Questlove’s Earth Wind & Fire Documentary Restores the Significance of the Band & its Leader in Popular Music History

I discovered Earth, Wind, and Fire in the late ‘70s in the most unceremonious of places: the laundromat. The name of that laundromat was, and I shit thee not, “Suds-Yer-Duds.” When you entered Suds, you were greeted by more than just the scent of powder detergent; you also entered into the world of soft-rock radio. Steely Dan, Seals & Crofts, Toto, and Kenny Loggins. But there was this one outlier. This one band that wasn’t white, that wasn’t singing songs about lost horses (Michael Martin Murphy—Wildfire), and had something that most of the music you heard during the spin cycle of your towels, shirts, pants, and unmentionables didn’t have: groove and funk. 

Sure, their ballads, like After the Love Has Gone and Reasons, were in heavy rotation, but so was That’s the Way of the World and September. September. That’s the one that got me. Amongst all of this (mostly) boring and safe whiteness, there was September. A song that would make the insides of a prepubescent, red-headed white boy perk up his ears and say, “This feels different. This feels free. This is alive.”

Questlove has made it his mission as a filmmaker to document a too-often overlooked segment of Black music history. His first film, Summer of Soul, unearthed a prominent series of concerts in Harlem in 1969 that had seemingly been lost, except to those still living who experienced it in person. Sly Lives documented the short but incredibly significant peak of Sly and the Family Stone. With Earth, Wind, and Fire (To be Celestial vs. That’s the Way of the World), Questlove aims to restore the prestige of what may well be the greatest band the United States has ever produced: Earth, Wind, and Fire.

In some ways, the band’s music has become so ubiquitous as to be taken for granted. This fabulous documentary changes that. Earth, Wind, and Fire are singular, remarkable, and ecstatic. What’s most interesting about Questlove’s latest foray into securing the past for future viewers and listeners is that this film isn’t really a documentary about Earth, Wind & Fire. It’s really a documentary about their not-so-fearless leader, the late Maurice White.

White was the visionary, the creator, and the architect of the band. He came from beyond humble beginnings. Born in 1941 in Memphis, Tennessee, he was left behind by his mother at age 5 when she moved to Chicago in an effort to make a better life for herself and, eventually, for her son. The trouble is that “eventually” wouldn’t come for ten years, and not until after she had started a new family in the Windy City. Maurice joined his new family in his mid-teens, but never fully felt like part of the brood. This sense of abandonment and displacement would go on to define White. Music would be his savior.

White cut his teeth as a drummer at Chess Records and later as the drummer for jazz legend Ramsey Lewis. Just as significantly, White steeped himself in the metaphysics, numerology, astrology, Egyptology, and a number of other “ologies.” White believed that he had communed with aliens and in the astral nature of the self. There are times while watching Questlove’s film when it’s hard not to wonder if the difference between a cult leader and a band leader is but a sliver. 

Maurice White was an unusual dictator. A man afraid of confrontation, but certain of his vision. When he left Ramsey Lewis’ band, he did so to create a group that would blend jazz, classical, gospel, and R&B music with Afrobeat underpinnings. It was a rather heady undertaking, fraught with the peril that only the most ambitious experience. 

White’s first version of the band was musically complex, unique, and full of virtuosos. What it wasn’t was commercially successful. Aside from the importance of being able to sell records so that an act can continue, it was White’s mission to appeal to the masses. So, in short order, White (through the group’s manager) fired the band, keeping only his brother Verdine on bass, hired the majestic falsetto of Philip Bailey, and started all over. 

After opening for George Clinton and Funkadelic, White discovered what the band needed most: funk. White hired guitarist Al McKay, a rhythm guitarist who played his instrument like a drum. The funk was found. From 1971 to 1983, Earth, Wind & Fire progressed from a significant band on Black radio to one that took over the world. From 1975 to 1981, the band became a massive presence on R&B and pop stations. They were seemingly everywhere.

Questlove’s remarkably efficient and adept film traces the course of the band’s uncertain beginnings through their ‘70s run as a stadium-filling act, to their ‘80s decline, and ‘90s comeback as a concert attraction. What the filmmaker reveals is a breathtaking level of musical accomplishment, mass appeal, and the longstanding significance and influence of a band that has been far too easily thought of as nostalgic hitmakers. 

Through talking heads like Anderson Paak, Lionel Richie, Booker T. Jones, H.E.R., Flea, journalist Michael Harriot, Jimmy Jam, and Stevie Wonder, Questlove reveals the band’s influence on other artists across the spectrum, from funk rock and R&B to punk rock and hip-hop. The importance of Earth, Wind, & Fire hits you like a slap in the face. As if to say, “How in the hell do you not know how important they were?” I know. I felt the slap. 

The band was sophisticated and accessible. Funky but pop. Smooth and gritty. Spacey and immediate. They were a jam band that could really jam. To watch Questlove’s film is to feel the exhilaration of discovery, and in my case, rediscovery. It also places in historical context the importance of Maurice White. He was a superstar that few knew by name. A man so shy and soft spoken that, when he was drumming for Ramsey Lewis, he positioned his symbols to make himself invisible to the audience (and the audience invisible to him), and then somehow became the frontman of one of the most theatrical and explosive live bands in the history of popular music. 

As with most geniuses and visionaries, White presents as a very complicated figure. A man who believed in the collective, but who allowed his bandmates less and less input over the years. A man who loved one woman so much that he committed his life to her, and expected her to stand in acceptance of his creation of children outside of their partnership. A man who struggled to find a musical direction in the ‘80s when drum machines and synthesizers replaced live instrumentation. A man who rose, fell, and then rose again, and despite his artistic and personal failures, is remembered fondly by those he harmed and disappointed. 

As highly as Stevie, Sly, Marvin, James Brown, George Clinton, Michael Jackson, and Prince are viewed, so should White be viewed. For all his faults, White is among the greatest songwriters, producers, musicians, band leaders, and visionaries to walk the Earth, give life to the Wind, and breathe the Fire that ever existed. 

Earth, Wind, & Fire (To be Celestial vs. That’s the Way of the World) sets the record straight. And it does so in spectacular fashion. During the film, that scent of powdered detergent came back to me. Like the film, I fully embraced the aromatics.

Ba-dee-ya, dancin’ in September
Ba-dee-ya, never was a cloudy day

Earth, Wind, & Fire (To be Celestial vs. That’s the Way of the World) is streaming now on HBOMAX