Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White dead at 74—brother

Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White, who broke racial barriers by building a wide following for pop takes on funk and R&B, has died. He was 74.

His death is the latest in a string of prominent musicians who have passed away since the start of 2016.

Earth, Wind & Fire triumphed with a string of hits in the 1970s including “September,” “Shining Star,” “After the Love Has Gone” and “Boogie Wonderland.”

White, who suffered for years from Parkinson’s disease, forcing him to stop touring, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, his brother and a representative for the band said.

“My brother, hero and best friend Maurice White passed away peacefully last night in his sleep,” his brother and bandmate Verdine White wrote Thursday on Facebook.

“While the world has lost another great musician and legend, our family asks that our privacy is respected as we start what will be a very difficult and life-changing transition in our lives.”

Maurice White formed Earth, Wind & Fire in Chicago in 1969 and quickly became known for his skill at songwriting as he crafted intricate and readily danceable tunes that borrowed heavily from the city’s R&B scene, but kept a tight structure in line with pop hits.

The band was one of the early acts to break the color barrier in pop music, in 1979 becoming the first African-American act to sell out New York’s Madison Square Garden.

While never disappearing completely, Earth, Wind & Fire enjoyed a career resurgence after the election of President Barack Obama, who invited the band as one of the first performers after he entered the White House in 2009.

The band won acclaim not only for their songwriting but for their energetic live shows, led by a forceful horn section and featuring a kalimba, an African percussion instrument played by plucking metal tines.

White, a tenor, alternated on vocals with Philip Bailey, who offered a quickly recognizable falsetto.

Earth, Wind & Fire sold nearly 100 million albums worldwide and was nominated for 17 Grammy Awards, winning six.

Earth, Wind & Fire was due to be honored this year with a Grammy lifetime achievement award.

Coincidentally, the other honorees include Jefferson Airplane, whose co-founder Paul Kantner died last week, also at 74.

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Pacquiao eager to punish mocking Rios camp

MACAU—Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach says the boxer will use Sunday’s fight against Brandon Rios to punish members of the Rios camp who mocked Roach’s speech, which is affected by Parkinson’s disease.

The fallout from Wednesday’s physical confrontation between Roach and the Rios camp continued Thursday, with Roach saying Pacquiao had watched video of the heated incident in which Roach was kicked and his speech mocked.

“(Pacquiao) said to me ‘are those the guys that made fun of you?’ and I said yes, and he said ‘that’s all I need to know’ and he walked away,” the United States-born Roach told The Associated Press on Thursday.

“He told me he’s going to take care of this guy quickly.”

Roach was kicked by his former co-worker and Pacquiao corner man Alex Ariza—now in the Rios camp assisting head trainer Robert Garcia—and while Roach initially called for police to arrest Ariza, he laughed off the seriousness of the confrontation a day later.

“What (Ariza) doesn’t realize is that Manny hits me ten times harder every day. It was like a girl kicking me,” Roach said.

Sunday’s fight will be Pacquiao’s first since getting savagely knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez almost a year ago.

The Filipino, once regarded as pound-for-pound the best fighter in the world, is keen to restore his standing in the boxing world after successive defeats against Marquez and a much-criticized judging decision in favor of Tim Bradley.

“He’s hungry after the year off, he’s anxious to get in the ring and he’s anxious to show the world he’s still an elite fighter,” Roach said. “The best way to do that is to knock Brandon Rios out, we both know that, and I have stressed that to him.

“Initially I didn’t think the fight would go six rounds, and after the way he’s worked out, I don’t think it will go four.”

Pacquiao has not stopped an opponent since he fought Miguel Cotto four years ago, but Roach feels Rios’ aggressive style will open the door for a quick finish.

“Rios is a tough guy and tough guys don’t win fights, good boxers win fights,” Roach said. “The more I watch him on tape the worse he gets.

“We will box him and the knockout will come with Manny’s hand speed and combinations and Rios not having a good defense. One thing we know is that Rios will fight back and that’s our big advantage because Manny is a beautiful counter-puncher and we’ve been working quite a bit on that in the gym.”

Sunday’s fight in Macao, which will be Saturday night U.S. time, is for the vacant WBO welterweight title.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Tai chi may help balance in people with Parkinson's

The slow, controlled motions of tai chi can help the impaired balance of people with mild or moderate Parkinson's disease, and the improvements persist for at least three months, according to a small study out Wednesday.

Compared with people who received stretching exercises, tai chi practitioners had fewer falls, longer strides and better balance, researchers found.

"Tai chi fits very well to address the problem Parkinson's disease patients face," said Fuzhong Li of the Oregon Research Institute in Eugene, whose findings appear in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Difficulty walking and remaining standing are hallmarks of Parkinson's, which results from the death of brain cells that generate the chemical dopamine.

"We're not going to get rid of the symptoms. It's not a drug. It can't cure the disease. But, in my view, it can slow down the progression of the disease," Li told Reuters Health.

Although not all studies agree, other research has shown that because it is a balance-based exercise, tai chi may help improve strength and reduce falls in older adults. But there are few large studies in Parkinson's patients.

Li and his colleagues sent 195 seniors, all from Oregon, to one of three classes that met twice weekly for an hour. All could stand unaided, but some needed a device to help them walk.

The tai chi exercises were designed to improve balance with a controlled displacement of the center of mass. Resistance training with ankle weights and weighted vests was used in a second group to strengthen muscles important to posture, balance and gait. A third group had classes that involved gentle stretching.

People in all three groups started off with similar 64-point scores on a 100-point scale that measured how far they could lean or shift their center of gravity without falling.

But after 24 weeks of classes, those in the stretching group saw their average score drop by two points, indicating some deterioration in their condition.

The typical score rose by four points in the resistance group and by 10 points among the tai chi practitioners.

All of the volunteers were tested when their medication was working and their symptoms were controlled.

The improvement with tai chi was even more significant on a test to see how far the person could move toward a target without extraneous movement.

Stride length, walking velocity, knee movement and other measurements also showed more improvement. And people who did tai chi reported only 62 total falls during the training—less than half of what the other groups reported.

Three months after the classes stopped, some of the benefits persisted. For instance, tai chi practitioners had 60 percent fewer falls than the resistance-training group and 69 percent fewer than the stretching group.

"This is the first time to my knowledge that a study was able to show some durability as a treatment for balance," Li said. "This was a big gap in a research field that didn't have any follow-up data with an exercise regimen."

There was, however, some slippage. The average score for leaning and shifting gravity, which had improved by 10 points in the tai chi practitioners, appeared to drop slightly.

The nice thing about tai chi, he said, is that "this is not equipment-dependent. It can be practiced at any place, at any time."

Parkinson's affects at least 500,000 Americans, most of them elderly, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which funded the new study.

The cost of tai chi classes varies, but prices are typically similar to those of other types of exercise classes. –Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com