Earth,Wind & Fire stand test of time

• Reprints

Earth, Wind and Fire headlined Ravinia (above) last year. The group returns to Chicago on Wednesday. | Shauna Bittle ~ FOR sUN-tIMES mEDIA

Updated: October 29, 2011 12:36AM

Earth, Wind and Fire took its name from elemental qualities.

And it was the elements of thunder, wind and and lightning that forced cancellation of the Chicago-born band’s June 21 concert at the Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island. The concert is scheduled for a re-do at 8 p.m. July 27. (Tickets for last month’s concert will be honored.)

Brothers Maurice and Verdine White formed the band in 1969 in the basement of their parents’ South Shore home. Songwriter-drummer Maurice White stopped touring with EWF in the 1990s due to Parkinson’s Disease. He does, however, retain executive control of the band.

“Maurice has been good,” Verdine said last week in a phone conversation from his Los Angeles home. “He listened to our upcoming album (due out in 2012) and our live album recorded last September with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. He made notes and suggestions.”

The White brothers and lead singer Philip Bailey developed the EWF deep dish of pop, soul, African and Latin-American influences. Maurice White brought the kalimba (African thumb piano) into play, and for a while the roaring EWF horn section included the late Louis Satterfield, the legendary Chess Records session trombonist and bassist as well as member of Philip Cohran’s Artistic Heritage Ensemble.

“Louis was the bass player and Maurice was the drummer on all those popular records,” said White, who turned 60 on July 25, and is the group’s show-stopper, running around the stage while locking into low notes. “It was a great observation for me as a kid. I learned everything about bass guitar from Louis. He worked with me for a number of years. Sound, concept, music history from another level.”

Verdine White Sr. was a Chicago doctor who also played saxophone.

“He dug where we were coming from,” his son said. “He was so supportive of his children getting into the music business. As a matter of fact I was at my sister’s the other night and we were talking about all the noise we made in the basement in Chicago when we were coming up.”

The Whites’ early years were spent in the Henry Horner Projects near the old Chicago Stadum. The family later moved to a big house with a big basement in the South Shore neighborhood. White said all nine of his siblings are still alive, and he is in his 26th year of his marriage to Shelly Clark of the ’70s soul group Honey Cone (“Want Ads,” “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show”). He recalled, “Our drummer Ralph Johnson introduced me to her.”

White said EWF will bring “roughly” 10 pieces into Chicago this week. “I don’t count the band,” he said.

EWF came of age when horns dominated Chicago rock ‘n’ roll and soul; at the same time EWF was scaling the charts, the band Chicago was having hits through its high powered horn section. The Boston horn band Chase had a 1971 smash with “Get It On.” The Chicago soul of Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield and Donny Hathaway was peppered by local horn players.

“Chicago was known for commercial jingle work then,” White said. “It was also very diverse musically. Besides horns, there was gospel, the Afro-Arts Theater. Some things fell through the cracks but the horns were very successful. Chicago has a great horn section because it is so distinct. Jimmy Pankow (trombone), Walt (Parazaider, saxophone) and Lee (Loughnane, trumpet). When we went on tour with them (2004, 2005, 2009) it was incredible to put our two horn sections together. Blood Sweat & Tears had a great horn section. Cold Blood out of San Francisco. But people give the city of Chicago a lot of credit because a lot of music came out of there with great horns.”