Earth, Wind & Fireplace drummer Fred White died on Sunday at 67. He performed on hits like “September,” “Shining Star” and “Let’s Groove.”
White’s demise was confirmed in an Instagram put up by his brother, Verdine White, who performed bass within the band alongside their half-brother, singer Maurice White, who died in 2016.
“Our household is saddened at this time with the lack of an incredible and proficient member of the family,” Verdine White wrote. “He joins our brothers Maurice, Monte and Ronald in heaven, and is now drumming with the angels!”
Born in Chicago in 1955, Frederick Eugene Adams started drumming when he was 9 after his brother Monte made him a pair of drumsticks. “I used to be actually delighted by the truth that he had taken the time to make them, so I performed with them for a couple of yr and a half earlier than they obtained all the way down to pencil measurement,” he later recalled to Modern Drummer. “Actually, what occurred was, I used to sit down down and watch myself apply and the motion of the sticks nearly hypnotized me. It grew to become one thing I needed to proceed doing.”
By the point he was a youngster, Fred, who modified his final identify to match Maurice’s, was enjoying in native golf equipment. He additionally appeared on a number of traditional albums within the early ’70s, together with Donny Hathaway’s Extension of a Man (1973) and Little Feat’s Feats Do not Fail Me Now (1974), earlier than becoming a member of his brothers in Earth, Wind & Fireplace shortly after the discharge of their 1974 album, Open Our Eyes. The primary LP from the band to characteristic his contributions arrived the next yr in 1975: That is the Approach of the World, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and included the No. 1 hit “Shining Star.”
Take heed to Earth, Wind & Fireplace’s ‘Shining Star’
When Fred White first joined Earth, Wind & Fireplace, he shared drumming duties with Ralph Johnson, a setup that was later dropped in favor of simply White on drums.
“Fred was the brick wall,” Maurice White wrote in his 2016 memoir, He supplied a rock-solid tempo and a rock-solid really feel, priceless qualities in a drummer. He was probably the greatest issues going for us.”
In 1978, the band’s best-known track, “September,” rose to the highest of the charts: No. 1 on the Billboard Scorching Soul Songs rating, No. 8 on the foremost chart and No. 3 within the U.Okay. The final Earth, Wind & Fireplace album Fred White appeared on was 1983’s Electrical Universe. The band went on hiatus the next yr, and Fred did not return when it reconvened in 1987. He was included when the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame in 2000.
“That household groove basis, it was constructed on Maurice, Verdine and Freddy,” Earth, Wind & Fireplace singer Philip Bailey shared on Twitter following the information of White’s demise. “We by no means needed to say a lot … the groove was within the blood.”
Watch Earth, Wind & Fireplace’s ‘September’ Video
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