NEW YORK (AP) — Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White, whose horn-driven band sold more than 90 million albums and made hits like “September,” “Shining Star” and “Boogie Wonderland,” died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, his brother Verdine said.
White, who was 74, suffered from Parkinson’s Disease and had retreated from the public even as the band he founded kept performing.
“My brother, hero and best friend Maurice White passed away peacefully last night in his sleep,” Verdine White, also a member of the band, told The Associated Press on Thursday. “While the world has lost another great musician and legend, our family asks that our privacy is respected as we start what will be a very difficult and life changing transition in our lives. Thank you for your prayers and well wishes.”
Earth, Wind & Fire, a nine-piece band centered featuring the two White brothers, singer Philip Bailey and the distinctive horn section, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. The band’s most successful period started with the 1975 album “That’s The Way of The World” and continued through the rest of the decade. Other hits included “Serpentine Fire,” “That’s the Way of the World” and a cover of the Beatles’ “Got to Get You Into My Life.”
White publicly revealed he had Parkinson’s at the time of the band’s Hall of Fame induction, but he had shown symptoms of the neurological disease back in the 1980s. He stopped touring with the band in 1995 because of weariness from the road combined with his health problems.
White said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2000 that he wanted the band’s music to inspire instead of just entertain.
“That was the whole objective, to try to inspire young people to believe in themselves and to follow through on their ideas,” he said. “We’ve touched so many people with these songs.”
A former session drummer, White founded the band Salty Peppers in the Chicago area in the late 1960s and had some modest success in the Midwest. After relocating to Los Angeles and ditching all of the band members except Verdine, he renamed the outfit Earth, Wind & Fire after the three elements in his astrological chart.
Bailey’s bright falsetto defined many of Earth, Wind & Fire’s hits. “We experienced pure magic together,” Bailey said during the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, standing next to White.
The band’s early sound was jazzy, but evolved into an exuberant, horn-driven mix of jazz, funk, gospel and Big Band music. Their appeal wasn’t just on records but on stage, their concerts a whirl of dancing, fog machines, multi-colored lights and glittery costumes. Earth, Wind & Fire performed everywhere from the Super Bowl to the White House.
Maurice White also had a substantial side career producing other artists, including Barbra Streisand and Cher. In the 1970s, he co-wrote and co-produced the Emotions’ No. 1 hit “Best of My Love.”
White was born in Memphis in 1941, the son of a doctor and grandson of a New Orleans piano player. He showed musical gifts at an early age, studying at the Chicago Conservancy. During the 1960s, he backed Muddy Waters, the Impressions and others and worked as a session drummer in Chicago.
Associated Press
[Original article contains photos and performance videos].
https://www.yahoo.com/music/earth-wind-fire-founder-maurice-223647351.html
There is also a comprehensive article on Mr. White on Wikipedia. A life filled with serious accomplishments from a very talented man…
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BRAD KENT OF D.O.A. DIES
Bradley Grant “Brad” Kent was a Canadian musician who played guitar with many of the early Vancouver punk rock bands, particularly Victorian Pork, the band which spawned D.O.A., Pointed Sticks and the Subhumans. Later he went to San Francisco to play guitar for the Avengers with Penelope Houston.
In 1977, Kent was a member of Vancouver punk band, The Skulls, which also featured singer Joey Shithead, bassist Wimpy Roy, drummer Dimwit, and guitarist Simon Werner. The Skulls moved to Toronto, with eventual plans to relocate to London, England, but Kent stayed behind and formed Victorian Pork, which became a proving ground for several future Vancouver punk scene stalwarts, including Ian Tiles, Tony Bardach, Gerry Useless, Randy Rampage and Chuck Biscuits. When the Skulls broke up and hobbled back to Vancouver, Joey Shithead formed DOA with Victorian Pork drummer Chuck Biscuits (Dimwit’s younger brother) and former Victorian Pork drummer, Randy Rampage, who moved to bass. Meanwhile, Dimwit and Wimpy formed the Subhumans with Brad Kent on guitar (this original version was a trio, Wimpy played bass and sang). Later, the more recognized line-up was formed with former Victorian Pork bassist Gerry Hannah AKA Gerry Useless and guitarist Mike Graham AKA Mike Normal. Mike and Gerry were in the Stiffs with Zippy Pinhead & Sid Sick.
When the Stiffs broke up Zippy & Sid formed Rabid. A little while later, Brad Kent would join DOA, expanding them to a four-piece, right after the release of DOA’s Disco Sucks EP. You can see this Brad Kent version of DOA on the DOA DVD compilation Greatest Shits, which shows DOA & Kent blazing through a version of Disco Sucks on the back of a flatbed truck in Stanley Park at an anarchist/punk “festival” in 1978. This is the version of DOA that toured down to San Francisco’s Mabuhay Gardens on 2 separate trips, impressing the scene down there and making lifelong fans out of the Dils, Dead Kennedys and the Avengers.
After getting kicked out of DOA, Brad Kent formed the Wasted Lives, with singer Phil Smith, guitarist Colin Griffiths, drummer Andy Graffiti, and future Modernettes bassist Mary Armstrong. He then got the invitation to join The Avengers and moved to San Francisco. Then the Avengers broke up, and he formed the 45s with Controllers drummer Carla du Plantier AKA Mad Dog, singer Heather Haley of the Zellots, and Randy Rampage who was on hiatus from D.O.A. But Rampage rejoined D.O.A., and Kent entered a period of relative inactivity.
Around 1982 when Rampage left D.O.A. again, the two of them collaborated on Randy Rampage’s solo 12-inch EP. All through this period Kent & Rampage gigged as The Sick Ones, with various guest vocalists. Around about 1986 they got more serious and embraced their heavy metal inner selves, forming Ground Zero. Randy left shortly afterwards to play bass for Iron Gypsy, one of the new buzz bands on the scene, with vocalist/guitarist James Mark (AKA “Wickley”), and Death Sentence drummer Doug “Donut” Prouxl, while Brad continued on with Ground Zero. Randy later went on to sing briefly for Annihilator, while Brad joined Death Sentence after their first EP came out, but did not appear on it. During the late 1990s, Brad Kent reformed Victorian Pork in Vancouver for a brief time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Kent
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From D.O.A. on Facebook:
. . . . . . . . .
Brad and I kind of lost touch along the way, but he played in a bunch of bands with Rampage like the Sick Ones, Ground Zero and some other fine outfits. Brad lived life hard and it caught up to him in the end, just before he was hospitalized, he was coming back to Vancouver from Alberta for a show. Damn, now I would almost kill to hear him play again.
This is tough to write, but as I type, Otis Redding’s immortal Sitting On the Dock of the Bay comes on the radio – It just reminds that Brad had a beautiful and restless rock n’ roll soul, that will never be completely satisfied and at the same time never extinguished.
Big condolences to Mary, his family and his kids (your dad was something really special)
Brad, you taught me how to rock and now I am shedding a lot of tears tonight, you were as talented as they come, I’m going to miss you.
My friend, you’ll live on in our hearts forever
Joe Keithley
https://www.facebook.com/DOAPUNK/posts/10153927962839704:0
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Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…
February 2016
7: Robert Bergen, 53, Belgian guitarist and songwriter, emphysema.
6: Gilles Brown, 73, Canadian singer; Dan Hicks, 74, American singer-songwriter, liver cancer; Sam Spence, 88, American composer (NFL Films); Eddy Wally, 83, Belgian singer, cerebral hemorrhage.
4: Leslie Bassett, 93, American composer, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music (1966); Joe Dowell, 76, American pop singer (“Wooden Heart”), heart attack: Jimmie Haskell, 79, American composer; La Velle, 72, American jazz and gospel singer; Maurice White, 74, American songwriter and musician (Earth, Wind & Fire), complications from Parkinson’s disease.
3: Big Kap, 45, American hip hop DJ (Tunnel), heart attack; Brad Kent, Canadian musician (D.O.A., Avengers), complications from pneumonia; Alba Solís, 88, Argentine singer and actress; Saulius Sondeckis, 87, Lithuanian violinist and conductor.