MUSIC My SIx beSt ALbUMS

verdine white

VERDINE WHITE, 66, is bassist with the influential funk band Earth, Wind & Fire whose hits include After The Love Has Gone, Boogie Wonderland and September. They play the Love Supreme Jazz Festival in East Sussex on July 1. lovesupremefestival.com MARVIN GAye: What’s Going On (Motown) I love this because of the message, the bass playing and the way Marvin went from sex symbol to real artist.

At the time, my brother Maurice and I were just starting Earth, Wind & Fire, and I said I wish we could record an album like this one day. And he said, “We’re not ready.” Later we did That’s The Way Of The World. SLy & tHe FAMILy StONe: There’s A Riot Goin’ On (Epic/Legacy) Sly opened up the door to funk. In the late 1960s they didn’t play this kind of thing on the radio and people didn’t dress in corduroy bell-bottoms with an afro and sideburns. In 1975 we opened for Sly at Madison Square Garden. My mother and father came. They didn’t know we were that good! tHe beAtLeS: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (EMI) A great, great record. I loved A Day In The Life, and Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! was funny. They’d been on my radar since The Ed Sullivan Show. They grew a long way from being mop-tops and it was the beginning of the concept record. MILeS DAVIS: Bitches Brew (Sony) The beginning of Miles’s jazz fusion period after he went to Woodstock and saw the hippies. It’s a really spacey record. Later on, we went to see him with his band. He was great. CHICK COReA: Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (EMI) Maurice turned me on to this. It’s great jazz that my brother and I aspired to musically. I still listen when I want to remind myself what it was like being a teenager. The quality is still there. JIMI HeNDRIx: Are You Experienced (Sony) I met Jimi at a party when I came to California and it helped me decide I wasn’t going back home to Chicago until I’d made it.

Coming to California was a big deal and this record was my initiation. I liked the guitar work, his velvet clothes and his hair. I still wear my hair like that sometimes.