I was going to move indefinitely off the subject of "September" as performed by Earth, Wind & Fire but eight of you sent me the link to this cover version of it. The group is Leonid & Friends, fronted by Leonid Vorobyev, and his band specializes in offering — I'm cut-and-pasting from their website there — "the timeless music of Earth, Wind, and Fire, Blood Sweat and Tears, Steely Dan, Tower Of Power, The Ides of March, Chaka Khan, Deep Purple, The Brecker Brothers, Stevie Wonder, and the Black Russian band."
In other words, they're a "cover band," in this case from Russia. They received some attention because some of them hail from the Ukraine and because they do some real good cover versions of songs that a lot of us love. They're currently on tour. In fact, they're currently in California and will be performing in Los Angeles this Sunday night. If it were another night in a different theater and my walking was better, I might go.
What I find interesting about this video — and almost all of the cover versions of "September" I've come across — is that they don't deviate much from the original version by Earth, Wind & Fire. I think that's because part of the appeal of "September" was the arrangement; not so much what they sang but how they sang it and arranged it. Some cover bands wring exciting variations out of the songs they cover, often modernizing them in fun ways. "September" seems to be a recording that no one wants to — or thinks they can — improve upon…