Funk music lovers are in mourning.
Earth, Wind & Fire drummer Fred White has died at the age of 67, his brother and a former member of the band announced on Monday.
On the band's official Instagram page was posted a video of White performing a drum solo at a concert in Germany in 1979 along with the message "Rest in love".
Born in 1955 in Chicago, White began playing the drums at a very young age.
During his career, he won six Grammy Awards with the legendary funk band formed in 1969 by his brother, Maurice White, who died in 2016. “Our family is saddened today by the loss of a family member. amazing and talented,” wrote another of his brothers, Verdine White, in an Instagram post, recalling that he had “gold records from the age of 16!
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In the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000
Earth, Wind & Fire quickly rose to fame in the 1970s, becoming one of the first to break racial taboos in pop, and was hugely successful in both the white and African-American community.
In 1979, the group was also the first African-American group to perform to sold-out crowds at the prestigious Madison Square Garden in New York.
White, as a member of the band Earth, Wind & Fire, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, the American pantheon of rock and popular music.
The group distinguished itself through its songs but also through its shows filled with energy, punctuated by a strong presence of brass instruments and a kalimba, an African percussion instrument made of metal slats.
Without ever having completely left the stage, the group experienced a resurgence in notoriety after the election of President Barack Obama, who invited them among the first artists to perform after entering the White House in 2009.
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