I'm Not Running Anymore

“We are people of the Mighty, mighty people of the Sun.
In our heart lies all the answers to the truth you can’t run from.”
-from Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Mighty Mighty”


There isn’t a single major event of my life among the highs and the lows, the successes and the failures, or the triumphs and disasters that I can’t associate with an Earth Wind & Fire melody or lyric. It is very likely that during some of my most desperate moments of struggle or in my celebrations alike, I was actually listening to one of their recordings. It’s like this for any fan who finds an artist or a band or a piece of music in which to dwell. But for a devotee to the most significant R&B soul funk jazz collective of the seventies & eighties, it isn’t enough to just adore as a fanatic would the musicians and their music. My higher purpose is inextricably bound to understanding and analyzing the reasons their music had the impact that it did during the time that it did and why even today they maintain an almost Brahmin status, most especially in black music vernacular.

There are two things I remember most about the year 1975: Attending Exploration ’75, a two-week academic summer camp for gifted children between the ages of 8 and 15 at Shorter College in Rome, Georgia and the song “Reasons." I couldn’t wait to leave Atlanta and join the boys and girls from all over the state to live in dormitories, eat cafeteria food, and pretend we were college students. The biggest draw back was probably that my twin brother was also attending. At that time, going everywhere together was beginning to cramp my style. Still I remember the drive: my father took us in the family car, a deep green 1965 Ford Galaxy 500 and as we turned onto the road leading to the campus, I could see all the other participants with their parents dragging their suitcases toward the check-in area. As vividly as I remember this scene, I can remember humming the melody to “Reasons” almost every minute while I was there. In fact, I became such an annoyance to my brother, that I barely saw him again for the remaining two weeks. As I encountered other kids, before long they would also hear me humming this curious little tune. The two or three black kids who I’d met were probably a bit more familiar with the melody than the dozens of white kids who heard me. In a few short days, I’m sure I was getting on everybody’s nerves.

I had no idea of the meaning of the lyrical content of “Reasons” back then. It wasn’t until I was well into my 30s that I realized it’s a song about a one-night stand! There were very few words that my 10-year old ears could even make out at that time: “Reasons, the reasons that we’re here...after the love game has been played...(something else about a parade) La la la la la la la la la...the reasons…the reasons…” that was about it. What mattered to me was how from the opening notes Philip Bailey’s lilting falsetto wrapped around those lyrics. How the harmonies and instrumentation swirled in my mind and danced in my heart. How at the end of four minutes and 58 seconds of magic, I would feel sad and lost…until I’d hear it all over again on the radio.

Earth Wind & Fire are so tied to my childhood that it’s hard to imagine growing up without them. My memories of the band are as vivid as the times when my mother worked two jobs or when my father was reading books about astronomy, the history of mankind, or animal behavior. I can scarcely think of a moment when the Elements of the Universe weren’t on the radio.

At that time, radio was something I loved. AM stations were very popular and because my parents didn’t buy a lot of what would have been considered contemporary R&B, it wasn’t something that we heard a lot in the house…except for on the radio. My father had an eclectic music library. A jazz lover, he had albums by Dizzie Gillespie, Getz/Gilberto, Charlie Parker, and Abby Lincoln; he had eight-track tapes (which were the newest of technology) by Herbie Mann & Maynard Ferguson, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Gloria Lynn. He also had a reel-to-reel tape player connected to a Marantz receiver with recordings of artists from Miles Davis to Big Maybelle. So while my father was downstairs, my mother was upstairs playing nothing but Al Green on the cabinet console player, a large, floor-to-waist phonograph that was encased in a long, wooden centerpiece. On Saturday mornings we did our house cleaning chores to music like “Love & Happiness”, “For the Good Times”and “Let’s Stay Together." This was really all we heard in terms of contemporary R&B.

EW&F came into my life in two significant ways: the radio, of course, and through my cousin, Aaron. Right out of graduate school, he came to Atlanta from Clarksdale, Mississippi to find a job. (My brother and I had left Clarksdale-the town of our birth-and moved to Atlanta with our parents when we were less than a year old, and frequently made trips back to Clarksdale a few times each year – a practice that continued until we were about to enter high school). Aaron was already 11 years old when my brother and I were born, so he and my older brother Larry were charged with feeding and babysitting duties during our visits to Clarksdale. Knowing that his aunt, my mother lived in Atlanta in a large family home, Aaron lived with us on a temporary basis until he found permanent employment. Prior to then, my relationship with Aaron was more or less fashioned by our family visits to Clarksdale during the holidays.

From the moment of Aaron’s arrival, it was clear to me that life in our home would be different. He had an amazing record collection and since he was living in our basement, he had access to the stereo equipment. Even though his stay was temporary, he traveled with a fairly large collection. The Bar Kays, The Isley Brothers, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, New Birth, Mandrill, Melba Moore, The Ohio Players, and a ton of others. One of the first albums I touched was “That’s the Way of the World.” The album cover completely captured my imagination. There was something interesting about the question in Ralph Johnson’s expression and body language or the ecstasy in Maurice White’s smile or how half of Larry Dunn’s body floated on the front side of the cover. When I flipped it over (or opened it out) there was the rest of Larry’s body as were Al McKay, Andrew Woolfolk, Johnny Graham, and Fred White floating too. Every song on the album had a unique sound and flavor and when I discovered “Reasons” among the list of them, I knew instantly that I was somehow enmeshed in an everlasting relationship.

Since the time of Exploration ’75 and Aaron’s temporary then permanent then temporary stays with our family, in the course of hardships and achievements, and through my own human evolution, a constant presence has been EW&F. Following Aaron’s example, I’ve always kept a collection of their recordings in my personal possession no matter where I’ve been. And now as I revisit the memories and the feelings that these songs evoked, I have no other choice than to commit my recollections to paper in a lengthy love letter to the baddest band that ever was.