Spirit - Earth Wind & Fire (1976)
Ideated from: a Black History Month reminder that black artists largely built the modern world of music
Sometime a ways back, I started to realize how many Earth Wind And Fire songs I knew or recognized without really paying attention. Then I started paying attention.
They were a really smart fusion of funk, jazz, pop, and soul that drove hard but also had gorgeous vocals and well-written songs.
This is part of a string of highly-rated records in the second half of the 70s. I don’t know them well enough to say that Spirit is their best, but it’s definitely pretty great. It has all the hallmarks of 70s funk, and does them well. But it adds in Philip Bailey’s excellent vocals and much more complex horn charts than what anyone else was doing. I couldn’t find the reference, but I recall hearing Kool & The Gang talking about how they first heard EWF and rushed out to hire a horn section.
Tracks I Liked
On Your Face - one of those that you probably know even if you don’t realize it
Spirit - a real standout ballad
Saturday Nite - not entirely sure what the obsession was with this particular day of the week in the 70s, but this is as good as any of them with a better bottom end than all the rest.
