Wednesday, May 19, 2010

EARTH WIND & FIRE

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EARTH WIND & FIRE

Becoming a teen in the 1970’s in my opinion was the best of times. The
musical groups were phenomenal. Earth Wind & Fire was one of those
phenomenal groups. Where were you? And what were you doing when you heard
Earth Wind & Fire the first time. I was sitting in my garage playing
records on the stereo and spades a card game with friends. A friend
brought over a new album she bought, Earth Wind & Fire’s self titled “Earth Wind & Fire”. After we listened to the album five times, I can say we were fans of Earth Wind & Fire.

The first time I saw Earth Wind & Fire in concert was 1979 at the Oakland Coliseum. My best friend got two tickets for her birthday, we both thought the seats were going to be in the nose bleed section, but to our surprise we had great seats 8th row from the stage right in the center.When Earth Wind & Fire came out, the crowd went wild and we were on our feet until the last encore was done. The second time I saw Earth Wind & Fire was in 1989 at the Oakland Coliseum, ten years later and they still hadn’t lost a beat they were still phenomenal.

Earth Wind & Fire was formed by Maurice White a former session drummer for Chess Records and member of the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Maurice based on the fact that his astrological sign of Sagittarius had a primary element of Fire and seasonal qualities of Earth and Air. That’s how he came up with Earth Wind & Fire. Earth Wind & Fire’s first Top 40 R&B hit was “I Think About Lovin’ You” from The Need of Love album in 1971. After that the hits just kept on coming “Evil”, “Keep Your Head to the Sky”, “Mighty Mighty”,
“Devotion” one of my all time favorites. “That’s The Way of the World”,
“Shining Star”, “September”, “Serpentine Fire”, “Boogie Wonderland” and
the list goes on. There are so many artists that has sampled Earth Wind &
Fire’s music. To name a few A Tribe Called Quest, Wycelf Jean, Jay-Z
Amerie, The Fugees, LL Cool J, De La Soul, Common, Frank Zappa, Naughty by
Nature, P Diddy and The Roots.

Maurice White had a vision to put together a universal music group, that was spiritually charged, ambitious defying boundaries of color and culture. Earth Wind & Fire is what he came up with. I say thank you Maurice White and Earth Wind & Fire for giving your fan all around the your music that is timeless.

LM


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth,_Wind_&_Fire
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