Let’s discuss Earth, Wind, & Fire.

They were a good band.  I don’t think anyone in the universe disagrees with that statement.  Maurice White and company presented us with nothing but the most radiant grooves and positive vibes throughout the seventies.  After a few minor R&B hits such as “Kalimba Story” in the first half of the decade, the band broke through with That’s The Way Of The World in 1975, providing us with both their best funk jam “Shining Star” and their best R&B song “That’s The Way Of The World.”  While I don’t particularly love their hits outside of these two songs, they were a band that could seemingly do no wrong.  I mean, they were the one band that escaped the disastrous Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie completely unscathed, performing a cover of “Got To Get You Into My Life” that may actually be better than the original.  Yes, I said it.

With all that said, 1977 was an off year for the group, as this was the one year between 1975 and the end of the decade where they didn’t have a hit record.  Their only song of note during the Billboard year was “Saturday Nite,” a minor success that is a solid song but is probably most notable for the band laughing maniacally at the end of the track due to someone saying, “Oh, I SMELL somethin’!”  Did EW&F seriously drop a fart joke at the end of one of their singles? 

But then again, it was probably out of necessity, as the band suffered an unexpected tragedy the previous year when Charles Stepney, their co-producer along with White, died at the age of 45.  With that, the band retreated until their release of All N’ All at the end of the year.  But my statement was only partially correct, as Earth, Wind, & Fire did have two hits this year, albeit for different artists.  The first was “Free” by Deniece Williams, a song that failed to make the Billboard year-end but scraped onto the Cashbox year-end despite failing to reach the Top 20.  It is one of two songs that defined the 1977 project for me, as there was a time where I heard this and the other song approximately 20,342 times in two weeks while preparing my best list and track order (the other was “Calling Dr. Love” by KISS).   Anyway, the song was produced by Maurice White and Charles Stepney (in one of Stepney’s last albums before his death), and featured EW&F members Maurice, Verdine, and Fred White, as well as Al McKay as session musicians.

“Free” is a great song.  I wish I had more time to discuss it today, but Williams is a gifted and amazing vocalist, and the hypnotic mellow groove from White and company made it quite possibly the best R&B slow jam of the year.  And yet it wasn’t even the best song Earth, Wind, & Fire were involved with in 1977.  After Stepney’s death, White got to work with producing a group of sisters’ breakthrough album, which included-

YOOOOOOO!!!!  RAPPER DR. WIN HERE!!!!  AND TODAY WE’RE BRINGING UP ONE OF THE HARDEST SONGS THE NINETIES EVER PUT DOWN, SON!

“My Baby Daddy” – B-Rock & The Bizz

#10 peak
#68 year-end

Yeeeeesssss!!!!  B-Rock and the Bizz put down one of the most gangsta songs ever!  It’s so funny and so informative on the topic of relationships!  Let’s check out that dope chorus, bro!

Who that is? (That’s just my baby daddy)
Who that is?  (That’s just my baby dad)
Who that is? (That’s just my baby daddy)
Who that is?  (That’s just my baby dad)

(record scratch)

Yeah, that’s great, gangsta me.  Get off my show.

“What?  I’m bringing up a sick song your boys Earth, Wind, and Fire did!”

That’s a song that horrifically sampled my next song, and it’s one of the worst songs of the entire nineties.  Seriously, “Barbie Girl” has more redeeming qualities!

“Fine!  Rap battle decides who continues!”

I shot five people today and buried them here
I… had sex with your great-aunt here

Thank you.  Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah…

“Best Of My Love” – The Emotions

#1 peak (August 20 – September 10, September 24, 1977)
#3 year-end, 23 weeks on chart (21 in 1977)

Adding to the vast irony that 1977’s best R&B hit song was a ballad by a musician considered by most to be excessively boring, 1977’s best disco song was co-written and produced by members of a band that generally tried to avoid disco.  But no matter.  When I started this project, I liked this song, but figured it would be an honorable mention since it isn’t generally one of those songs considered the apex of disco.  But when I started finalizing the list, it finally came together for me: I love this song.  And the fact that “Best Of My Love” is so positive, so uplifting, so glorious… is why I love it so much.

Much like Marvin Gaye, Earth, Wind, & Fire may have had songs that were considered disco, but they were never truly a disco group.  They were funk, with a slower tempo than the disco songs of the age and more treble going on with their songs than the average disco track, with Al McKay’s guitar and that awesome horn section.  Other than “Boogie Wonderland” (which was, what a surprise, the other hit song involving The Emotions), I don’t consider any of their hits disco.  So what’s so different about “Best Of My Love?”

Well, I think it starts off with that beat.  Like I said, part of the reason Earth, Wind, and Fire stand out as a funk group and not as a disco group, is because their song tempos didn’t match that of disco.  Disco’s ideal tempo was approximately 120 bpm, but “Shining Star” is 103 bpm, and many of their other songs before Saturday Night Fever failed to hit the ideal disco tempo.  On “Best Of My Love,” the tempo is 115 bpm: Still slower than typical disco, but much closer to the ideal measure we are striving for when considering what constitutes a disco song.  Of course, Earth, Wind & Fire would reverse this trend after the success of this song, with “Got To Get You Into My Life,” “September,” and “Boogie Wonderland” all going faster than 120 bpm.  Additionally, in the first half of their hitmaking careers, their more bass-heavy tracks were their ballads like “That’s The Way Of The World,” “Can’t Hide Love,” or if I can discuss songs they produced, “Free.”  (I’m always thinking about “Free.”)  The upbeat tracks belonged to the guitar, horns, and keyboards.  But “Best Of My Love” features a prominent bass line from EW&F bassist Verdine White that underscores Clarence McDonald’s piano and clavinet.  And it is all wonderful.  McDonald’s piano and Verdine’s bass are so bright and bouncy that, combined with the more middle-of-the-road tempo, we all want to get up and start dancing to this jam.  The song uses the same F-C-Dm-C chord progression for almost the entire song, until we switch up the chords to the A flat-Am sequence in the primarily orchestral bridge, but it’s no matter.  It sounds like it could go on forever.  And then when the strings come in, it’s disco at its best: the strings and horns sound so majestic and commanding, that it fits in perfectly with the song’s declaration of love.  And on that note, I’ve spent so much time discussing Earth, Wind & Fire on this segment, that I almost forgot to highlight our main performers.

The Emotions were a group of the four Hutchinson sisters: Wanda, Sheila, Pamela, and Jeanette, from Chicago.  They got their start as kids, as a traveling gospel choir called the Hutchinson Sunbeams.  After two albums went nowhere and their third album was shelved and never released, the group signed to Columbia with Maurice White and Charles Stepney as producers.  After the minor success of their first album with them, Flowers, in 1976, the group finally hit the mainstream with this song. 

And as their vocal performance demonstrates, it was well deserved.  The Emotions’s background as a gospel act really shows on “Best Of My Love,” particularly when they harmonize.  The most typical and opulent required great vocalists to match the sonic excess of the records, and the Hutchinson sisters more than qualified with their buoyant voices.  Especially in the bridge, where the harmonies slowly rise from the ascending “Doot-dos” to the dramatic “My love!  My love!” at the conclusion of the run.  But best of all is Wanda, the Hutchinson sister who sings lead on the track.  She just knocks it out of the park with her impassioned and keening vocal performance, which just slowly builds momentum throughout the song.  In the third verse, Wanda hits a new level with her falsetto at the beginning of the verse, as if her love has become the most profound thing she’s ever experienced.  Then when we get to the pre-chorus, Wanda’s voice just keeps rising and rising next to the Emotions’s harmonies, as it dramatically builds to that final “Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh!”  It’s among the greatest vocal moments of the year.  Yes, it beats out the other Emotions’s “OWWW!” a few moments later.  “Best Of My Love” just tops itself with moment after moment of powerful singing.  And it’s the perfect description of unconditional love.

Goin’ in and out of changes
The kind that come around each day
My life has a better meaning
Love has kissed me in a beautiful way

Who wouldn’t want to burst out and sing like this after they’ve found their special someone?  With “Best Of My Love,” it isn’t so much about the lyrics as it is about, well, the emotions.  I love this song because it’s nothing but radiant positivity for four minutes.  It’s impossible to listen to without dancing, and it’s impossible to listen to without admiring The Emotions’s vocal capabilities.  Add to that the fact that this song saved us from having to deal with The Floaters’s “Float On” and Rita Coolidge’s cover version of “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher And Higher” in the top slot during its five week run at number one, and the cathartic feeling just grows.  It’s easy to see why this song has been endlessly sampled since its release, and listening to this song, it’s hard to explain why The Emotions were unable to score another hit song outside their guest feature on “Boogie Wonderland,” because the talent was certainly there.  There’s just one bad thing about the song that isn’t even The Emotions or EW&F’s fault… it got sampled in that godawful “My Baby Daddy” song 20 years later, which in turn made “Best Of My Love” harder to hear without also thinking about domestic disputes being played for light-hearted laughs.  But you know what, I won’t let it bother me.  For one brief shining moment, The Emotions proved to all of us what great disco vocals sound like.  And nothing can take away from that.

UP NEXT: Probably the most iconic song of the entire year at #3.

SOURCES

BPM for “Best Of My Love,” “Shining Star,” et. al from SongBPM: https://songbpm.com/searches/7dc3977a-a028-4119-b3c4-8a58f7b33441.

Rockwell, John. “An ‘Emotional’ Success Story.” New York Times 21 August 1977. Web. 7 August 2022 https://www.nytimes.com/1977/08/21/archives/an-emotional-success-story.html.

Unterberger, Richie. “The Emotions: Songs Of Innocence and Experience.” AllMusic 2022. Web. 7 August 2022 https://www.allmusic.com/album/songs-of-innocence-and-experience-mw0000340007.

Chords taken from Ultimate Guitar: https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/the-emotions/best-of-my-love-chords-1765222.

IMAGE SOURCES

Image of Earth, Wind & Fire from Naples Daily News

Single cover of “My Baby Daddy” from Discogs

Single cover from Stereogum

Image of The Emotions from BBC