White became house drummer at Chess playing on hundreds of soul, blues and jazz records for Little Milton, Etta James, Billy Stewart, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Ramsey Lewis from '62-'67.

"I was in there every day from noon until 6PM, then I'd go to school at the Chicago Conservatory of Music from 7PM until 10PM, then I'd go play at a club," says White.

White feels that his background as a drummer was the perfect training for his future as bandleader and producer. "The drummer has to learn everyone else's part as well as his own. He has to think in terms of how everything fits together," he says.

White replaced drummer Red Holt in the Ramsey Lewis Trio in '67, and went on tour with him for most of the next two years, becoming a seasoned veteran of the road as well as the studio. White and keyboard players Wade Flemons and Don Whitehead formed a trio in '69 called the Salty Peppers, and recorded a single for their own Hummit Records called "La La Time," which was picked up by Capitol. The trio headed to Los Angeles to pursue a deal, and with the addition of White's younger brother Verdine on bass, a guitarist, horn section, and Sherry White sharing lead vocals, changed their name to Earth, Wind & Fire - a name derived from the elements of White's astrological chart. White's ambitious goal for the band was to master the "four principles of music: composition, musicianship, production and performance."

The ten-man band played around L.A. until they were signed to Warner Brothers by Joe Smith, and assigned Joe Wissert as producer. That group recorded two albums, Earth, Wind & Fire and The Need of Love, which were only moderate sellers and yielded no pop hits.

On tour in Denver, White found singer/drummer Philip Bailey when Bailey's pop band, Friends & Love, opened for EW&F in '71. When the original EW&F broke up in '72 under the strain of limited success, the White brothers formed a new band, recruiting Bailey to sing and percuss. The band hooked up with crack manager Bob Cavallo and then signed to Columbia. They released two more albums with Wissert producing, Last Days and Time and Head To the Sky, the latter of which was the band's first hit, cracking the Top 30.