All N' All

Earth Wind & Fire

album cover

A Long-Player Every Bit as Intense as the Group's Singles

Easily the most intense three minutes ever committed to tape by '70s hit-makers Earth Wind & Fire is "Sing a Song," the tightly wound but never fully erupting essay in funk lavishness that was a hit single from the band's 1975 album, Gratitude. Next on the list might be "Reasons," the ballad showcase for the skyscraping falsetto of vocalist Philip Bailey from That's the Way of the World, which was also released in '75. In the time-compressed short-hand of pop, those are the must-have moments.

But they're not the whole story. At the time of these successes, the Memphis-based band, led by drummer, producer, and part-time mystic Maurice White, was attempting to move beyond singles. All 'n' All, which came out in 1977, was EWF's first and best attempt at developing a wholly satisfying album experience, a cycle in which every song mattered. The unifying thread was Brazilian rhythm. "We'd been hanging out for a month in Argentina and Brazil, especially Rio," White recalled in the liner notes. "Man, we heard stuff that blew our minds, opened our heads up wide. I wanted some of it in our music." After studying the progressive funk of Banda Black Rio and the arty songs of Milton Nascimento, White and his core group wrote pieces that embraced undulating samba and chants heard at Carnaval, and integrated elements of Brazilian rhythm into the EWF lockstep funk. The wordless vocal "Runnin"' with its ba-bee-da-boo-whees, turned up on jazz radio, and several album tracks, including the jittery "Jupiter," were easily catchy enough to follow the high-gloss "Serpentine Fire" onto the radio.

White connected the tunes with a series of interludes built on the African thumb piano known as kalimba and street percussion; one, "Brazilian Rhyme," was based on a Nascimento song. Though brief, these pieces unified the album, and gave it a cosmopolitan sound that, like the music that inspired it, opened heads up wide.

Genre: R&B
Released: 1977, Columbia
Key Tracks: "Serpentine Fire," "Runnin'," "Magic Mind," "I'll Write a Song for You."
Catalog Choice: The Best of Earth Wind & Fire, Vol. 1.
Next Stop: George Duke: A Brazilian Love Affair
After That: Kool and the Gang: Live at the Sex Machine
Book Pages: 250–251