Head to the Sky was produced by Joe Wissert with bandleader Maurice White serving as a musical director on the album. The LP was also recorded at Clover Recorders Studios, Hollywood, California.[2]
Erykah Badu paid tribute to the album in the music video of her 2008 single "Honey".[6][7]
Vince Aletti of Rolling Stone declared "Been having a lot of music dreams lately but this one’s not too surprising since I’ve been playing the Earth, Wind & Fire album pretty constantly for the past week, certainly beyond all expectations. With a cover like this one — the eight men in the group shirtless, the one woman all in white, surrounded by a starburst arrangement of cut flowers, repeated with slight variations in the centerfold — I’m surprised I even broke the shrinkwrap. And this group started in Chicago?".[9]Billboard noted that the band "does everything well" on the LP.[11]Robert Christgau of the Village Voice gave a B- grade saying "Most of the first side keeps up the good work..But the mood jazz excursion on side two exposes White's essential fatuousness. "Zanzibar," it's called, as befits a travelogue; its saxophone solo (by Ronnie Laws's replacement, Andrew Woolfolk) could make Alice Coltrane blush."[10]
Alex Henderson of Allmusic called Head to the Sky an "excellent" album.[8]Variety also described the record as "a movin' new package.[12]
Issac Hayes called Head to the Sky one of Earth, Wind & Fire's five essential recordings.[13]
