Earth, Wind & Fire Best of ( vol 1 ) ( vinyl LP )

Release date: 27-11-2015 (originally released in 1978)

2015 EU reissue 180g vinyl LP - During the 1970s, a new brand of pop music was born – one that was steeped in African and African-American styles – particularly jazz and R&B but appealed to a broader cross-section of the listening public. As founder and leader of the band Earth, Wind & Fire, Maurice White not only embraced but also helped bring about this evolution of pop, which bridged the gap that has often separated the musical tastes of black and white America. It certainly was successful, as EWF combined high-caliber musicianship, wide-ranging musical genre eclecticism, and ’70s multicultural spiritualism.

Originally issued in 1978, The Best Of Earth, Wind & Fire Volume Iis a multi-platinum greatest hits set which collected eight of Earth, Wind & Fire's biggest singles up to that point ("Got To Get You Into My Life," "Fantasy," "Getaway," "Shining Star," "Sing A Song") along with subsequent new hit "September" and the band's cover of the Beatles' “Got to Get You Into My Life,” for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band film.

Tracks:
A1 Got To Get You Into My Life
A2 Fantasy
A3 Can't Hide Love
A4 Love Music
A5 Getaway

B1 That's The Way Of The World
B2 September
B3 Shining Star
B4 Reasons
B5 Singasong

Allmusic guide commments:

When it was originally released in 1978, The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1 was a succinct, ten-track collection of the group's best and biggest singles up to that point. The excellent "September," a brand-new song, soon became a hit in its own right, and the non-LP Beatles cover "Got to Get You into My Life," recorded for the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band film, also makes its first appearance on an EWF album here, as does the track "Love Music." EWF's commercial prime hadn't yet ended when this collection appeared; thus, it's missing several crucial latter-day hits, including the slinky funk of "Serpentine Fire," the ballad "After the Love Has Gone," and the disco smashes "Let's Groove" and "Boogie Wonderland." But even if it's an incomplete hits collection, The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1 still ranks as a strong encapsulation of EWF the funk innovators. The singles gathered here constitute some of the richest, most sophisticated music the funk movement ever produced; when the absolute cream of the group's catalog is heard in such a concentrated fashion, the effect is dazzling. That's why The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1 was remastered and reissued along with the rest of EWF's catalog, even though it's been supplanted by more extensive single-disc (Greatest Hits), double-disc (The Essential Earth, Wind & Fire), and triple-disc (The Eternal Dance) anthologies. 1998's Greatest Hits now stands as the definitive single-disc EWF overview, but for the budget-minded and the disco-phobic, this still makes for an excellent listen.