Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Earth, Wind & Fire's Verdine White with Rick Rubin

Transcript

Earth, Wind & Fire's Verdine White with Rick Rubin · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin, Earthwin and Fire are the Black Beatles. Their influence
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: can't be overstated. You'd be hard pressed to find a
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: wedding or graduation party in the last fifty years where
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: their music didn't bring generations together to dance and sing
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: their hearts out. Do you remember love is changing? Earth
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Winn and Fires music is intricate, combining melody with mysticism
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: and jazz to create some of the most instantly recognizable
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and profound music of the seventies. Earthwin and Fire's groove
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: is emmets, and that's not an accident. Verice White you
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: start to Earthwin and Fire in nineteen sixty nine, spent
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: years as a jazz drummer around Chicago before becoming a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: front man, and the group's rhythm section was held down
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: by his brothers, including Verdine White on bass. Earthwin and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Fire might have been Maurice's musical vision, but the band's
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: spirit always came from his younger brother Verdeen. His sheer
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: joy for music can't be contained on stage with the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: sequined outfits and long pressed hair, Verdein dances with as
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: much dexterity as he plays bass. Ferdine has been leading
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the group along with Philip Bailey since the nineties, when
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Maurice stepped back from the band due to Parkinson's disease,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: which he ultimately passed from. In twenty sixteen, Rick Rubin
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: connected with the Verdeen to talk about the early days
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of Earthwin and Fire and about their producer Charles Stepney,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: who Verdeine calls They're George Mark. Also, Rick reads to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Verdeine a poignant note from the Red Hot Chili Peppers
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Flee about what makes Verdein's bass playing so special. This
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: justin Mitch Wind. Here's Rick Rubin and Verdine White. What's
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: happened in Good to see you? Good to see you too.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: How are you? My friend? Very well? How are you?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I'm fantastic so good to see you. Yeah, I wanted
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to I was just talking to Flee about that we
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: were going to be speaking. I want to read to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: you what he says. He said Verdein was the guy
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: who who played massive pop hits where he rocked virtuoso
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: bass playing in the context of memorable grooves that doesn't
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: exist anymore, and how Earthwind and Fires music appealed more
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: than any other band of all time to all all ages,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: all ethnicities. And when I was a kid in middle school,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: this is Flee talking. The black kids like p Funk,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the white kids like Kiss and led Zeppelin. Everybody loved
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: earth Wind and Fire. Old, young, black, white, Mexican, Asian. Amazing,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: And I think I've always strived for based on earth
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Wind and Fire. Oh wow, and then beautiful it's heavy.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I love. I've known three for a long time, A
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: long long time, you know, yeah, yeah. How how much
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: do you guys practice historically? When we do it? We
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: do soundchecks every day. I never miss a soundcheck. When
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: we do big production rehearsals, it's big. It's a lot.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: If rehearsals start at ten o'clock in the morning, I
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: am there at nine. If it starts at eleven, I'm
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: there at ten. If it starts at four o'clock in
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the morning, I'm at three o'clock in the morning. I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: still do the same things. Those same rituals don't have
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: never changed for me. Amazing. It brings up were there
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: any rituals that your band would do before you would
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: go on stage? Was there any any practices what we
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: still do. We call it the circle. We get into
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: the circle. You know, we throw everything out of the day.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: You know, for us, it's the start of another day,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: you know. You know how you meditate in the morning
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and then you meditate in the evening, it's really at
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the beginning of another day. So we throw everything out
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and we tune in as to what we need to do.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: And we have honorary members sometimes that have come to
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: our circle, you know. You know Russell Wilson, you know,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: he was in our circle one evening. Dion World was
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: in our circle. And we invite people in sometimes to
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the circle because it's a sacred circle, beautiful, and we say,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: for that night, you are in the band, you are
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: part of the music tonight. And a lot of people
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: want to get into the circle because they want to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: feel what we are feeling. And although we are in
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: all individuals, we all have different things, different lifestyles. When
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: we get into that circle, we get into that the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: earth when the ebf or the fire vibration, you know,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: which we tune back into. You know, my late brother Maurice,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: we tune in all the work he did, all the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: records we did. The late Charles stepped me, our arranger, producer,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: you know, thing like that. So we tune right back
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: into earth wind and fire, all those qualities, you know,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: as we talk about we buy into it. Have you
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: always been doing this forever? Wow? Since the seventies, forever beautiful.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: We have programmed books of back in the day when
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: we were in the circle, our choreographers, when we had dancers,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the dancers were in the circle. We've always done that.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So when we go on stage, we are you know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Umfordane White, we have Philip Bailey, we have Ralph Johnson.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: You know, the three of us are the leaders now
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Philip and I. But we
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: get into the things that we created. Don't forget that
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: we created earthwin and fire. So we go right back
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to that place, you know, that sacred space of that thing,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: you know, beautiful beautiful. I'm so glad you do it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: It's it's just such a beautiful thing. So you really
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: unifies the players into being not themselves anymore, but into
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: this thing, this thing earth wind and Fire. Is that
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: would that be accurate? That's right of what that is
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: or what we created and what we stand for, what
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: our intentions have been. You know, because we've been around,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've had a record out every generation, right,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, right now we have this song.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I would make a train of a Christmas but we've
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: had records out. But now what happens with us? The
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: older people turned the younger people on to us, and
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: they go back and start listening, you know. And what
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I find now that the other generations and other musicians
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: like Flee knows our work, but the younger musicians want
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to know what it's like being us and how do
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: you get there? You know? Yes, And I think what's
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: going on with the younger people. I don't think they're concerned.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I think it used to be I want to be successful.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Now I think they want to be immortal and leave
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: a legacy. And they look at us as guys that
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: have done that, so they want to know how do
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: we get that? Because success comes and goes, you know,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: depending on the culture, depending on what the wind, like
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: a tennis ball or golf ball. The cross winds could
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: throw you off, right, you know, but when you're when
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: you're when you turn out to be a legend or immortality,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: it stays forever. And so so few of your contemporaries
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: have managed to keep going, Like who were the bands?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Who would you say were the competition in the early
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: days when in the early days there was people like
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Ohio players right, war Man Rule, right, you know, groups
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: like that Commodore's right Linel on them, you know. And
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I do see Lionel and I spect a line of
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: quite a lot. And so those who are contemporaries at
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: that time, and at that particular time, we were just
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: kind of starting out and we were growing up. But
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the but Maurice, because he was older than us, ten
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: years older, he was more mature, so he knew kind
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: of like where we were headed, you know, where we
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: ended up being. He was already there. You know, he
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was I think kind of when I look back at it,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: he was kind of waiting for us to catch up. Wow,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: and and and and Reese. Although he was you know,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: he was a great leader. He was a tough leader.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: He was really actually patient with us too, you know,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: and a lot of the stuff that we would do
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: he'd laugh at because he said, Okay, when they get
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: past that, then we'll have a good talk, you know.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: And Maurice didn't really write his book until he saw
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: us at the Hollywood Bowl. Maurice came out that brought
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: him out walked him out to the fans and people
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: gave him a standing ovation. That's when he decided to
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: write the book because he said he knew that it
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: was in good hands. And that was our first time
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: playing with an orchestra and you know, ninety pieces, and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: when we played the Hollywoo Bowl last year was beautiful
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Brooke Box Office Records again Thomas Wilkins. And then we
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: kind of got out of you know, we're sort of
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: more into the like, you know, the Earth Winning Fire
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: what it means, not into the successful part of it,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: because we kind of did that, you know, because success
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: kind of dictates you or me. But our thing is
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: you and me, so that's where we are amazing. It's
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: one of the things. It's like if I listened to
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: any other and I'm not limiting Earth Wind and Fire
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to funk, but let's talk about funk just because it's
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: such a it's one of the pillars of Earth Winning
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Fire as funk. And if I look at the other
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: funk music that I've listened to, there's always almost always
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: a looseness about it that you guys never you guys
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: always had a precision beyond any other band, making any
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: music related, it always seemed much tighter, much more precise,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: much more like fanatical in a way, like just like perfect.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: It was always perfect absolutely with us. We were never
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: what you call a jam jam band, you know, don't
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: forget number Reese's background was, you know, jazz, you know
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: what I mean. We come out of Chicago, you know,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Chess Records, you know things Maurice did you know, But
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: there was a precision to the music, you know, with
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the late child Stepney with the horns, which people like
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Quincy respected, you know, because Quincy's work was very precise.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: With Michael Jackson, you know what I mean. So you
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: know it was always precision everything. You know, everything's on
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the dot as we are now, as we are now.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: You know, if we're get a little loose, we talk
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: about it, you know, we say, listen, we gott to
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: tighten this up here, because you can get a little loose.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: You know, you can get a little loose. You can
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: forget where those bars are, you know, you know, on
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: maybe on the fourth night, when you're a little tired,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you might forget, you know, done about you know, you
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: have to remind yourself to be just a little bit
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: more on the dot you know. Yeah, as it relates
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: to bass playing, from the time that a song would
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: come into existence, how would the bass evolve into what
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: we hear on the record version? Like how close would
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: it be from the first time you play it? Let's say,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: tell me about the process of developing the bass. But
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the process would because Maurice is a drummer, so I
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: would hear all the songs, and he'd played me a
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: lot of the tune, so our groove was pretty natural.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: But I would always go back and we'd go back
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and listen again before we record, and then he said,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: what you want to do right here? What do you
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: want to do? And then I kind of learned in
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a very unorthodox style from classical to you know, R
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and B and might And the best teacher I ever
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: had was the late Louis Saddafield, who was a trumpbone
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: player in the Phoenix Horns, who went to college with Maurice,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: and so I had a chance to kind of do both,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: you know, look at the paper, throw the paper away,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and then create my own style. So a lot of
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: times I would just listen to see what I was
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: gonna do. Would it be a demo, would he be
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: a recorded demo. Sometimes it could be a demo. Sometimes
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: it could be when we were sitting in the room
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and he would just start playing. Then I would just
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: start playing, and then while I'm playing, I would imagine,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna try this when I listened to
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it back. So I would just spend time just listening.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And sometimes if Maurice was writing with somebody, I'd lay
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: on the couch and just listen while he was doing
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: and I said, wait till I get that, wait till
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I get to my part. I knew what kind of
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: like what I was gonna do, you know, but I
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: had room to do it in, you know. And some
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: of the songwriters they said, I never intended the base
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: to sound like that, you know what I mean, because
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: they sort of had a preconceived idea of what basios
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: sound like. And I kind of broke a lot of rules.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: You know. I was not your normal guy, you know,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't. I wasn't the perfect guy for
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a guy who was stuck in their ways. That's part
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: of why the band sounds so original. Love that's like
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: that's one of the keys. It's like they are several,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: but that's certainly one of them absolutely, and you know,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and what's really interesting about it, Rick is that you know,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: there's an Earthlin and Fire song being played somewhere in
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the world every minute and fifteen seconds every day, every
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: hour of the day. Beautiful was the majority of the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: basic tracks cut live as a band. Yeah, so everybody's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: playing together about and people thought that, you know, we
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: were playing with a click track. Never did wow. Never. Wow.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: It's amazing just because again because of the precision, they
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: almost sound inhuman, you know, like it's so perfect. It's
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: like it's just beyond perfect in how tight everything is
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and the horns, you know, being that's another part of it,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: is like the horns are so fast and tight and
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. It's just unbelievable to hear that kind of precision. Yeah, well,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: you know, Maurice was a stickler for that. Maurice was like, uh,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: you know, we think we worked hard, but nobody worked
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: as hard as Maurice. You know, he wrote it, he
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: produced it, he performed, and he was a hell of
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a performer too, and a great drummer, which he does
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: in blot Up. The younger generation don't know how great
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: of a drummer he really was. He played on Rescue Me,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: he played on Billy Stewart Summertime, This Maurice, you know,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: and he played on those great records with Ramsey Lewis.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: So he had she had. He had a very extensive background.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: By the time he got to Earth and Fire, he
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: knew who he was. You know, this was he had
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: no doubt who he was as a person and as
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: an artist. This was not like something he was, you know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: trying to find his way. He knew exactly what he
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: wanted and he dragged me along with him. So I'm
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: happy for that. You know, no, absolutely beautiful and that
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: you had a beautiful life getting to play music. It's
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: like what better, what better contribution can you make then
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: making something that enlivens you and the people that get
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to share it. And with my older brother Idol what
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, You know what I mean?
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Sometimes when I do interview, you know, people said, Jenner,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: what would the older Verdeen tell the younger Verdeen? And always,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: you know, you know how they do, you know, they
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: get those questions, you know what I mean. You know
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: it's not you know, it's not a sprint but a
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: journey kind of thing. You know, right, I said that
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: didn't apply to me because I was the younger guy,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: was already doing what he was doing. You thought about
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: and being with Maurice, you know, it kind of broke
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of rules being a young person too. You know,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: let me know that I could do it, and you know,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: if you stay on it, this is what you're gonna do.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Hard being in a group with so many people. Yeah,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: but you know, we got a lot of love of
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: respect for each other, you know, And don't forget now,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: you know. You know Philip Ralph myself, you know, we
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: became adults together, so you know, that's a different point
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: of view. You know, what year to Philip join? Do
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you remember, like seventy see from seventy one? Yeah, really
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't realize that for almost fifty five years. Wow.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: And what happened when the first Earth and the fire
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: broke up and on the Warner brothers, Philip used to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: come and hang out and I I spent the afternoon
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: with them, you know, and we got along so well.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: But I had saw him play in Denver with the band,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: but he had moved to California and then he spent
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the whole afternoon and it was just so great that
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: liked them so much, you know, And and I called
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: my mother, I said, so he even plays harmonica, you
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? And never saw anybody play harmonica, right,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: And then when Reese was formulating and things like that,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that it was down to two other people, and Marie said,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: who should we get? Said we should get Philip because
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: that's because he's a really good guy, you know what
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, the spirit of it, you know what I mean.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And it would only take a good person to go
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: to journey that we ended up going. You know. In
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the last week, I had a conversation with two different artists,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: one with Farrell and one with Q Tip, two great
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: artists referenced this week Earthwinn and Fire being the reason
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: they make music again again. It's just like it's it's
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: beautiful to see it from different people, different ages, in
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: different genres, how inspirational it was and continues to be.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: It's just it's beautiful, beautiful to be part of something
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: so that has informed people's lives in such an important way. Yeah, yeah,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I think what's going on with this this uh, with
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the quarantine that we all are in, and it's a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: collective experience that we're all having. You know, as we know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: people are going back you know to really great works,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: great books, they're going back to great movies, they're going
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: back to great records. And I think, of course our
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: work is part of what they want to go back to,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you know, and that and their ears are actually open
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: more now they're having the opportunity to listen better. You know,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: we've had in the great society and the politics right
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and things like that. We're headed for a great awakening.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I would call this next phase the great awakening for us.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: We'll be back with Rick Rubin and Verding White after
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the break. We're back with more from Verding White of Earth,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Winn and Fire. Tell me about Charles Stepney. What was
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: his involvement as producer? What did he do, because you know,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: producers do differ things. Tell me about him and his
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: involvement in the process. Well, Charles, first of all, was
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: a great friend of Maurice's and they worked together at
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Chess Records. And then Charles had done a lot of
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: arrangements for Ramsey Lewis with Maurice, and Charles was the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: one that brought Many Riverton on the scene. You know,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: The first album was called Come to My Garden, which
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: was a great, great, great great record, and they just
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: stayed in touch. And then Charles had done the Last
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Days and Times record for us, the first record we
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: did for Clive Davis on Columbia Records. Charles did that.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Then Charles came back again and worked with us on
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Open Our Eyes That's the Way of the World, the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: breakthrough record for us and the Spirit Record, which he
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: passed away on the Spirit Record. And Charles was our
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: father figure, big brother. He was the one that Maurice
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: would listen to the most. Charles will said, we're gonna
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: do it like this, and Reese would do it. And
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Charles was great for myself and Philip and all of us,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: all of us together, and he was actually took our
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: George Martin, even though you guys are from Chicago, you
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: consider yourself a Chicago bandy. You can side yourself California band.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I say California now, you know, because I became an
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: adult here. You know. We came from Chicago, which brought
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: a certain sensibility, you know to it, you know, yeah,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: and a good foundation, you know, because I came from
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a good family background. My mom and dad. My dad
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: was a doctor, my mom was a school teacher, and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: we had a lot of music around the house. So
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: that was good. That's what I brought to California. And
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: then when I got with Maurice, you know what I mean,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: you know, working with him closely and living with him,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I had a chance to figure out where he was
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: coming from. And he would talk to me about music
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a lot, you know, and so that so and then
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: we became Californians. He did too, you know what I mean,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: because we got into yoga, we got into meditation, we
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: got into eating good, we got into you know, uh,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: going to seminars at the booty Tree, you know, things
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: like that, you know what I mean. So we became
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: actually California, you know, the Californias started eating yogurt. So yeah,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: how how important was the spiritual aspect in addition to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the music? Like what Riese was sort of always open,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. You know, he was always open,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you know, and it was always loose. It was never
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: like heavy. It was not like a dogma, you know
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. It was loose. We didn't get
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: in each other's way spiritually, things like that. It was
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: just a progression, you know what I mean. And then
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: you know, we adopted you know a lot of the
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: California stuff, which was actually kind of natural. Of course
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: we didn't do that. You couldn't do that in Chicago.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: That would be too weird, lighting incense, you know it be.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: And but it was we got into the California thing,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: you know, which was wide open. I don't think we
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: ever would have made it as big had we not
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: come to California. It opened your mind to new things
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: being in California, you think, right, and new creativity because
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: don't forget now this is where everybody came you know,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: this is where everybody's still. This is where eybody is
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: coming back to now, you know what I mean, because
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: of the just the openness of thought, of possibilities. You know,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: there was You came from a musical household. Tell me
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: about the actual music that would be playing in the house.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: What do you remember, first member as a kid, what
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: might be playing in the house. Anything. It was nine
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: of us, so it was noisy. So you get it.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: You get in where you fit in. And so in
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: one room, my sister would be listening to the radio
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: station w v O M of Chicago, she used to
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: listen to Pervous band The Blues Man. My dad would
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: be listening to Maheley Jackson because he loved Mahley Jackson,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: you know, things like that. My mom loved Little Roles,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: uh live at the Copa, you know. And then and
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: then me and my brother Monte and my brother Freddie.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: You know, we thought we were cool. So we we
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: would be listening to you know, you know, Miles Davis
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: four and More and uh and Miles in the Sky.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: We love that record. You know, we were teenagers. So
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: if you if you didn't, if you told people you
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: listened to Miles Davis, you were cool even if you
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: didn't listen to it. The fact that you're doing so.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: We so we were. We were the hip guys. We
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: wanted to be. We were cool lighting incense in our bedroom.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of like what was going on. And uh,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: my baby sisters were just babies at the time. But
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: but it was it was a lot of hot, very
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: free farm household, very free form. Was never uh it
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: was not that strict. It was actually for that era,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: it was quite loose, you know what I mean. You know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't like spankings I'm gonna get you
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: when I'm spankings, you know, things like that. You know.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Also interesting for the how eclectic the band was. To
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: grow up in an eclectic household makes sense. It's like,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: it makes sense because it was never Earthwind and Fire
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was never one thing. You know, it always felt bigger
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: than one thing. We may talk about funk being a backbone,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: but it was not just that at all. Were so
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: many funk bands were just that. I would have to
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: say a lot of those funk bands, A lot of
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: those guys grew up together, you know, probably buddies in
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: schools and things like that. But in our in our world,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: you know, Maurice was the leader, so he had traveled
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: around the hole. We hadn't been anywhere. So a lot
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: of the things that he knew he turned us on
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: to him. You mean, so he turned us on a
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: lot of different philosophy that he was into and things
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: like that. We went to Egypt, you know what I mean,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And recent I went to Egypt and Israel and things
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: like that. So you know, he was a world guy.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: You know, he was a very different type of person,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you know. And and then don't forget now, you know,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Fire was formulated. He formulated it in the in the sixties,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: which was at the first wave of cosmic consciousness. Obviously,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: you know things like that. It was like the precursor
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: to what everybody now has a yoga bat now, And
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: now everybody has a yoga bat. They didn't used to.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: They didn't they didn't you know, they didn't even know
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: what it was. Now everybody has what you know, I
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: was going to ask about you talking about Miles Davis,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: So I's going to ask you about the influence of
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: jazz in the band, right, How did jazz work itself
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: into or the fact that that you guys listened to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: jazz growing up, did that influence Earth Winning Fire? Well,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you know, Maurice was the ultimate jazzer of the band,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you know, and uh and Charles Stepney played jazz too,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: great jazz, So it was really good for us to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: kind of turn us on and Philip and myself and
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Ralph and and uh, we rouse a really big jazz
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: are really excellent, you know about the history of jazz. Really,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: he's really the expert in the band of jazz. And
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Philip is too, and uh and what was great about
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: it for me being around Maurice but then I had
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a chance to hang out with a Philip a lot.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: He would play me music and us being the same age,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: you know, he could maybe explain it to me what
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: was going on, which Maurice just threw us in there.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: You gotta jump in and fit in, you know, okay
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: because the music is taken off, and so I could say, hey, man,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: so what did he just say? You know? So it
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: was it was good that I had a chance to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you know, grow in this band listening to jazz, you know,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: because I sort of kind of caught the tip end
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: of jazz playing upright to bass guitar. So when you
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: were playing upright, did you learn playing jazz and classical? Yeah?
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: And it was good for technique. But then right right
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: at the doorstep was bass guitar, Fender bass that you
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: know that you guys like myself, and then Stanley Clark
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and Marcus Miller, Nathan Eaves, uh, Michael Henderson. You know
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: that that wave started. So so that's when I kind
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of like started when it kind of was like jazz
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: funk jazz pop influence. You know, did you ever have
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to play upright bass on any earth Wind
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and Fire records. Only one. It was only one and
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that and I did it on a on one of
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: our shows. I write a song when I did it
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: on that section. But I actually sounded better on bass
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: guitar really actually, you know what I mean. You know
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: it's I'm glad I played it because it was good
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: for technique. It fights back when I practice. Uh, the
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: practice is on upright, are horrible. The ones on bass
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: guitar fun. I took a lesson from Ron Carter and
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Uh at his house and the and it was a
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: horrible lesson. He said, man, this this was not good.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: And this is not good, just not good. I said, Serranti,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I said, I'm practicing. I said, but tonight you'll see
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: what I really do. You're done about it. So he
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: came to Matt at the Swift Garden and he thought
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: he was in the wrong. He thought of a basketball game.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: There were so many people you're talking about, you know
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: what I mean? So I said, I said, Ronnie, this
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: is what I this is what I really do. You've
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: done about you know, But I said, I love to
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: practice anyway, and I wanted to have the opportunity of
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: hanging out with Ron Card and taking a lesson even
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: if it was horrible. So cool, so cool. So you've
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you've gotten to make albums consistently since I guess first
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: album in nineteen seventy seventy one, is that about, right? Yes?
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Seventy right those yea seventy seventy one right right, it's
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: like fifty years unbelievable. And the technology keeps changing, right,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: popular music keeps changing. Tell me about your experience in
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: watching the changes and and reacting to the changes, either
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: by swinging with what's going on or by not, you know,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: like just choosing, well, we're not this is what they're
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: doing now, we're just gonna do this instead. Talk to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: me about just what you saw the changes in the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: way music has been recorded. Let's say where we've watched
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the changes you know, from four track, the eight track, right,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: twenty four track, right, we went through that phase, right,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: which we watched and we were part of that. Of
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: then we watched of course you know, CDs right, DVDs,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: all of those things pro tools, you know what I mean.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: So it's just part of just the evolution. And I
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: think that if you have a pretty much of a foundation,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: you can swing with it, you know. I think if
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you don't have a foundation, You run to the technology
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: without and forget the music. Yeah, you know we had
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: we had a strong musical background, so we could say, well,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: how did this fit into our music? Beautiful? Let's talk
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: about James Brown for a minute. What was James Brown
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: an important figure musically? First? When the fire? Would you say?
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Sort of like he wasn't like first as funky as
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: he was. And I know I'm going to get some pushback.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: No, no no, no, it's fine. It's interesting. I really wanted
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: to understand the inspiration is a big part of how
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: we get where we're going. We still bring ourselves to it,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: but it's interesting, like what's coming through that gets us
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: where we're going. What I loved about him was his
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: live performances. That's what I loved. That's the one, you know,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the one. If you wanted to see some James Brown stuff,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: watch the Tammy Show. Yeah you know what I'm saying.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: And somebody told me it took ninety minutes for those
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: girls to stop screaming after you guy, after he did
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: what he did, you know, you know what I mean.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And he was just one of them, you know, it
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: was James Brown, it was Miles babys. It was John
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Coltrane for us, you know what I mean, and things
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: like that, you know, but also the Beatles and the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Beatles that those guys, I think what they did they
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: were sort of like I think they were the ones
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: that that busted the door wide open if you go
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: back and listen to like when they would mop tops
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: and I want to hold your hand and all the
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: way down the Abbey Road. The work they did was
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: really incredible and what they did was really good. What
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the record that showed how hip there was was Rubber Soul.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: That was the one. Rubber Soul was the record. And
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: it was almost like the joke was on us because
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: they knew so much about what they were doing, and
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: it just kept I mean different, different, different, and you
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: could and you could really think that Sergeant Prepper really
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: actually was the record of samples really when you really
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: look back at it, with the machine going backwards and
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: things like that. And then they had somebody like George
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Martin to make musical sense of what was in their
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: ears but they were listening to. They did something in
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: one group that everybody has bitten off of, you know.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: The first of all a group that got massively big
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: which everybody dreams about. Right, hit records, right, important records, right,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: cultural icons forever right, spirituality with transldental meditation of mahaichi
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: ya yogi. Right. So they're like sort of like more
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of a than a group, that's sort of like an entity.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: That's how they look at their work. I think, I
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: think of the Beatles is proof of God. It's like that.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: It's do you know, it's like it's too much, it's
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: too much. This is not this is not the work
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: of for boys from a little country town you know
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: in the north of England's right, it's much bigger than that.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: It's much, it's much bigger. It really it changed the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: world that everybody has bitten off of in one way
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: or another. You know, when I talk about Miles in
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: the Sky, that's when Miles started going towards the rock thing,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That's when Miles got hit,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: you know, in the sixties, you know, things like that,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and that's when a lot of music changed, you know,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: because of the chord changes and the songwriting. You know,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that was the first time artists wrote their own songs
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: in a band. So great work by them, really great work.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: They were the first ones that you know, did movies,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. So Actually another piece that makes sense
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: is if I think of if I compare Earthwind and
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Fire to other funk bands, earth Wind and Fire always
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: had songs, where funk bands often had great grooves that
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: weren't necessarily songs. Right so, and same whole truth if
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: we look at James Brown versus the Beatles. James Brown
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: always had the groove, but it wasn't always about the song.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: It might just be about the pocket. But the Beatles
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: had the songs. And don't forget number Race was a
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: song person before he got to Ramsey. He was a
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: session drummer, so he did commercials, so he did understand
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: probably the intro, the chorus, diverse, the hook, what is
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: it saying? You know? Actually we did the cover the
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Beatles Got to Get You My Life in the Sargent
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Pepper movie. And what happened was that George Martin had
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: had unch Maurice and myself about the movie, but he
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: didn't have time to work with us because he was
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: working with Aerosmith and the BGS and Billy Preston, you know,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: and he said, why don't you guys just do your
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: own thing and that's what we did, and it was
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the number. It was the biggest song on that movie,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Beautiful because the movie was it was a huge flock.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know when you go back, people don't
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: know that now, but it was not as big as
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: they thought it was going to be. But we had
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the record and we still play the song today. I
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: remember going to see in the theater as a kid.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I've may have been one of a few people in
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that theater, but I was in the theater watching that. Yeah.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: And we shot in Cobra City and we were in
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the middle of we had just got back, had a
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: day off from one of our tours, and we had
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to shoot everything, like, you know, in one day. You know,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: that's how fast it was going. You know, Robert Stigwood,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: you know, back back then, you know, more and more
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and more, let's go, let's go, let's go. You know. Yeah.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Did you meet Stigwood? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting character.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I've only heard about him. I've never met him. Yeah,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: he was. He's very nice to us. You know, we
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: were kids at the time, so everybody was nice, you know.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: And but what one of the significant thing is it
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: was Michael Schultz of the African American director. He was
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: one of the first to do a big budget movie.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: That was a big budget movie, you know, but it
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: was a great time to be part of a movie
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and and things like that. You know, we'll be back
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: with Rick Rubin and Verdine White after the break. We're
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: back with more from vert in White of Earth When
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: in Fire, just picturing the world that you were in then,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: you know, right, did it feel different than the other
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: things that were going on? Could you tell that your
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: band was different? Well, when we definitely were in the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Earth when and Fire bubble, you know what I mean,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: because don't forget now, we were doing something that had
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: never ever been done before, you know, you know, no
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: group had ever tried the things you know that we tried,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: you know. And and at that time, you know, we
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: were getting ready to go to Columbia Records when Clive
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: was president of Columbia Records, and Clive gave was everything
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: we needed to do it, you know what I mean.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: So we felt really secure, you know, and we knew
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: we could do it. We knew we were gonna do
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: really good if we just keep at it. We didn't
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: really know what was going on with everybody else actually
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: we knew, but we didn't, you know, we weren't part
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: of it, you know. And in today's world, if an
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: artist doesn't break really on their first project, they tend
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: to go away, and you guys got to really build
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: over a period of time. It was really was it
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: like the fourth or fifth album that really broke through.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: It was the That's the Way the World record with
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Shining Star on it, and that about about fifth would
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you say that about fifth? Way we had last certain
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: times right head to the sky, open our eyes right then,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: that's the way to what that was? What four right for?
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: So for those first three albums, you guys already had
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: been touring playing like clubs. We were playing not clubs
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: a lot, but stillent unions, you know, gymnasiums and and
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: on with like I said, groups like Ohio Players and Mandrel,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: you know, those kind of things. And then the show
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: that broke us big was a show called Soul in
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one seventy two out of New York City,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: and they played the show about nineteen times. It was
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: a TV show, a television show called Soul. Wow, I'd
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: never heard of it, Yeah, right, it's an obscure show now,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: but back it was a very important show. It was
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: before shoul trained. Not a lot of dancing, but it
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: was a show that had a lot of artists on it,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and it was show had politicians on it like Jesse
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Jackson and the Last Poets right at that time, you know.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: So we were kind of in that thing at that time.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: That sounds great. I want to I'm gonna try to
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: find old episodes. I've never I've never even heard of
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: it before that time. Yeah. Man. Then and the show
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: opens up with Maurice playing Colombo. Wow, yeah, so cool.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: You know. It was it was like, you know, an intro.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It was like brothers and sisters, you know what, we're here,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Earth and Fire and I the blah blah blah blah blah, right,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: you know, and uh, and it was. It was eclectic show,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: but it was very powerful show. And we fit right
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: in at that particular time, I understood. And that's really
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: what broke things open, you think. Yeah, you know. And
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: then we were playing a lot of colleges. We want
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: to road a lot. So those records were selling like,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: you know, two to three hundred thousand and half a million,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: so we were on our way that that's the way
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: of the world. It just didn't. It just wasn't a unicorn.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: It came out of nowhere. It was a build up
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: to that. Did it feel like you were it was
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: a constant build or was it kind of a plateau
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: at a good level until it exploded? Now it was
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: a constant build. It just kept going, and we kept
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: healing it out and feeling it and it kept getting better.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't like a thing like you oh man,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: we got a big hit record. We just kept going,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you know. It was like we just kept growing, kept
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: you know, kept going. You know, so then when things
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: did explode, it seems like you'd be able to handle
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: it better based on doing all the work leading up
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to it. You know, some artists, when good things happened
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: really fast, they kind of flame out. Right. It was
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: a little overwhelming, you know, because it was big. You know,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: when it gets big, it kind of bounces back off
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: of you, you know. But we were I think the
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: fact that we had done records before, you know, we
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: had enough. We had enough with ourselves not to like
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: go crazy crazy cool. Do you remember the first experience
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: of thinking, Wow, this is really getting big. Yeah, I mean,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: for me. It was like when I heard That's the
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: way of the World. You know, we recorded it Cariboo
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Ranch back and then remember Cariboo you know Jim Vercio's
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: plays right and uh. And after Maurice mixed the record
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and edited and everything, he let me hear the record.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I said, man, goose pimples. It was like, I mean,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: is that us right? You know? Is that us? Is it? Like?
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Is it that? Is it that good? And and actually
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: it was great for Maurice because after step had passed,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Maurice had to take over, you know, as a producer,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: so you know, so he had to you know, he
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: had to wear like three or four hats, you know
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: what I'm done about. And one of the things that
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I'd have to say, nobody who ever played drums came
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: off the drums and ever did what Maurice end up
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: doing and and became an icon and became a you know,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: musical leader and things like that, and helped the industry too.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: If it hadn't been from Maurice, that would never would
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: have been African Americans doing concerts. And and we actually
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: had to keep up with him, you know, you know,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: he was just one of those rare people that really
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: kind of knew exactly what he wanted. Even in the
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: beginning of those records that we did, they were not hits.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: The genesis of the sound was there, you know, you
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: could still you can still hear it. You know it
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: was there, you know, the foundation of the sound. You know,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the transition from playing in gymnasiums to what was the
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: next step after gymnasium as things got bigger, theaters than arenas,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: than stadiums, and so when we play theaters and arenas
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: and stadiums now there for different reasons, Like we did
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: the Classics with the Eagles and everybody a couple of
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: years ago, so that was great, a lot of fun.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: A lot of that audience probably had never seen us before,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you know, on the stage with the Eagles. The arenas
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: are are good because they put our big production in there,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: you know, so a lot of the people can see
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: us on the big screens. Theaters are great because we
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: get a chance to play longer, and we can play
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: songs from some of the jazzy things in the theater
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: because it fits the environment. You know. It's like if
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: you're gonna watch, you know, a great movie, it's better
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: in the theater. Absolutely. I call it like in the theater,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: it's great. A lot of ghosts in those theaters, you know. Yeah,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I think I think you can hear the music better
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: in the theater than in arena as well. It's just
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: like it's a more musical experience. Yeah. Well, that arena
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: stuff is all show business. Yeah, you know, it's some
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: show business. You know. It's big. That means you're big,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and that means the box office is great. That means
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: you're successful, and it means you're hot. You know, that's
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: what you know. You know, that means you're happening. Yeah,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: as much fun playing big show, small show, just playing
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: And do you know it when you're in it? Or
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: does the music kind of take over in a way
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: where once the show starts you could be anywhere? Yeah?
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Well I think for us now, we all know each
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: other so well, we kind of know what that thing is,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: you know. We know, Okay, it's an arena, so we
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: got to strap in and find out where the space
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: is so to feel good. It's like greatest hits. It's
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: greatest hits, yeah yeah, and it's it's star time. Yeah, yeah,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And when you do a stadium,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: it's like you're on the moon. They can't catch you. You
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: You know how people say, so what you guys play
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: that tonight Dodger Stadium and people don't say anything to
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: you because it's bigger than them, you know. Yeah, And
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: in place like Dodger Stadium, it's more like it's the event.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: You get to say you were there, but it's rarely
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: about like the intricacies of the performance because you're too
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: far away and the sound just dissipates. But if you
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: find a space, you can really nail them, like you know,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: we found at Arena space. And then when Philip at
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: the end told audience, wave your hands in the air,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: we had sixty thousand people waving their hands in the air.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: And because what's great about social media and things like that,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: they get a chance to tell their friend what they
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: just saw. Whereas before in the seventies, if you did it,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: nobody knew except the people that came. Yeah, so now
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: word spreads. And when you talk about playing, like doing
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: shows with bands like the Eagles, in this recent round,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: that probably was more like in the very early days,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: you probably got to play with bands much more, a
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: much more eclectic group of bands like I think, didn't
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: you guys played with like The Loving Spoonful and right
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: we opened up for John Sebastian. Remember John was in
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: The Loving Spoonful. Yes, and John let us do a
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: tour with him, credible and we played Lincoln Center with him,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and Clive Davis came to see John. Yeah, but he
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: came to see He saw us and said, listen, I
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: like those guys. I want to get together with those guys.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: That's how that happened. And to this day John and
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I are great friends. Just wonderful person, just really great,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: just really good. Always sweetheart, always sweetheart, you know beautiful.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Tell me about signing with Clive and he said that
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: he gave you what you needed to do, you needed
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: to do, right. It just sounds like it really worked out.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Your experience with Warner Brothers before that wasn't it didn't
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: work as well. But how was the relationship with the people, Well,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: what warners At the time, Joe Smith was at the
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: running the label. Joe was you know, Moe was there,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: but Mo was actually doing reprise, you know, you know,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra's label, and that's when Moe came later, you know,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: but we only did two records for Joe. And then
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Clive had heard about us. But Warners they weren't really ready.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: They weren't really ready for a group of color, you
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. And Joe was cool. We got
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: out of there, you know what I mean. And then
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Clive saw us, you know, Clive bought the contract from Warners.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: But Clive, you know, he was you know, running CBS records,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: and CBS Records was on fire, you know what I mean,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: you sliding the family stone. You had all those great groups,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean that that Clive had, you
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. And and he was the one
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: that opened up that door for us, brought us to
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the groves in the house, you know, in London, so
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: everybody could take a look at us. And it was expensive,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: so really earthly. The fire was like the great American
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: experiment that worked because it hadn't happened. Don't forget now,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: the only game in town was Motown right when you
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: look at it, you know, for where the African Americans
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: could go to be successful at that nature, to be
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: that big hadn't happened yet. It hadn't happened yet. What
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: we did hadn't happened. You know. So after we happened,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: then that's when you saw Funkadelas. That's when you saw
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Bootsy Collins, That's when you saw probably James Brown was
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the only one in the sixties that got big. But
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: he was by himself though he was the only game
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: in town. And as we said, it wasn't it wasn't
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: based on in my opinion, it wasn't based on the songs.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: It was just based on he had the sound nobody
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: had at that time, that's right. And then he was
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: so great live that when they put him on a
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Tammy show and Ed Sullivan lights out. So after you
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: know that, when we came along, it was a whole
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: different generation of artists. And then don't forget now, African
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: American radio had gotten big, you know what I mean,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: went from AM to FM stereo. So ye had great
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: disc jockey's planned records, like you know the late Frankie
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Crocker that was breaking all those great records. But in
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: different genres though, absolutely, But you guys played. You guys
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: played on all radio. Wasn't just urban radio. You guys
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: played on everything. I mean, right, I heard you on
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: every station. But Clive was always great and even to
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: this day, we always get a big hug from Clive.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: We've done this his you know, the Clide Party all
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: a lot, and we've done his documentaries and things like that,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: but always always would be for Evan debt it because
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: he gave us the big break that opened the door
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: for us that stayed open. He's historically known for having
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: a lot to say about songs. Would he get involved
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: in that way or would he just be supportive at
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: that time? Of supportive, I think when he went to Rasta,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: that's when he got into it, you know, because Clumbia
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: was Clumbie was. It was so big, you know, it
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: was so monolithic, you know, big, big, big corporation. But
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: he was there for us anyway, you know what I mean,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: whatever we want to do, we could do it. And
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Claude love Maurice, so you know it was it was
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: he always trusted Reese, beautiful. Tell me a little bit
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: about your music listening habits now. I listened to everything.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I go back to the past to see if
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I still liked it when I liked it before, to
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: see if my years on one point I'm having a
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: chance to like really do some nice work. You know.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Of course, we will do an Earth on the Fire
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: album at some point. But recently I've had a chance
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: to work with my drummer, John Paris from the band
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: and Neil Pole. Great engineer, great producer, great writer. He
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: just got nominated for two Grammys. So we get a
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: chance to talk about music, chop it up, work on tracks.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: You know, it keeps me active and things like that,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: and I still practice. I still you know what I
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: like about the quarantine Actually, it's really you know, it's
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: been kind of cool because I've had a chance to
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: really be creative, you know, absolutely, you know, with no
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: judgment on it, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Have
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: you ever played on anyone else's records? Oh yeah, I
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: did a flow rider DJ Cassidy, a lot of yeah, man,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. And then what happens is when
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: I work with other people, the session is like three hours,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: but they they asked me questions in the terms of
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: eleven hours. And what I saw for Rell about a
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: year ago, he was humming to me. When people meet me,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: they hummed the songs he was humming, uh running, you know,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: they hummed the songs. So it might start out as
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: a two hour session, but they want to know everything,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: what was going on, what was you know, they want
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: to know what the world was like. Yeah, you know,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: they want to know what it what it smelled like,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: you know what it sounded like. So when I do sessions,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: they're like eleven hours, not because we're playing. They just
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: want to you know, they you know what I'm saying
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: so funny. And then and then now I'm getting adopted now,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: so if I work with an artist, you know, they said,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna make you my uncle, you
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? You know, and they said anything
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: I can bring you, you know what I I mean? Could
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: you want some coffee? You know? And but they want
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: to know, which I think is really great, you know
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: what I mean that obviously they they respect you enough
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: to want to know what happened. I worked with llokoj
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: and uh and you know, he's great, big muscles and everything.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: He did the introduction for us at the Kennedy Center
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Honors and he said, gentle man, I had a post
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: all y'all stuff, mad about my bedroom. And I'm saying, wow,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: you're talking about And then and then I said, listen,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I gotta take a picture because I need some street cred. Amazing.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you for talking to me about music and about
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: your life, and thank you for making the world a
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: better place. Thank you man, and thank you for letting
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: me on your show. Already a pleasure, sir, Love you.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Verdie and White for bringing us into his
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: inner Earthwin and Fire circle. You can hear all of
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: our favorite Earthwin and Fire songs on our playlist at
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: broken Record podcast dot com, and be sure to subscribe
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Record Podcast, where you can find extended cuts of new
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: and old episodes. Also follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Nick Chafee, and it's executive produced by me LaBelle We're
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries and if you like Broken Record,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond Bass