Remembering 2023’s Music Losses: Fred White

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The weather radio and the weather apps say the wind chill is below zero outside, and I’m going to take their word for it. I’ll keep my butt in this nice warm house, drink tea, and celebrate the life of another musician who left us last year. Here’s today’s make-you-get-up-and-dance performer. Fred White The name won’t stand out in your mind. Heck, he wouldn’t have even stood out on stage in a band that had three drummers. But that was part of Fred White’s legacy: he played drums for Earth, Wind, and Fire. The half-brother of EWF co-founder/lead singer Maurice White, Fred had a list of credits that would make your head spin before he joined EWF in 1974. They include working on albums by acts as diverse as Donny Hathaway and Little Feat. He joined the band a year before their breakthrough album That’s the Way of the World (which was also the soundtrack of a little-known movie EWF was in) and their Grammy-winning #1 hit “Shining Star.” Fred White was, chronologically speaking, the first music death of 2023, dying on New Year’s Day, just 12 days shy of his 68th birthday. He left behind a legacy of some of the best soul and funk of the 70s. Fred White Born Frederick Eugene Adams January 13, 1955 - January 1, 2023 (age 67) HALL OF FAME: Rock and Roll, 2000; Vocal Group, 2003 (both as part of Earth, Wind, and Fire) Earth, Wind, and Fire’s #1 breakthrough hit from 1975, “Shining Star”: