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 publish 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 right now with the lack of an incredible and gifted 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 few 12 months and a half earlier than they obtained all the way down to pencil dimension,” he later recalled to Fashionable Drummer. “Actually, what occurred was, I used to sit down down and watch myself follow and the motion of the sticks virtually hypnotized me. It turned one thing I wished to proceed doing.”
By the point he was a young person, Fred, who modified his final identify to match Maurice’s, was taking part in in native golf equipment. He additionally appeared on a number of basic 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 12 months in 1975: That is the Means of the World, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and included the No. 1 hit “Shining Star.”
Hearken 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 offered a rock-solid tempo and a rock-solid really feel, priceless qualities in a drummer. He was top-of-the-line issues going for us.”
In 1978, the band’s best-known music, “September,” rose to the highest of the charts: No. 1 on the Billboard Sizzling Soul Songs rating, No. 8 on the predominant 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 12 months, 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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