, which was actually kind of natural. Of course
we didn't do that. You couldn't do that in Chicago.
That would be too weird, lighting incense, you know it be.
And but it was we got into the California thing,
you know, which was wide open. I don't think we
ever would have made it as big had we not
come to California. It opened your mind to new things
(19:48):
being in California, you think, right, and new creativity because
don't forget now this is where everybody came you know,
this is where everybody's still. This is where eybody is
coming back to now, you know what I mean, because
of the just the openness of thought, of possibilities. You know,
there was You came from a musical household. Tell me
about the actual music that would be playing in the house.
What do you remember, first member as a kid, what
(20:10):
might be playing in the house. Anything. It was nine
of us, so it was noisy. So you get it.
You get in where you fit in. And so in
one room, my sister would be listening to the radio
station w v O M of Chicago, she used to
listen to Pervous band The Blues Man. My dad would
be listening to Maheley Jackson because he loved Mahley Jackson,
(20:31):
you know, things like that. My mom loved Little Roles,
uh live at the Copa, you know. And then and
then me and my brother Monte and my brother Freddie.
You know, we thought we were cool. So we we
would be listening to you know, you know, Miles Davis
four and More and uh and Miles in the Sky.
We love that record. You know, we were teenagers. So
(20:53):
if you if you didn't, if you told people you
listened to Miles Davis, you were cool even if you
didn't listen to it. The fact that you're doing so.
We so we were. We were the hip guys. We
wanted to be. We were cool lighting incense in our bedroom.
So that's kind of like what was going on. And uh,
my baby sisters were just babies at the time. But
but it was it was a lot of hot, very
(21:14):
free farm household, very free form. Was never uh it
was not that strict. It was actually for that era,
it was quite loose, you know what I mean. You know,
you know, it wasn't like spankings I'm gonna get you
when I'm spankings, you know, things like that. You know.
Also interesting for the how eclectic the band was. To
grow up in an eclectic household makes sense. It's like,
(21:35):
it makes sense because it was never Earthwind and Fire
was never one thing. You know, it always felt bigger
than one thing. We may talk about funk being a backbone,
but it was not just that at all. Were so
many funk bands were just that. I would have to
say a lot of those funk bands, A lot of
those guys grew up together, you know, probably buddies in
(21:55):
schools and things like that. But in our in our world,
you know, Maurice was the leader, so he had traveled
around the hole. We hadn't been anywhere. So a lot
of the things that he knew he turned us on
to him. You mean, so he turned us on a
lot of different philosophy that he was into and things
like that. We went to Egypt, you know what I mean,
And recent I went to Egypt and Israel and things
like that. So you know, he was a world guy.
(22:17):
You know, he was a very different type of person,
you know. And and then don't forget now, you know,
Fire was formulated. He formulated it in the in the sixties,
which was at the first wave of cosmic consciousness. Obviously,
you know things like that. It was like the precursor
to what everybody now has a yoga bat now, And
now everybody has a yoga bat. They didn't used to.
(22:38):
They didn't they didn't you know, they didn't even know
what it was. Now everybody has what you know, I
was going to ask about you talking about Miles Davis,
So I's going to ask you about the influence of
jazz in the band, right, How did jazz work itself
into or the fact that that you guys listened to
jazz growing up, did that influence Earth Winning Fire? Well,
(23:00):
you know, Maurice was the ultimate jazzer of the band,
you know, and uh and Charles Stepney played jazz too,
great jazz, So it was really good for us to
kind of turn us on and Philip and myself and
Ralph and and uh, we rouse a really big jazz
are really excellent, you know about the history of jazz. Really,
(23:21):
he's really the expert in the band of jazz. And
Philip is too, and uh and what was great about
it for me being around Maurice but then I had
a chance to hang out with a Philip a lot.
He would play me music and us being the same age,
you know, he could maybe explain it to me what
was going on, which Maurice just threw us in there.
You gotta jump in and fit in, you know, okay
because the music is taken off, and so I could say, hey, man,
(23:43):
so what did he just say? You know? So it
was it was good that I had a chance to
you know, grow in this band listening to jazz, you know,
because I sort of kind of caught the tip end
of jazz playing upright to bass guitar. So when you
were playing upright, did you learn playing jazz and classical? Yeah?
And it was good for technique. But then right right
(24:03):
at the doorstep was bass guitar, Fender bass that you
know that you guys like myself, and then Stanley Clark
and Marcus Miller, Nathan Eaves, uh, Michael Henderson. You know
that that wave started. So so that's when I kind
of like started when it kind of was like jazz
funk jazz pop influence. You know, did you ever have
(24:26):
an opportunity to play upright bass on any earth Wind
and Fire records. Only one. It was only one and
that and I did it on a on one of
our shows. I write a song when I did it
on that section. But I actually sounded better on bass
guitar really actually, you know what I mean. You know
it's I'm glad I played it because it was good
for technique. It fights back when I practice. Uh, the
(24:47):
practice is on upright, are horrible. The ones on bass
guitar fun. I took a lesson from Ron Carter and
Uh at his house and the and it was a
horrible lesson. He said, man, this this was not good.
And this is not good, just not good. I said, Serranti,
I said, I'm practicing. I said, but tonight you'll see
what I really do. You're done about it. So he
came to Matt at the Swift Garden and he thought
(25:08):
he was in the wrong. He thought of a basketball game.
There were so many people you're talking about, you know
what I mean? So I said, I said, Ronnie, this
is what I this is what I really do. You've
done about you know, But I said, I love to
practice anyway, and I wanted to have the opportunity of
hanging out with Ron Card and taking a lesson even
if it was horrible. So cool, so cool. So you've
you've gotten to make albums consistently since I guess first
(25:29):
album in nineteen seventy seventy one, is that about, right? Yes?
Seventy right those yea seventy seventy one right right, it's
like fifty years unbelievable. And the technology keeps changing, right,
popular music keeps changing. Tell me about your experience in
watching the changes and and reacting to the changes, either
(25:53):
by swinging with what's going on or by not, you know,
like just choosing, well, we're not this is what they're
doing now, we're just gonna do this instead. Talk to
me about just what you saw the changes in the
way music has been recorded. Let's say where we've watched
the changes you know, from four track, the eight track, right,
(26:14):
twenty four track, right, we went through that phase, right,
which we watched and we were part of that. Of
then we watched of course you know, CDs right, DVDs,
all of those things pro tools, you know what I mean.
So it's just part of just the evolution. And I
think that if you have a pretty much of a foundation,
(26:35):
you can swing with it, you know. I think if
you don't have a foundation, You run to the technology
without and forget the music. Yeah, you know we had
we had a strong musical background, so we could say, well,
how did this fit into our music? Beautiful? Let's talk
about James Brown for a minute. What was James Brown
an important figure musically? First? When the fire? Would you say?
(26:59):
Sort of like he wasn't like first as funky as
he was. And I know I'm going to get some pushback.
No, no no, no, it's fine. It's interesting. I really wanted
to understand the inspiration is a big part of how
we get where we're going. We still bring ourselves to it,
but it's interesting, like what's coming through that gets us
where we're going. What I loved about him was his
(27:19):
live performances. That's what I loved. That's the one, you know,
the one. If you wanted to see some James Brown stuff,
watch the Tammy Show. Yeah you know what I'm saying.
And somebody told me it took ninety minutes for those
girls to stop screaming after you guy, after he did
what he did, you know, you know what I mean.
And he was just one of them, you know, it
(27:40):
was James Brown, it was Miles babys. It was John
Coltrane for us, you know what I mean, and things
like that, you know, but also the Beatles and the
Beatles that those guys, I think what they did they
were sort of like I think they were the ones
that that busted the door wide open if you go
back and listen to like when they would mop tops
(28:01):
and I want to hold your hand and all the
way down the Abbey Road. The work they did was
really incredible and what they did was really good. What
the record that showed how hip there was was Rubber Soul.
That was the one. Rubber Soul was the record. And
it was almost like the joke was on us because
they knew so much about what they were doing, and
(28:21):
it just kept I mean different, different, different, and you
could and you could really think that Sergeant Prepper really
actually was the record of samples really when you really
look back at it, with the machine going backwards and
things like that. And then they had somebody like George
Martin to make musical sense of what was in their
ears but they were listening to. They did something in
one group that everybody has bitten off of, you know.
(28:43):
The first of all a group that got massively big
which everybody dreams about. Right, hit records, right, important records, right,
cultural icons forever right, spirituality with transldental meditation of mahaichi
ya yogi. Right. So they're like sort of like more
of a than a group, that's sort of like an entity.
That's how they look at their work. I think, I
think of the Beatles is proof of God. It's like that.
(29:06):
It's do you know, it's like it's too much, it's
too much. This is not this is not the work
of for boys from a little country town you know
in the north of England's right, it's much bigger than that.
It's much, it's much bigger. It really it changed the
world that everybody has bitten off of in one way
(29:26):
or another. You know, when I talk about Miles in
the Sky, that's when Miles started going towards the rock thing,
you know what I mean. That's when Miles got hit,
you know, in the sixties, you know, things like that,
and that's when a lot of music changed, you know,
because of the chord changes and the songwriting. You know,
that was the first time artists wrote their own songs
in a band. So great work by them, really great work.
(29:48):
They were the first ones that you know, did movies,
you know. Yeah. So Actually another piece that makes sense
is if I think of if I compare Earthwind and
Fire to other funk bands, earth Wind and Fire always
had songs, where funk bands often had great grooves that
weren't necessarily songs. Right so, and same whole truth if
(30:10):
we look at James Brown versus the Beatles. James Brown
always had the groove, but it wasn't always about the song.
It might just be about the pocket. But the Beatles
had the songs. And don't forget number Race was a
song person before he got to Ramsey. He was a
session drummer, so he did commercials, so he did understand
probably the intro, the chorus, diverse, the hook, what is
(30:32):
it saying? You know? Actually we did the cover the
Beatles Got to Get You My Life in the Sargent
Pepper movie. And what happened was that George Martin had
had unch Maurice and myself about the movie, but he
didn't have time to work with us because he was
working with Aerosmith and the BGS and Billy Preston, you know,
and he said, why don't you guys just do your
(30:53):
own thing and that's what we did, and it was
the number. It was the biggest song on that movie,
Beautiful because the movie was it was a huge flock.
I mean, you know when you go back, people don't
know that now, but it was not as big as
they thought it was going to be. But we had
the record and we still play the song today. I
remember going to see in the theater as a kid.
I've may have been one of a few people in
that theater, but I was in the theater watching that. Yeah.
(31:15):
And we shot in Cobra City and we were in
the middle of we had just got back, had a
day off from one of our tours, and we had
to shoot everything, like, you know, in one day. You know,
that's how fast it was going. You know, Robert Stigwood,
you know, back back then, you know, more and more
and more, let's go, let's go, let's go. You know. Yeah.
Did you meet Stigwood? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting character.
(31:37):
I've only heard about him. I've never met him. Yeah,
he was. He's very nice to us. You know, we
were kids at the time, so everybody was nice, you know.
And but what one of the significant thing is it
was Michael Schultz of the African American director. He was
one of the first to do a big budget movie.
That was a big budget movie, you know, but it
was a great time to be part of a movie
and and things like that. You know, we'll be back
(31:59):
with Rick Rubin and Verdine White after the break. We're
back with more from vert in White of Earth When
in Fire, just picturing the world that you were in then,
you know, right, did it feel different than the other
things that were going on? Could you tell that your
band was different? Well, when we definitely were in the
(32:22):
Earth when and Fire bubble, you know what I mean,
because don't forget now, we were doing something that had
never ever been done before, you know, you know, no
group had ever tried the things you know that we tried,
you know. And and at that time, you know, we
were getting ready to go to Columbia Records when Clive
was president of Columbia Records, and Clive gave was everything
we needed to do it, you know what I mean.
(32:42):
So we felt really secure, you know, and we knew
we could do it. We knew we were gonna do
really good if we just keep at it. We didn't
really know what was going on with everybody else actually
we knew, but we didn't, you know, we weren't part
of it, you know. And in today's world, if an
artist doesn't break really on their first project, they tend
to go away, and you guys got to really build
(33:04):
over a period of time. It was really was it
like the fourth or fifth album that really broke through.
It was the That's the Way the World record with
Shining Star on it, and that about about fifth would
you say that about fifth? Way we had last certain
times right head to the sky, open our eyes right then,
that's the way to what that was? What four right for?
(33:26):
So for those first three albums, you guys already had
been touring playing like clubs. We were playing not clubs
a lot, but stillent unions, you know, gymnasiums and and
on with like I said, groups like Ohio Players and Mandrel,
you know, those kind of things. And then the show
that broke us big was a show called Soul in
(33:48):
nineteen seventy one seventy two out of New York City,
and they played the show about nineteen times. It was
a TV show, a television show called Soul. Wow, I'd
never heard of it, Yeah, right, it's an obscure show now,
but back it was a very important show. It was
before shoul trained. Not a lot of dancing, but it
was a show that had a lot of artists on it,
and it was show had politicians on it like Jesse
(34:10):
Jackson and the Last Poets right at that time, you know.
So we were kind of in that thing at that time.
That sounds great. I want to I'm gonna try to
find old episodes. I've never I've never even heard of
it before that time. Yeah. Man. Then and the show
opens up with Maurice playing Colombo. Wow, yeah, so cool.
You know. It was it was like, you know, an intro.
It was like brothers and sisters, you know what, we're here,
(34:31):
Earth and Fire and I the blah blah blah blah blah, right,
you know, and uh, and it was. It was eclectic show,
but it was very powerful show. And we fit right
in at that particular time, I understood. And that's really
what broke things open, you think. Yeah, you know. And
then we were playing a lot of colleges. We want
to road a lot. So those records were selling like,
you know, two to three hundred thousand and half a million,
(34:52):
so we were on our way that that's the way
of the world. It just didn't. It just wasn't a unicorn.
It came out of nowhere. It was a build up
to that. Did it feel like you were it was
a constant build or was it kind of a plateau
at a good level until it exploded? Now it was
a constant build. It just kept going, and we kept
healing it out and feeling it and it kept getting better.
(35:14):
But it wasn't like a thing like you oh man,
we got a big hit record. We just kept going,
you know. It was like we just kept growing, kept
you know, kept going. You know, so then when things
did explode, it seems like you'd be able to handle
it better based on doing all the work leading up
to it. You know, some artists, when good things happened
really fast, they kind of flame out. Right. It was
(35:36):
a little overwhelming, you know, because it was big. You know,
when it gets big, it kind of bounces back off
of you, you know. But we were I think the
fact that we had done records before, you know, we
had enough. We had enough with ourselves not to like
go crazy crazy cool. Do you remember the first experience
of thinking, Wow, this is really getting big. Yeah, I mean,
for me. It was like when I heard That's the
(35:58):
way of the World. You know, we recorded it Cariboo
Ranch back and then remember Cariboo you know Jim Vercio's
plays right and uh. And after Maurice mixed the record
and edited and everything, he let me hear the record.
I said, man, goose pimples. It was like, I mean,
is that us right? You know? Is that us? Is it? Like?
Is it that? Is it that good? And and actually
(36:18):
it was great for Maurice because after step had passed,
Maurice had to take over, you know, as a producer,
so you know, so he had to you know, he
had to wear like three or four hats, you know
what I'm done about. And one of the things that
I'd have to say, nobody who ever played drums came
off the drums and ever did what Maurice end up
doing and and became an icon and became a you know,
musical leader and things like that, and helped the industry too.
(36:40):
If it hadn't been from Maurice, that would never would
have been African Americans doing concerts. And and we actually
had to keep up with him, you know, you know,
he was just one of those rare people that really
kind of knew exactly what he wanted. Even in the
beginning of those records that we did, they were not hits.
The genesis of the sound was there, you know, you
could still you can still hear it. You know it
was there, you know, the foundation of the sound. You know,
(37:03):
the transition from playing in gymnasiums to what was the
next step after gymnasium as things got bigger, theaters than arenas,
than stadiums, and so when we play theaters and arenas
and stadiums now there for different reasons, Like we did
(37:24):
the Classics with the Eagles and everybody a couple of
years ago, so that was great, a lot of fun.
A lot of that audience probably had never seen us before,
you know, on the stage with the Eagles. The arenas
are are good because they put our big production in there,
you know, so a lot of the people can see
us on the big screens. Theaters are great because we
get a chance to play longer, and we can play
(37:47):
songs from some of the jazzy things in the theater
because it fits the environment. You know. It's like if
you're gonna watch, you know, a great movie, it's better
in the theater. Absolutely. I call it like in the theater,
it's great. A lot of ghosts in those theaters, you know. Yeah,
I think I think you can hear the music better
in the theater than in arena as well. It's just
like it's a more musical experience. Yeah. Well, that arena
(38:07):
stuff is all show business. Yeah, you know, it's some
show business. You know. It's big. That means you're big,
and that means the box office is great. That means
you're successful, and it means you're hot. You know, that's
what you know. You know, that means you're happening. Yeah,
as much fun playing big show, small show, just playing
And do you know it when you're in it? Or
does the music kind of take over in a way
(38:29):
where once the show starts you could be anywhere? Yeah?
Well I think for us now, we all know each
other so well, we kind of know what that thing is,
you know. We know, Okay, it's an arena, so we
got to strap in and find out where the space
is so to feel good. It's like greatest hits. It's
greatest hits, yeah yeah, and it's it's star time. Yeah, yeah,
(38:51):
you know what I mean. And when you do a stadium,
it's like you're on the moon. They can't catch you. You
You know how people say, so what you guys play
that tonight Dodger Stadium and people don't say anything to
you because it's bigger than them, you know. Yeah, And
in place like Dodger Stadium, it's more like it's the event.
You get to say you were there, but it's rarely
about like the intricacies of the performance because you're too
(39:14):
far away and the sound just dissipates. But if you
find a space, you can really nail them, like you know,
we found at Arena space. And then when Philip at
the end told audience, wave your hands in the air,
we had sixty thousand people waving their hands in the air.
And because what's great about social media and things like that,
they get a chance to tell their friend what they
just saw. Whereas before in the seventies, if you did it,
(39:35):
nobody knew except the people that came. Yeah, so now
word spreads. And when you talk about playing, like doing
shows with bands like the Eagles, in this recent round,
that probably was more like in the very early days,
you probably got to play with bands much more, a
much more eclectic group of bands like I think, didn't
(39:57):
you guys played with like The Loving Spoonful and right
we opened up for John Sebastian. Remember John was in
The Loving Spoonful. Yes, and John let us do a
tour with him, credible and we played Lincoln Center with him,
and Clive Davis came to see John. Yeah, but he
came to see He saw us and said, listen, I
like those guys. I want to get together with those guys.
(40:18):
That's how that happened. And to this day John and
I are great friends. Just wonderful person, just really great,
just really good. Always sweetheart, always sweetheart, you know beautiful.
Tell me about signing with Clive and he said that
he gave you what you needed to do, you needed
to do, right. It just sounds like it really worked out.
Your experience with Warner Brothers before that wasn't it didn't
(40:39):
work as well. But how was the relationship with the people, Well,
what warners At the time, Joe Smith was at the
running the label. Joe was you know, Moe was there,
but Mo was actually doing reprise, you know, you know,
Frank Sinatra's label, and that's when Moe came later, you know,
but we only did two records for Joe. And then
(41:01):
Clive had heard about us. But Warners they weren't really ready.
They weren't really ready for a group of color, you
know what I mean. And Joe was cool. We got
out of there, you know what I mean. And then
Clive saw us, you know, Clive bought the contract from Warners.
But Clive, you know, he was you know, running CBS records,
and CBS Records was on fire, you know what I mean,
you sliding the family stone. You had all those great groups,
(41:22):
you know what I mean that that Clive had, you
know what I mean. And and he was the one
that opened up that door for us, brought us to
the groves in the house, you know, in London, so
everybody could take a look at us. And it was expensive,
so really earthly. The fire was like the great American
experiment that worked because it hadn't happened. Don't forget now,
the only game in town was Motown right when you
look at it, you know, for where the African Americans
(41:42):
could go to be successful at that nature, to be
that big hadn't happened yet. It hadn't happened yet. What
we did hadn't happened. You know. So after we happened,
then that's when you saw Funkadelas. That's when you saw
Bootsy Collins, That's when you saw probably James Brown was
the only one in the sixties that got big. But
he was by himself though he was the only game
in town. And as we said, it wasn't it wasn't
(42:03):
based on in my opinion, it wasn't based on the songs.
It was just based on he had the sound nobody
had at that time, that's right. And then he was
so great live that when they put him on a
Tammy show and Ed Sullivan lights out. So after you
know that, when we came along, it was a whole
different generation of artists. And then don't forget now, African
American radio had gotten big, you know what I mean,
(42:26):
went from AM to FM stereo. So ye had great
disc jockey's planned records, like you know the late Frankie
Crocker that was breaking all those great records. But in
different genres though, absolutely, But you guys played. You guys
played on all radio. Wasn't just urban radio. You guys
played on everything. I mean, right, I heard you on
every station. But Clive was always great and even to
(42:46):
this day, we always get a big hug from Clive.
We've done this his you know, the Clide Party all
a lot, and we've done his documentaries and things like that,
but always always would be for Evan debt it because
he gave us the big break that opened the door
for us that stayed open. He's historically known for having
a lot to say about songs. Would he get involved
(43:08):
in that way or would he just be supportive at
that time? Of supportive, I think when he went to Rasta,
that's when he got into it, you know, because Clumbia
was Clumbie was. It was so big, you know, it
was so monolithic, you know, big, big, big corporation. But
he was there for us anyway, you know what I mean,
whatever we want to do, we could do it. And
Claude love Maurice, so you know it was it was
(43:29):
he always trusted Reese, beautiful. Tell me a little bit
about your music listening habits now. I listened to everything.
Sometimes I go back to the past to see if
I still liked it when I liked it before, to
see if my years on one point I'm having a
chance to like really do some nice work. You know.
Of course, we will do an Earth on the Fire
album at some point. But recently I've had a chance
(43:50):
to work with my drummer, John Paris from the band
and Neil Pole. Great engineer, great producer, great writer. He
just got nominated for two Grammys. So we get a
chance to talk about music, chop it up, work on tracks.
You know, it keeps me active and things like that,
and I still practice. I still you know what I
like about the quarantine Actually, it's really you know, it's
(44:10):
been kind of cool because I've had a chance to
really be creative, you know, absolutely, you know, with no
judgment on it, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Have
you ever played on anyone else's records? Oh yeah, I
did a flow rider DJ Cassidy, a lot of yeah, man,
a lot of stuff. And then what happens is when
I work with other people, the session is like three hours,
(44:31):
but they they asked me questions in the terms of
eleven hours. And what I saw for Rell about a
year ago, he was humming to me. When people meet me,
they hummed the songs he was humming, uh running, you know,
they hummed the songs. So it might start out as
a two hour session, but they want to know everything,
what was going on, what was you know, they want
(44:53):
to know what the world was like. Yeah, you know,
they want to know what it what it smelled like,
you know what it sounded like. So when I do sessions,
they're like eleven hours, not because we're playing. They just
want to you know, they you know what I'm saying
so funny. And then and then now I'm getting adopted now,
so if I work with an artist, you know, they said,
(45:14):
you know what, I'm gonna make you my uncle, you
know what I mean? You know, and they said anything
I can bring you, you know what I I mean? Could
you want some coffee? You know? And but they want
to know, which I think is really great, you know
what I mean that obviously they they respect you enough
to want to know what happened. I worked with llokoj
and uh and you know, he's great, big muscles and everything.
(45:36):
He did the introduction for us at the Kennedy Center
Honors and he said, gentle man, I had a post
all y'all stuff, mad about my bedroom. And I'm saying, wow,
you're talking about And then and then I said, listen,
I gotta take a picture because I need some street cred. Amazing.
Thank you for talking to me about music and about
your life, and thank you for making the world a
(45:59):
better place. Thank you man, and thank you for letting
me on your show. Already a pleasure, sir, Love you.
Thanks to Verdie and White for bringing us into his
inner Earthwin and Fire circle. You can hear all of
our favorite Earthwin and Fire songs on our playlist at
broken Record podcast dot com, and be sure to subscribe
to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken
(46:21):
Record Podcast, where you can find extended cuts of new
and old episodes. Also follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel,
Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from
Nick Chafee, and it's executive produced by me LaBelle We're
a production of Pushkin Industries and if you like Broken Record,
(46:43):
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast.
Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond Bass
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