Legendary soul singer Bill Withers, who passed away on Monday at age 81, had a career trajectory that bore little resemblance to that of anyone who came before him or anyone who’s followed him. His first album didn’t appear until he was in his early 30s, and when the music business became too much ‘business’ and not enough ‘music’ for him, he walked away and didn’t look back. During the years in-between, he created a series of songs that have more than stood the test of time – even if they weren’t all chart-toppers or even singles.
During Mr. Withers’ nine years in the Navy – having enlisted at age 17! – he developed an interest in both singing and songwriting. (The service also allowed him to receive helpful speech therapy for his childhood stutter.) In 1967 he started recording demos and performing in clubs while still working various day jobs, including for two different aircraft businesses. Eventually he was signed to Sussex Records, where Booker T. Jones produced his first album, 1971’s “Just As I Am”, with support from members of the MG’s, as well as Stephen Stills on guitar. The album featured a top-10 hit in “Ain’t No Sunshine” and a popular follow-up in “Grandma’s Hands”.
His follow-up album, 1972’s modestly titled “Still Bill”, became the biggest of his career, featuring two more classic singles – the #1 “Lean On Me” and the #2 “Use Me” – as well as an album cut, “Who Is He (And What Is He To You)?”, that became a hit two years later for Creative Source.
This led to a concert at Carnegie Hall that October, and an audio recording from that evening was released as an album in April of 1973. One of its best-known performances was for a composition, “I Can’t Write Left-Handed”, that wasn’t any of his studio albums. The song described the frustrations of a Vietnam War soldier who wants to send a message back home after getting shot in the shoulder.
In September of 1974 he travelled to Zaire to take part in a three-day festival that showcased performers from both the United States and Africa, as a prelude to the Ali-Foreman “Rumble In The Jungle” on October 30th. (The two events were supposed to be held much closer to each other, but an injury to Mr. Foreman postponed the fight by six weeks.) Footage of Mr. Withers’ performance can be seen in the 1997 film “When We Were Kings” (singing “You”, a top-20 R&B hit around that time) and the 2009 film about the festival, “Soul Power”, in which he sings the dramatic “Hope She’ll Be Happier” from his debut album.
At this point, however, he was starting to deal with record-label politics, as Sussex folded and he was moved to Columbia, its parent company. Meanwhile, his music was moving away from its more acoustic beginnings – and receiving less attention from pop radio. He had occasional R&B hits in the ’70s, but his most endearing recording from that time may be the reflective ballad “Hello Like Before” from 1975, later recorded by everyone from Jon Lucien and Freddy Cole in the ’70s to Nancy Wilson and Vanessa Williams in the ’90s.
His ‘comeback’ of sorts came with an uptempo number from 1977’s “Menagerie” that he had co-written with Skip Scarborough . “Lovely Day” became his biggest hit in five years on both the pop and R&B charts – and his only top-10 hit in England.
Label interference continued, however, and a follow-up LP in 1979 didn’t keep the momentum going. He chose not to record an album again until the conditions were right, and in the meantime was satisfied to record the occasional collaboration. He got some attention for his work with the Crusaders on 1980’s “Soul Shadows” (from “Rhapsody And Blues”), while 1981’s “Just The Two Of Us”, a cut from saxophonist Grover Washington Jr.’s hugely popular “Winelight” release, went to #2 pop and #3 R&B.
“Winelight” also featured an instrumental called “In The Name Of Love”, and in 1982, after Mr. Withers added lyrics to it, Roberta Flack released her rendition as the third single from her “I’m In Love” album. Two years later, Bill recorded his own take with one of its other co-writers, Stamford, Connecticut resident Ralph McDonald, for Ralph’s 1984 album “Universal Rhythm”. This did even better as a single, making it to #13 R&B and #58 pop.
It may have been all this renewed success that led to the 1985 release of “Watching Me, Watching You”, Mr. Withers’ first album in over six years. He couldn’t escape the attempts of interference by record executives, with one frequently suggesting that Bill record a cover of Elvis Presley’s “In The Ghetto”. Since he had no interest in doing that, he instead presented ten new compositions, mostly written and produced himself. Its first single, “Oh Yeah!”. also led to his first-ever music video, while two other tracks, “You Can’t Just Smile It Away” and “Whatever Happens”, have become cover choices in the ensuing years.
The bitterness over the continued interference by the label, however, convinced Mr. Withers that it was time to leave the music business. Every so often he’d show up for events, but he wouldn’t record again until he contributed to a couple of Jimmy Buffett projects in the 2000s. A 2010 documentary about him, “Still Bill”, garnered multiple awards, and showed him working with one of the many singer-songwriters he’d inspired, Raul Midon. (There was an attempt to get the film shown at a Stamford theater at the time, but a spokesperson there told the QOTDCT rep, “That’s not gonna happen.” Perhaps a showing could now be considered for later this year.)
In 2015 Bill was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, and the accompanying ceremony marked one of the few times he sang in public since the 1980s. He also attended a tribute concert to him later that year (designed to benefit the Stuttering Association for the Young, and covered that evening by this site) at Carnegie Hall, where the live album he’d recorded there back in 1972 was re-created in full. He took the stage at the end – not to sing, but to express his appreciation and joke around a bit. Among the performers that night was Ed Sheeran, and the two had gotten along well enough that they appeared together that same week on Stephen Colbert’s show at the nearby Ed Sullivan Theater. Mr. Withers only made occasional appearances on TV after that – and the last recording he released in his lifetime, curiously enough, was a spoken-word track for a tribute album to Little Jimmy Dickens in 2017.
All along, it was clear that Bill Withers had no regrets about the way he approached his music – or how he later stepped away from the spotlight. He clearly understood artistic integrity more than the people he worked for, and he stuck to doing what was right for him. We may not have had as many opportunities as we wanted to hear from the man who humbly described himself as “a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia”, but we can still thank Bill for the opportunities we did have – and for the enduring music he’s left us.
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