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EARTH, WIND & FIRE'S ALIVE IN ’75!
CHRONICLES THEIR LANDMARK U.S. ARENA TOUR
FROM PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TAPES

#1 success of "Shining Star" led the way, featured alongside "Mighty Mighty," "Sun Goddess" (with guest Ramsey Lewis), plus first-ever live releases of "That’s the Way Of the World," "Kalimba Story," "Evil," and more

Liner notes written by David Ritz highlight historic release, in-store April 23rd

"When you hear the audience response on ALIVE IN ’75, you understand that our performances were viewed in a different light than your standard show. They became communal events, a bonding ritual in which the audience became the featured performer while we narrated the story of their romantic and spiritual aspirations. The bonding between the band and our fans was a phenomenon that blew me away. It meant that our energies were in sync. It created the kind of give-and-take dialogue that had us high on nothing but pure inspiration."

—Maurice White, founder of Earth, Wind & Fire,
from the liner notes written by David Ritz

After being "buried in the vaults" (writes David Ritz) for more than a quarter-century, the live multi-track tapes of Earth, Wind & Fire’s breakthrough mid-1975 tour have been unearthed and digitally mastered for the first time as THAT’S THE WAY OF THE WORLD: ALIVE IN ’75. The new album is set for April 23rd in-store date as part of the Rhythm & Soul Series on Columbia/Legacy, a division of Sony Music.

EW&F’s groundbreaking pop fusion of bluesy, soulful jazz and R&B spiced with funk, Latin rhythms, African folklore, and Western classical nuances first won widespread crossover acceptance with "Shining Star" in 1975 and broke them wide open during the explosive four years that followed. The mix is heard at full throttle on an entire program of previously unreleased performances recorded in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, New York, and Baltimore that May. Among the many highlights – including live versions of "Shining Star," "Mighty Mighty," "Sun Goddess" (featuring special guest soloist Ramsey Lewis),"Yearnin’ Learnin’," and "Reasons," – are first-time-ever live versions of "That’s the Way Of the World," "Kalimba Story," "Evil," and "Happy Feelin’."

THAT’S THE WAY OF THE WORLD: ALIVE IN ’75 continues the "illumination" of Earth, Wind & Fire’s contributions, which have affected every strain of Urban-savvy popular music to come and go during the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s and beyond. The concerts that comprise the album were originally recorded by long-time EW&F engineer George Massenburg. For this release the music was mixed at Maurice White’s Magnet Vision Studios in Santa Monica (home of EW&F management and Kalimba Records) under the personal supervision of White and Paul Klingberg, his engineering associate for the last decade. The album was produced by Maurice White, Paul Klingberg and Leo Sacks, who is now in his seventh year of supervising the Legacy Recordings Rhythm & Soul Series.

Distinguishing ALIVE IN ’75 are newly-commissioned liner notes written by David Ritz, award-winning biographer of Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Jerry Wexler, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King and others. Ritz, who penned notes in 2000 for the Rhythm & Soul Series expanded editions of Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing and Bill Withers' Greatest Hits, obtained exclusive interviews with brothers Maurice and Verdine White as background for his latest assignment. "African-American music," Ritz observes, "is a music whose rhythms and rhymes pulsate with the oldest cultural news and, at the same time, the most current. In the 1970s, EW&F refined the music’s past even as it redefined its future. EW&F was – and remains – a miracle."

Three years ago, Legacy’s Rhythm & Soul Series took the lead in breathing new life into that miraculous catalog of recordings by Earth, Wind & Fire on Columbia – the source of their great body of work from 1972 to 1990. This restoration campaign, supervised by Maurice White and Leo Sacks, began with four expanded editions released in July 1999: 1975’s original motion picture soundtrack LP That’s The Way Of The World; Gratitude, also released in 1975; 1977’s All ’n All (featuring "Serpentine Fire" and "Fantasy"); and The Best Of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1, first compiled in 1978. In May 2000, the Rhythm & Soul Series issued an expanded edition of the 1988 collection, The Best Of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 2.

The influence that Earth, Wind & Fire would forever wield – musical and cultural – took root that spring of 1975, the heady season when "Shining Star" first brought them to the coveted #1 spot on the pop and R&B charts after six years of refining their craft. The song, leadoff single from That’s the Way Of the World, propelled the album to #1 pop and #1 R&B as well. (That’s the Way Of the World, the movie, was a steamy cult classic exploiting music-biz sleaze, starring Harvey Keitel, Ed Nelson and the members of EW&F, with cameos by New York DJs Murray the K and Frankie Crocker. Produced and directed by Sig Shore, of Superfly renown, with a script by Robert Lipsyte – who wrote the liner notes to the Columbia/Legacy album reissue in 1999 – the film has been re-titled Shining Star and showed up on home video also in 1999.)

At least one result of this new-found crossover acceptance was the group’s graduation from the college concert circuit to major arenas. "Suddenly," Maurice White told Ritz, "the amalgamation of stretched-out jazz and joyous funk was working wonders. As the genres came together, so did the crowds, young and old, black, brown and white." For Earth, Wind & Fire, it marked the beginning of a dynasty that thrives in the studio and on the road to this day.

THAT’S THE WAY OF THE WORLD: ALIVE IN ’75 by EARTH, WIND & FIRE (CK 85805) Selections: 1. Overture (B) • 2. Shining Star (D) • 3. Happy Feelin’ (A) • 4. Yearnin’ Learnin’ (C) • 5. Sun Goddess (featuring special guest soloist Ramsey Lewis) (C) • 6. Interlude (B) • 7. Evil (C) • 8. Kalimba Story (C) • 9. Reasons (D) • 10. Mighty Mighty (D) • 11. That’s the Way Of the World (C).

Key: (A) recorded May 10, 1975, Civic Arena, Pittsburgh, PA

(B) recorded May 18, 1975, Omni, Atlanta, GA

(D) recorded May 24, 1975, Civic Center, Baltimore, MD

For further information on the EARTH, WIND & FIRE
live disc please contact:
LegacyMediaRelations@sonymusic.com

For interview requests, or any other information on EW&F, contact:
GREAT SCOTT P.R.
greatscottpr@pacificnet.net