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Touch the World
Earth, Wind & Fire:
Maurice White: Lead and background vocals
Verdine White: Bass
Philip Bailey: Lead and background vocals
Andrew Woolfolk: Soprano Saxophone
Sheldon Reynolds: Guitar
Other musicians:
Wayne Vaughn (Keyboards, Sequencing)
Rhett Lawrence (Synthseizers and synthesizers programming)Attala-Zane Giles (Drum Programing and guitars)
Preston Glass (Drum Programming)
Skylark (Guitar, synthesizer, drum programming) Jerry Hey Trumpet and Horn arrangements
Between 1984 and 1987, there was very little activity from the group Earth, Wind and Fire, after being productive and ultra-successful
between 1970 and 1983.
However, there were a lot of things happening behind the scenes, as well as EW&F Co-lead vocalists, Maurice White
and Philip Bailey releasing quality solo albums, with Bailey enjoying a nice run of success.
In mid-1986, Maurice White and Philip Bailey reunited in the recording studio and started working on a new EW&F project.
However, there was one major snafu, the only other member to appear from Earth, Wind and Fire during their hey-day was saxophonist
Andrew Woolfolk and he played on only two songs.
The good news was the ability to adapt, Maurice White called on veteran singer-guitarist Sheldon Reynolds (Formerly of
"Sun") to join the group fulltime. A slew of quality musicians Including legendary bassist Nathan East filled in
admirably in the studio ( EW&F's regular bass player Verdine White incidentally appeared on the album cover for Touch
of the World, letting it be known that he was still an active member of EW&F). Wayne and Wanda Vaughn delivered as well
as other quality studio musicians like Attala Zane-Giles (guitar) and Ricky Lawson (drums).
The end result was "Touch the World", a quality albeit mostly techno-album full of street beats, romantic ballads,
cheerful melodies and exceptional arrangements. It's been noted that several of the songs on this album were simply songs
written for Maurice White and Philip Bailey solo projects but used for an EW&F album instead.
EW&F didnt take too many risks on Touch the World, leaving several songs with great possibilities, but not going
too far.
Still the overall friendliness of Touch the World was enough to position Earth, Wind & Fire among the elite music
acts of that time.
CLICK ON TITLES
11. Writing On the Wall (U.S. Single Only)
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