Earth, Wind & Fire - Head to the Sky (1973) [Audio Fidelity, Remastered 2016]

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Earth, Wind & Fire - Head to the Sky (1973) [Audio Fidelity, Remastered 2016]

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As phenomenally popular as Earth, Wind & Fire was from the mid-'70s to the early '80s, it's easy to forget that the band was hardly an overnight success. With Head to the Sky – EWF's fourth album overall, second with Philip Bailey, and second for Columbia – Maurice White's very spiritual and ambitious brand of soul and funk was starting to pay off commercially. The Latin-influenced "Evil" became the soulsters' biggest hit up to that point, and material ranging from the hauntingly pretty title song (which boasts one of Bailey's finest performances ever) to the jazz fusion gem "Zanzibar" is just as rewarding. The lineup White unveiled with Last Days and Time was working out beautifully; Bailey was clearly proving to be a major asset. Also worth noting is the presence of singer Jessica Cleaves, who left after this album and, several years later, resurfaced in George Clinton's eccentric female group the Brides of Funkenstein. EWF still had what was basically a cult following, but that was beginning to change with Head to the Sky. And when EWF took off commercially in 1974 and 1975, many new converts went back and saw for themselves just how excellent an album Head to the Sky was.

Review by Alex Henderson, Allmusic.com

A dream last week: I was walking through a crowded marketplace in a city that seemed to be Paris although I've never been there. I was singing to myself and everyone I passed was singing the same song, softly to themselves. It was "The World's a Masquerade" from the Earth, Wind & Fire album, especially the repeated final lines, "The world's a masquerade/ Can the whole world be lying?" I thought to myself, "That must be a very popular song," and then the dream moved on to other things. What does it mean, doctor? Was the dream doubling back on itself, the song commenting on its own apparent popularity? Can the whole world be lying?

Been having a lot of music dreams lately but this one's not too surprising since I've been playing the Earth, Wind & Fire album pretty constantly for the past week, certainly beyond all expectations. With a cover like this one — the eight men in the group shirtless, the one woman all in white, surrounded by a starburst arrangement of cut flowers, repeated with slight variations in the centerfold — I'm surprised I even broke the shrinkwrap. And this group started in Chicago?

Then there are the lyrics, printed on the record sleeve. By the time I read them, I was already so taken with the purity of the music that the often cloying spirituality of the lyrics ("Maybe if we learn to pray, life would lend us sunshiny days"; "… a song in yo' heart/ Most every day, is what/ You need, along the way" could only be slightly dismaying. Their message is basically spiritual but if their lyrics are weak and, at times, awkward, the music and the voices-as-music are strong enough to convey that feeling with a minimum of words.

The vocals are breathy and soothing without being too ethereal; altogether, they sound like a cosmic choir and generate a Sly Stone effect. At its best, the music is fluid and enveloping, and most distinctive when Maurice White is playing an electrified kalimba — a small, hand-held African instrument, like a thumb piano — which produces delightfully liquid runs of notes that have become the group's trademark. Yet the sound is never so spiritual that it isn't firmly grounded — guitarist Johnny Graham, bass player Verdine White and drummer Ralph Johnson are particularly good — and tight enough to hit big with the new boom of soul discotheques (where "Power," a long instrumental cut from the group's last LP, Last Days and Time, was enormously popular).

Most of side two is taken up with a cut entitled "Zanzibar," an intricate, jazz-based composition that, while never dull, doesn't fully hold my attention except in states of altered consciousness when anything sounds fascinating. But the rest of Head to the Sky is quite satisfying. The title cut, with the gentle admonition to "keep your head in faith's atmosphere," has a luscious, luminous quality and "The World's a Masquerade" ("Everybody, everybody wears another face") may not be on everyone's lips yet, but it is the stuff dreams are made of.

Review by Vince Aletti, RollingStone [August 17, 1973]

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Earth, Wind & Fire - Head to the Sky (1973) [Audio Fidelity, Remastered 2016]

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Earth, Wind & Fire - Head to the Sky (1973) [Audio Fidelity, Remastered 2016]

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Earth, Wind & Fire - Head to the Sky (1973) [Audio Fidelity, Remastered 2016]

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