Do you remember the night of September 21st? Well, Earth, Wind & Fire wasn’t before the hit song was made.
The late songwriter Allee Willis, who worked on the group’s final song “September,” made it known before her death that the famous date had no significance for the group prior to the song’s creation. Now, Earth, Wind & Fire frontmen Verdine White, Philip Bailey and Ralph Johnson tell PEOPLE they “couldn’t have put together” the success of the feel-good song they created about the random date “together in their own heads” when the song was created almost half a century ago.
“We wouldn’t have thought of that,” Bailey adds during a Zoom call in the middle of Heart & Soul’s Earth, Wind & Fire tour with Chicago. ” ‘I have an idea. Let’s have a song that’s as popular for 50 years, more than 50 years as it was when it first came out. It’s actually more popular now.’ Exactly, no, we’re just very proud to get that song.”
Verdine White (left), Ralph Johnson and Philip Bailey in Phoenix in June 2023.
John Medina/Getty
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Continuing, Bailey, who designed the group’s current live show structure that they’re touring with in Chicago, said, “And every September. I mean, we got city keys in September to a few different cities and stuff in September.”
“If you don’t know Earth, Wind & Fire in September, you will,” he adds, laughing.
“The whole moon belongs to us,” White chimes in, and Johnson adds, “Yes, it’s our moon.”
Despite the welcome attention their song has brought to an otherwise regular day of the year, Bailey stresses that the group “really isn’t doing anything special” in honor of the day.
“We don’t really plan to celebrate that day or anything because the world celebrates it, so we just sit and watch,” he explains, calling it “a pretty natural day.”
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White echoes that sentiment, noting that “people want kids born on September 21st, get married. There’s a lot of stuff going on.”
The years of performing the song also don’t weigh on the musicians, as Johnson points out: “We have fun every night, just so you know, we go on stage every night, every single one of us wants to hit a personal best and every single one of us, and we take it very seriously.”
“We’re lucky to have a catalog of songs that we work with because it allows us to go in a lot of different directions while he puts the show together,” he adds.
Heart & Soul’s Earth, Wind & Fire tour with Chicago will continue through September 14th, concluding with a performance at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ. The group will then take their talents to Las Vegas, performing a series of shows at The Venetian Theater from October 9th to October 19th.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education