Earth, Wind & Fire were nothing if not ambitious, and by the time of their third album they had forged an individual sound by absorbing nearly everything that had gone before them in the previous ten years. It was as if they were trying to encapsulate every eclectic foray pursued by
Motown, from catchy, rhythmic
pop to churning
funk, and even from
Stevie Wonder singing borrowed
folk songs like
"Blowin' in the Wind" (here,
Philip Bailey did
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone") to the schmaltzy, string-filled
pop that spelled legitimacy to
Motown. Not only that, they wanted to incorporate
Sly & the Family Stone's horn-filled, gutbucket
R&B and some of the
fusion style of
Weather Report. On
Last Days and Time, they succeeded in pulling all that into their orbit, but they hadn't yet managed one crucial thing: they hadn't learned to write hits. That would come next. ~ William Ruhlmann