I mourn Maurice White’s passing today. As much as I love Earth Wind And Fire, I want to highlight this song from his solo album.

As frequent readers know, my contempt for ‘covers’ is almost as great as that of movie sequels. But for me, this thing is like The Godfather II of covers. It has everything I like about music from the 80’s. Great playing, singing, arrangement. Everything. It’s almost ‘prog’ in its sophistication and power. In fact, I often use it as a reference track for my own mixes. (One of my goals in life is to mix a song almost as good as this.)

If the sky and the mountains crumbled to the sea. I’ll be there so long as you stand by me.

“If the sky and the mountains crumbled to the sea. I’ll be there so long as you stand by me.”

If that doesn’t scream ‘prog’ to you? You’re not listening.

And forgive me if I gush especially about Maurice’s singing, which was just about the most expressive I ever heard. Yeah, the ladies always lost their minds (and underwear) over Philip Bailey, but for me Maurice was the business.

Yeah, I can heartily recommend checking out White’s older material–his early drumming especially. But the guy was one of those guys who was simply too talented to stay behind the kit.