Maurice White - A Profile

Maurice White was born in Memphis, TN, on 19 Dec 1941 and died on 4 Feb 2016 aged 74 but would have been 81 today.

He was at school with legendary Stax songwriter David Porter and was also a childhood friend of Booker T. Jones with whom he formed a band with whilst attending Booker T Washington High School.

White moved to Chicago where he studied at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. He played drums in local nightclubs and in 1962 joined a student jazz trio, The Jazzmen, at Crane Junior College in Chicago, who later became The Pharaohs. They would go on to become Chess Records studio musicians.

Between 1966-69 White was a member of the Ramsey Lewis Trio replacing drummer Isaac 'Red' Holt who left with bassist Eldee Young (replaced by Cleveland Eaton) to form Young-Holt Trio / Unlimited. White played on "Wade In The Water" and a few notable Chess recordings such as Rescue Me (Fontella Bass), Summertime (Billy Stewart) as well as Jackie Wilson's (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.

In 1969 he teamed up with Wade Flemons and Don Whitehead to form a songwriting team who won a contract with Capitol Records and named themselves The Salty Peppers with members of The Jazzmen / The Pharoahs  Louis Satterfield, Charles Handy, Don Myrick along with Fred White and Pete Cosey. They released two singles, the first "La, La, La" on Washington D.C. label Tec in 1969 which was then released as "La La Time" on Capitol followed by Your "Love Is Life" / "Uh Huh Yeah". Neither single was particularly successful and White moved to L.A. renaming the group Earth Wind & Fire and the rest is history ... they achieved 46 charting R&B singles and 33 charting pop singles (including eight gold singles), won six Grammys and four American Music Awards, and earned more than 50 gold and platinum albums. 

They re-recorded "Love Is Life" on their first, eponymous, album in 1971 which became their second, and first charting, single on Warner Bros. A third single was released by Warner Bros. in 1971 before joining Columbia in 1972 where they had six minor hits before their #1 Hot 100 and R&B hit in 1975 with "Shining Star". That paved the way for 21 albums and a string of hits throughout the remainder of the 70s and 80s including another six R&B #1s with "Sing A Song" (1975), "Getaway" (1976), "Got To Get You Into My Life" (1977), "September" (1978), "Let's Groove" (1981) and finally "System of Survival" (1987).

In 2015 an album of The Salty Peppers (La La Time: The Roots Of Earth, Wind & Fire" was released which included all four sides on the two single plus five unreleased tracks. I personally find the songs a bit folky/hippy/pop but I guess it's of historical interest?

White also produced albums for Minnie Riperton, Ramsey Lewis, Deniece Williams, The Emotions, Jennifer Holliday, Pockets, Pieces of a Dream, Atlantic Starr, Barbara Weathers, El Debarge, Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond and composed albums for Deodato and Barry Manilow  and in 1985 released a self-titled solo album.

White was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1987, retired in 1999 and died in his sleep in 2016 aged 74.

The playlist below represents mostly album only tracks, B sides or minor hit singles, from 1971-81, avoiding all the obvious hits that you've heard already a million times. A standout track is "I'd Rather Have You" from "Last Days And Time" which features former Friends Of Distinction vocalist Jessica Cleaves who appeared on two EWF albums, the former in 1972 and their next "Head To The Sky" in 1973. She later moved to Detroit and recorded with George Clinton's Parliament/Funkadelic and in the 80s was a member of Raw Silk.

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