"Shining Star" (Earth, Wind & Fire)

Earth, Wind & Fire occasionally caught flak for being funk pretenders.  (Check the lyrics of Funkadelic's "Let's Take It to the Stage," where George Clinton refers to the band as "Earth, Hot Air, and No Fire.")
But I never viewed Maurice White and his crew that way.  In their prime, EW&F had an almost "Duke Ellington Orchestra of R&B" vibe about them; they could play intricate, jazz-infused ballads with an unmatched class and virtuosity and then turn right around and tear the roof off the sucka and get downright stanky.
"Shining Star" from the 1975 soundtrack album for the less-than-great Harvey Keitel film about the music biz, That's the Way of the World, is a perfect example of the latter.  
Everything on this relatively brief track is in its right place: the drums and bass play just a hint behind the beat to give the song a little swing, the twin guitars riff and strum in a stratosphere somewhere between rock and R&B, the Fender rhodes and horns punctuate at just the right moments, and the vocals perfectly combine the all-for-one feel of late 60s Sly & The Family Stone with jazzy, gospel-tinged harmonies.  (There's nothing else in all of pop music quite like the vocal blend of Maurice and Verdine White with the incomparable Philip Bailey.)
I only wish I could hear this song now without immediately thinking of Elaine Benes doing her "full body dry heave."