Track Listing
1. Even If You Wonder
2. Sunday Morning
3. Blood Brothers
4. Kalimba Interlude
5. Spend the Night
6. Divine
7. Two Hearts
8. Honor the Magic
9. Love Is the Greatest Story
10. "L" Word, The
11. Just Another Lonely Night
12. Super Hero
13. Wouldn't Change a Thing About You
14. Love Across the Wire
15. Chicago (Chi-Town) Blues
16. Kalimba Blues
| Details | | Playing Time: | 64 min. | | Contributing Artists: | Burt Bacharach, Gerald Albright, Paulinho Da Costa, Prince | | Distributor: | WEA (Distributor) | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Earth, Wind & Fire: Maurice White (vocals, kalimba, percussion); Philip Bailey (vocals); Sheldon M. Reynolds (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Reggie Young (trombone); Tuscanini (keyboards); Verdine White (bass); Ralph Johnson (percussion).
The Earth Wind & Fire Horns: Andrew Woolfolk, Gary Bias (saxophone); Ray Brown (trumpet).
Additional personnel: Prince (vocals); Gerald Albright (saxophone); Burt Bacharach (keyboards); Paulinho Da Costa (percussion).
Producers: Maurice White, Bill Myers, Frankie Blue, Freddie Ravel.
Recorded at Sonic Lab, Devonshire Studios, Andora Studios, Capitol Studios.
All songs written or co-written by Maurice White, except "Super Hero" (Prince), "Spend The Night" (Dawn Thomas), "Just Another Lonely Night" (Michael and Linda Stokes), "Wouldn't Change A Thing About You" (Philip Bailey, Frankie Blue), and "Divine" (Philip Bailey, Roxanne Serman, Ken Barken).
Since the mid-1980s, Earth, Wind & Fire's output had been erratic and quite uneven. One never knew whether the veteran soul/funk band would come out with something as impressive as Share the World or something as embarrassing as Heritage. After many years with Columbia, EWF switched to Warner Bros. -- ironically, a label that gave Maurice White and friends the boot back in 1972 -- with Millennium. While Heritage found EWF bending over backwards to appeal to urban contemporary tastes, sounding unnatural and even silly in the process, Millennium is a more honest and organic recording. Though hardly in a class with That's The Way Of The World or Spirit -- or for that matter, Share The World -- Millennium is a decent offering that finds the crew being true to itself. Much of the material, especially "Sunday Morning," "Chicago (Chi-Town) Blues" and "Honor the Magic," is fairly memorable. Unfortunately, the urban contemporary audience wasn't receptive to EWF's honesty. As influential as EWF had been, and as often as it had been sampled in hip-hop, the group was treated like it was expendable. ~ Alex Henderson
Give them credit for sticking to their guns and delivering, as their return to Warner/Reprise, an EW&F album that sounds like something from the late '70s. The horns are in place, the songs are melodic, Philip Bailey is in good voice, and all of it seems irrelevant to the Black pop scene of 1993, which may be why (along with the band's failure to do a promotional tour) Millennium was only a modest seller with two minor hits, "Sunday Morning" and "Spend The Night." ~ William Ruhlmann
Editorial Reviews
...EWF cast a long shadow over current black music....they still have the knack for constructing mellifluous R&B on the visionary/romantic trip...
Vibe (09/01/1993)
...With Maurice White and Phillip Bailey's voices leaping into falsetto-harmony heaven and a clutch of relentless feel-good grooves, these R&B hippies come back with their most vibrant album in years... - Rating: B+
Entertainment Weekly (11/05/1993)
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