Earth, Wind & Fire drummer Fred White dies at 67

Fred White, the drum­mer who accom­pa­nied broth­ers Mau­rice and Ver­dine White in the Gram­my Award-win­ning band Earth, Wind & Fire, has died. 67 years old.

The band’s vocal­ist, per­cus­sion­ist and bassist Ver­dine White post­ed on his Insta­gram account on Sun­day that his broth­er Fred­er­ick Eugene “Fred­die” White had passed away. He did not say where or how his broth­er died.

Earth, Wind & Fire was found­ed in 1970 under the guid­ance of Mau­rice White, cre­at­ing a band capa­ble of fus­ing ele­ments of jazz, funk, R&B, soul, dance, pop and rock, bring­ing African musi­cal­i­ty and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty to life.

It start­ed with prais­ing. He gained pop­u­lar­i­ty with the Phoenix Horns of the horn sec­tion and ener­getic live per­for­mances, and was signed to Colum­bia Records, which was man­aged by Clive Davis at the time.

Before join­ing Earth, Wind & Fire in the mid-1970s, Fred White was an accom­plished drum­mer, play­ing for Don­nie Hathaway.

Togeth­er with drum­mer and per­cus­sion­ist Ralph John­son, the tight, upbeat rhythm sec­tion paved the way for songs like “Boo­gie Won­der­land” and “Sep­tem­ber” to become instant favourites.

Ver­dine White was such a tal­ent­ed child musi­cian that his younger broth­er Fred said, “At the age of 16, he released a gold record!” Fred White remained with the band until 1983.

But more than that, at home and away, he always enter­tained me, and he was a won­der­ful and play­ful old­er broth­er! ”. And we’ve always count­ed on him to bright­en up a seem­ing­ly bad sit­u­a­tion,” White wrote.

Some of the band’s biggest hits are still huge­ly pop­u­lar, often sam­pled and used in count­less movies. He was induct­ed into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, per­formed at the 2005 Super Bowl half­time show, and won six Gram­my Awards.

The Bea­t­les’ ver­sion of “Got to Get You Into My Life” was fea­tured on Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma’s first Spo­ti­fy playlist.

The band’s most suc­cess­ful peri­od began with the 1975 album That’s The Way of The World and con­tin­ued for the next decade. Oth­er hits includ­ed “Ser­pen­tine Fire,” “Shin­ing Star,” and “After the Love Has Gone.”

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