Sky -

Sky was an American soul-funk band that released a 1979 self-titled album on EMI. They reunited six members of the earlier Pharaohs big band.

Members: Oye Bisi (congas), E. Songojoko Adefumi (congas), Ira Gates (drums), Warren Bingham (guitar), Dean Gant (keyboards), Dale Williams (lead guitar), Gary Thompson (lead guitar), Donald Myrick (tenor saxophone, lead vocals), Willie Woods (tenor trombone), Louis Ealee Satterfield (trombone, lead vocals), Michael Harris (trumpet)

Background

Sky formed in Chicago in early 1976 and entered a management agreement with Headquarters Productions. The eventual studio lineup reunited six veterans of the Pharaohs: guitarist Warren Bingham, tenor saxophonist and singer Donald Myrick, trombonists Louis Satterfield and Willie Woods, and percussionists Oye Bisi and E. Songojoko Adefumi.

Myrick and Satterfield first played together in the Jazzmen at Crane Junior College, where the band included trumpeter Charles Handy, pianist Fred Humphrey, bassist Ernest McCarthy, and drummer Maurice White. The Jazzmen subsequently joined musicians from the Artistic Heritage Ensemble in the Pharaohs. The Pharaohs recorded Awakening for Scarab Records with Woods, Bisi, and Adefumi in the lineup. Bingham joined the group for the 1972 sessions later issued as In the Basement.

Drummer Ira Gates belonged to the Chicago Al-Tog studio circle by the late 1960s and co-wrote the Garland Green single “Ain’t That Good Enough.” Trumpeter Michael Harris joined Myrick and Satterfield in the Earth, Wind & Fire horn section by the middle of the following decade, a unit subsequently known as the Phenix Horns.

Guitarist Gary Thompson played in the Curtom house band by summer 1976 on Staple Singers sessions for Pass It On. Keyboardist Dean Gant played on the 1973 Eddie Henderson album Inside Out and the 1977 Bill Withers album Menagerie. Guitarist Dale Williams came from Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago, where he played local clubs and worked with Phil Cohran and the AACM. Williams later toured with Little Milton, Oscar Brown Jr., and Sun Ra.

Sky retained the Headquarters Productions connection through the album project. The group entered DB Studios in Chicago with producer-arranger Ed Rusk and producer/executive producer R. Roland Sales to record the self-titled album for EMI Electrola.

Discography: