Andrew Woolfolk, longtime Earth, Wind & Fireplace saxophonist and prolific session musician, died on April 24 on the age of 71 following an sickness that endured for “over six years,” in line with EWF singer Philip Bailey.
“I met him in highschool, and we rapidly turned mates and bandmates,” Bailey wrote in an Instagram put up commemorating his late bandmate. “Andrew Paul Woolfolk was his identify. We misplaced him at the moment, after being unwell [for] over six years. He has transitioned on to the without end, from this land of the dying to the land of the residing.
“Nice reminiscences. Nice Expertise. Humorous. Aggressive. Fast-witted. And at all times styling,” Bailey continued. “Booski … I’ll see you on the opposite facet, my good friend.”
You possibly can see the put up beneath.
Born on Oct. 11, 1950, in Texas, Woolfolk moved to Colorado as a baby and attended highschool in Denver. He met Bailey within the Centennial State and joined Earth, Wind & Fireplace in 1973. Woolfolk’s first album with EWF, 1973’s Head to the Sky, additionally turned their first platinum LP.
The R&B and funk titans racked up a number of extra platinum and multiplatinum albums all through the ’70s, peaking with 1975’s chart-topping, triple-platinum That is the Approach of the World, which spawned the No. 1 hit “Shining Star.” Woolfolk’s skills can be heard on smash hits comparable to “September,” “Sing a Track” and EWF’s cowl of the Beatles’ “Acquired to Get You Into My Life.”
Woolfolk additionally labored with different artists on the top of EWF’s success, enjoying saxophone on Valerie Carter’s Only a Stone’s Throw Away and Deniece Williams’ Track Chook, each in 1977. When EWF went on hiatus following 1983’s Electrical Universe, Woolfolk performed on two of Bailey’s solo gospel albums, 1984’s Grammy-nominated The Wonders of His Love and 1986’s Grammy-winning Triumph.
Woolfolk continued to play with EWF when the band reconvened in 1987 and stayed with them by 1993. He continued working with different high-profile musicians after his departure, enjoying on a number of tracks on Phil Collins’ 1996 album Dance Into the Mild. Woolfolk’s achievements had been memorialized when the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame inducted Earth, Wind & Fireplace in 2000.
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