I’ve been trying to figure out how to address my feelings on the passing of Maurice White since he left this earth on February 3rd, 2016. I think I have to go back to 1976, around the time my then 13-year-old brother discovered That’s The Way of the World and Spirit.

See, my French horn-playing baby bro Deryck was absolutely OBSESSED with EWF. I mean as in carrying-a-boombox-into-the-bathroom-so he-wouldn’t-miss-a-single-note-type obsessed. Over and over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, I loved them too–but unfortunately hearing those records 24/7 for years overdosed me for a while. No one loved them like Deryck. Decades later, we laugh at how our taste in music influenced each other. I  also loved Yes, Bowie, Fela, reggae and Funkadelic. The few seconds he wasn’t mainlining EWF, Deryck and his fellow musician friends did a pretty good job of covering bands like Kraftwerk. When I detoxed enough to listen to them again, I went further back to bask in earlier albums like Head to the Sky and The Need of Love. Deryck says he thought I was the cool one because I began hanging in downtown clubs that played all of the above seamlessly; he continued studying the French horn. I assure him he was way cooler to recognize the genius of EWF at 13.

Losing music icons from your childhood is traumatic; their influence is immeasurable. Some people just don’t understand.  RIP Maurice White…and thank you.