By now if you are a regular reader of Weekly Music Commentary, you’ve noticed that I rarely publish a post immediately following the death of an artist. I have learned that sometimes the circumstances surrounding the death may still be unclear at the time. Mostly the reason is that I have an editorial calendar from which I try not to change course. This is why today I chose to feature the great American singer/songwriter Bill Withers. If for some reason you had not heard, Bill Withers died March 30, 2020. He left behind a beautiful catalog of music and an interesting music career. His death was not controversial; he died of heart complications at the age of 81. Nevertheless, here we are four months later with a little time to reflect on the life and music of one of the greatest artists of our generation. Therefore, let’s begin to look back at his life and musical career.
Bill Withers, the youngest of six children, was born in the small coal-mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia on July 4, 1938. He was the son of Mattie (Galloway), a maid, and William Withers, a miner. Withers was born with a stutter and had a hard time fitting in. “When you stutter, people have a tendency to disregard you,” he says. He also had to deal with the racism of the Jim Crow era of which he was surrounded. “One of the first things I learned, when I was around four, was that if you make a mistake and go into a white women’s bathroom, they’re going to kill your father.” He was close in age to Emmett Till, the 14-year-old from Chicago who allegedly whistled at a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi, and was beaten to death by two men who were cleared of all charges by an all-white jury.
His parents divorced when he was 3, and he was raised by his mother’s family in nearby Beckley. He was 13 years old when his father died. Withers enlisted in the United States Navy at the age of 17, and served for nine years, during which time he became interested in singing and writing songs. Harry Truman had desegregated the armed forces eight years earlier, but Withers quickly discovered that didn’t mean much at his first naval base, in Pensacola, Florida. “My first goal was, I didn’t want to be a cook or a steward,” he says. “So I went to aircraft-mechanic school. I still had to prove to people that thought I was genetically inferior that I wasn’t too stupid to drain the oil out of an airplane.”
Withers sought to leave the Navy to give music a try, however he still had the stuttering problem. “I couldn’t get out a word,” he says. “I realized it wasn’t physical. I figured out that my stutter — and this isn’t the case for everyone — was caused by fear of the perception of the listener. I had a much higher opinion of everyone else than I did of myself. I started doing things like imagining everybody naked — all kinds of tricks I used on myself.”
Withers worked as an assembler for several different companies, including Douglas Aircraft Corporation, while recording demo tapes with his own money, shopping them around and performing in clubs at night. When he debuted with the song “Ain’t No Sunshine” in 1971, he refused to resign from his job because he believed the music business was a fickle industry.
He was so right. In fact, the music business is still “fickle” today. If you were paid a dollar today, that might not be the case tomorrow. Of course, there are many people who are always looking for ways to separate a musician from that dollar. There are countless tales of musicians who explain how they had huge hit music on the market, only to find themselves in poverty. Yes, Withers already knew what others found out the hard way.
During early 1970, Withers’s demonstration tape was auditioned favorably by Clarence Avant, owner of Sussex Records. Avant signed Withers to a record deal and assigned former Stax Records stalwart Booker T. Jones to produce Withers’ first album. Just as I Am was released in 1971 with the tracks, “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Grandma’s Hands” as singles. The album features Stephen Stills playing lead guitar. On the cover of the album, Withers is pictured at his job at Weber Aircraft in Burbank, California, holding his lunch box. With his musical stock rising fast, Withers had the look and feel of a regular guy. I still believe this was part of what people loved about him.
Withers won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song for “Ain’t No Sunshine” at the 14th Annual Grammy Awards in 1972. The track had already sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA in September 1971. During a hiatus from touring, Withers recorded his second album, Still Bill. The single, “Lean on Me” went to number one the week of July 8, 1972. It was Withers’s second gold single with confirmed sales in excess of three million. His follow-up, “Use Me” released in August 1972, became his third million seller, with the R.I.A.A. gold disc award taking place on October 12, 1972. His performance at Carnegie Hall on October 6, 1972, was recorded, and released as the live album Bill Withers, Live at Carnegie Hall on November 30, 1972.
Due to a legal dispute with the Sussex company, Withers was unable to record for some time thereafter. After Sussex Records folded, Withers signed with Columbia Records in 1975. This move did not change Withers’ perception of the music business at all. There were still hit songs during this period of time in Withers’ career. In 1977 the hit song Lovely Day was recorded and demonstrated Bill Withers vocal technique. I remember meeting an artist while in high school who worked with Withers extensively. He made me and other classmates realize that Bill Withers was one of the great vocalists of our day. I never forgot that.
Due to problems with Columbia and being unable to get songs approved for his album, he concentrated on joint projects from 1977 to 1985, including “Just the Two of Us”, with jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr., which was released during June 1980. The song won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song.
His disdain for Columbia’s A&R executives or “blaxperts”, as he termed them, trying to exert control over how he should sound if he wanted to sell more albums, played a part in his decision to not record or re-sign to a record label after 1985, effectively ending his performing career, even though remixes of his previously recorded music were released well after his ‘retirement’.
Finding musical success later in life than most, at 32, he said he was socialized as a ‘regular guy’ who had a life before the music, so he did not feel an inherent need to keep recording once he fell out of love with the industry. After he left the music industry he said that he did not miss touring and performing live and did not regret leaving music behind.
However, even though retired, Bill Withers legacy would certainly live on. The song Lean On Me remains one of the staples that has been recorded and covered by many artists. The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson deemed him “a songwriter’s songwriter”. Sade, D’Angelo, Justin Timberlake, John Legend and Ed Sheeran have credited Withers as a music inspiration.
It might sound like an old cliche’, but Bill Withers music has stood the test of time. Going into fifty years these are songs that still get regular airplay by various artists. That will not change. Possibly another fifty years from now young songwriters will study and listen to the music of Bill Withers.
In April 2015, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Stevie Wonder. Regarding the honor he said, “What few songs I wrote during my brief career, there ain’t a genre that somebody didn’t record them in. I’m not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia.” Just a regular guy.