Earth, Wind and Fire: Synchronicity
This is a post that disappeared during a hack attack of my site, so here it is for the new folks that have made their way here. I’ve updated a few things, but all the salient points remain the same. 
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Weird stuff happens. Events, years apart, form odd synchronicities. With me, music is almost always involved.
A couple of years ago, a friend and musical colleague, Valerie Davis, arranged for my husband and me to attend an Earth, Wind and Fire concert in Denver, where we were visiting another major league baseball park and celebrating my hubby’s birthday. Valerie was the girlfriend (now wife) of Philip Bailey, who has been one of the central members of the band since the 1970s. Philip was exceptionally gracious and met with us after the amazing show that was a charity event for a hospital in Denver, and I never could really think of a proper way to thank them both for such a magical night.
It occurred to me that despite the many years of loving their music, I had never seen EWF in concert until that night in Colorado. During their heyday, I was singing in the U.S. and around the world (albeit on a much more modest level than EWF), and missed all sorts of concerts, sporting events, TV shows and such because I was working every night in some club, arena or other venue doing dinner theatre or singing with some cover band or as a backup singer for various artists and groups.
But everywhere I went, and throughout my professional career, EWF’s music was a huge part of my life. I just hadn’t put all the pieces together until recently, when I was listening to “The Best of Earth, Wind and Fire, Vol. 1” CD and with every song, memories kept popping up from years past…
One of my early professional recording gigs was near the end of my dinner theatre days, and was for a stereo commercial and “industrial” that used “Fantasy” as the theme. The folks at the company put together lyrics that touted their speakers and had something to do with winning a trip, promising “golden days and golden nights”, and telling all to “let your wildest dreams take flight”.
(An industrial was when a corporation/company would have an event and then hire musicians to record various songs with event-specific lyrics. Sometimes we’d also perform portions of it live at the event, but most of the stuff I did was strictly recorded, since there were usually TV and/or radio ads also attached to the project that had been extracted from the recordings.)
It was exciting to be in a real studio, and even more so, because we were singing to the great EWF music. It was just two of us singing—me and the late Danni Nanny (who had the voice of an angel and the sweet face to match, although he had a wickedly funny sense of humor). We did bunches of overdubs on all the session work we did, and that was in the days when everything was recorded onto 4-inch tape and tracks were precious commodities (24 was often the max in such situations). You’d record a few tracks that were then were “bumped down” to one track, then we would repeat the process. The late Al Walker was the arranger and producer for many of the sessions we recorded, and it was a special time for me. EWF was there for that session, and two more for other ads and industrials (or whatever they call ‘em now): one that used “Boogie Wonderland” and another which was a play on “That’s the Way of the World”.
Fast forward to me dancing around my living room to my exercise “mix” tape. (For those too young to remember life before iPods, mix tapes were compilations of the songs we liked in the order we wanted to hear them. We usually put a small tape recorder up to the speaker, recorded the songs from our various records [yep, vinyl] and voila! Such was the unsophisticated tech of the pre-CD days for the masses.)
As always, my exercises began with EWF’s version of the Beatles’ “Got to Get You Into My Life”. It is, by far, one of the best covers of any Beatles song ever done (at least in my opinion). It always got me moving and still makes me happy every time I hear it. I finger-snap about as well as I whistle (badly), but I can’t help myself when I hear the first strains of the introduction.
This day, just after my workout (which ended with “September”), I was sitting at my piano, singing and working on some new songs I was writing, when I heard a knock at the door. It was a tall, skinny fellow I’d seen a number of times visiting someone in my apartment building in Hollywood, and he completely blew me away when he said “I’ve heard you singing when I walk up the stairs and was wondering if you wanted to be in a band… Oh, and can you find me another girl for the group, too?”
It beat the heck outta auditioning. I found another gal to add to the modest four-piece band, and I ended up working with them for several years. Go figure.
Anyway, Michael Rorah was the very talented keyboard player/singer and leader of the group, the band was called Starburst (I always made fun of the name, and said we were a burst of musical fruit flavor), and we had to do every kind of music—from light jazz to pop; funk to disco; R&B to rock. One place we played at regularly was called Oscar’s, and it was a revolving restaurant atop the old Holiday Inn near Hollywood & Highland (it became the Renaissance Hotel, and has now been taken over by Loews). First set was usually light pop and jazz while folks were dining; second set picked up the pace a little; by third set it was dancing and disco (argh); fourth set was more dancing and whatever Top 40 drivel was popular; by fifth set we could do whatever we wanted, and it was usually R&B, funk and rock. “September” was one of our staples in the later sets. Michael is still happily playing music in Florida, and it was quite a treat to reconnect via social media. It also sort of ties in with the whole musical synchronicity theme here because of the following connection…
What made Oscar’s interesting (besides the fact that it revolved and moving from the dance floor/stage area to the restaurant/bar area was like coming off a slow-moving carousel) is that by the fourth and fifth sets, various musicians in town to record or perform would drop in for a drink, and often would sit in with us. Guitar players, a blues harp playing limo driver, some of Rick James’s band members, horn players of all varieties, singers in every genre—you name it, they came to Oscar’s, and since we were the sort of on-again-off-again house band, we backed up some pretty talented people, famous and non.
We caught the ears of one group when we did “September” midway through our fourth set one night. Seems that these guys were in town to record their debut album, and were itching to cut loose a little. That group was Kinsman Dazz (before they became The Dazz Band with their hit, “Let It Whip”). They sat in with us, singing and playing percussion, and I think Bobby even graced us with some very funky/jazzy sax late in the eve. They became regular visitors during their stay and were always a lot of fun. One of the guys also seemed to have a little crush on the other girl in our group—although I don’t recall anything coming of it. We’d do all sorts of tunes with them, but I remember one of the guys, Kenny, would sing Stevie Wonder songs and he sounded so remarkably like Stevie that audience members were swearing they’d heard “Stevie Wonder at Oscar’s”. It always gave us a chuckle. And who produced their first record? That would be Philip Bailey, who also had major input on the vocal arrangements for the group.
Over the years I’d hear EWF songs done by many other artists, and my mind would always go to the different times, places and groups I’d sung with, and the events that went with the memories of the songs. In the mid-1980s, I traveled to S.E. Asia on a tour with my own three-girl group, and while Lionel Richie seemed to dominate the airwaves (and bootleg cassette tapes), the duet Philip did with Phil Collins, “Easy Lover”, was everywhere. It was an ubiquitous presence around town, covered by all the house bands. “Sing a Song” was a favorite of one of the bands we played with there, and whenever we hit the clubs after our shows, the most played dance tunes were Richie’s “All Night Long” and EWF’s “Boogie Wonderland”.
Years later I was to meet my future producer, Barry Coffing, when we both had been hired by a really bad rock group. He was playing keyboards, and my writing and singing partner (Ramona Jane Hunt) and I had been hired to sing backups. They paid well, but their songs more than kinda sucked and the lead singer had a serious drinking problem (which she later conquered, thank goodness, and brava to her). From what some would call a chance meeting, came a new chapter in my professional life, and one that opened the door for another “chance” meeting.
Down the road, Barry opened a club on Melrose called 56 West. Lots of great artists performed there nightly, and a few nights a week, we’d have what we called a “Pro Players Jam”. Like Oscar’s before, it became a late-night spot for talented musicians to come sit in with the regular house band. In between serving non-alcoholic drinks, baked goods and sandwiches, we’d all go up on stage to play and sing with whoever was there. You never knew who would come in the doors and saunter onto the stage, and there were some big names and talents who loved to hang out with us.
One song we did stands out in my mind, and yet again, it is one of EWF’s: “Shining Star”. Every time I hear the song, I also can hear Larry Antonino’s funky, slapping bass licks and Barry growling out, “make your body big and strong, oh, yeah”, and remember how much fun it was to sing with Julie Chadwick the breakdown at the end: “Shining star for you to see, what your life can truly be.”
Eventually I met Valerie through Barry, because he produced both of our debut solo CDs. We performed together on a “Movie and Music Tour” in Texas, along with Herman Matthews and Deon Estus and a lot of other fine musicians. It was sort of a commercial bust, but we had fun, and there was forged another link in the synchronicity chain. Valerie and I don’t hang out much, but she took a very special place in my heart after that tour. She’s a warm, loving person who thinks about others and offers whatever is in her power to give.
So there we were in Denver, watching a band I’d spent much of my adult and professional life wanting to see “live and in person”. They were great, the cause was worthy, and while the altitude had kicked my behind, it was a wonderful evening. Philip was kind and gracious after what I’m sure was a long day and night, and the connection was brought to full circle.
So you never know how many little ties bind us together—even when one of the parties has no idea of the impact they are creating by what they do, who they are and the talents they share.
I’m just so very grateful that I’m now able to fully voice my “Thank you” in a very public way that lets two people know how much their kindness and generosity meant to me—the connection it completed, and the special place they will always have in my heart.
Music is magical, isn’t it?
Yours truly with Philip Bailey© 2013 • Gael MacGregor •
Gael MacGregor is a Los Angeles-based music supervisor, musician, songwriter, author and advocate for strong intellectual property rights for all content creators.
