Following hot on the heels of Lou Reed, who was inducted a couple of weeks ago, Earth, Wind & Fire is inducted into Hollywood's RockWalk (at 7425 Sunset Blvd.) today at noon local time.

Earth, Wind & Fire recently released their first new CD in six years, The Promise, featuring the hit single "All In The Way." The group will perform at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday, July 2.

Earth, Wind & Fire was elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, with 7 Grammys, over 30 charting singles, and 20 charting albums (seven Top 10's) from the '70s into the '90s. Now retired from the band, White stirred EW&F's joyous blend of gospel, funk, jazz, rock, disco, and African music into a soulful, thumping nectar that he describes as "my love, my heart."

Maurice White was born one of nine children December 19, 1941, in Memphis, and raised by his grandmother while his father attended medical school in Chicago. White listened to R&B, blues, jazz, and early rock 'n' roll throughout his childhood, and sang gospel in church, at home and with a quartet, The Rosehill Jubilettes. Styling themselves after Sam Cooke's Soul Stirrers, the Jubilettes traveled throughout the South performing at churches.

At 12 White saw a marching band strut through the streets of Memphis and became fixed on the power of the drum. He went home, broke a broom in half and started rat-a-tat-tatting on any available surface. In junior high White became friends with multi-instrumentalist Booker T. Jones and they played together in various jazz ensembles. As a high school student, White played in a hot R&B band, The Mad Lads, and after graduation he joined his parents in Chicago.

White was a pre-med student at Crane (now Malcolm X) Junior College when he passed the band room and felt inexorably drawn to the drum seat; he switched his major to music. In '62 White got a call to play for a Betty Everett Vee-Jay session, the session that yielded the classic "You're No Good." Now White was a real professional musician. He played on sets for Jerry Butler, The Impressions, John Lee Hooker, Jackie Wilson and others, then his friend Louis Satterfield jointed him in the direction of the legendary Chess Records.