Bill Withers Never Needed Music — But We Needed His
When the soul legend walked away from the industry, he left us with lessons as well as art
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“You gonna tell me the history of the blues? I am the goddamn blues. Look at me. Shit. I’m from West Virginia, I’m the first man in my family not to work in the coal mines, my mother scrubbed floors on her knees for a living, and you’re going to tell me about the goddam blues because you read some book written by John Hammond? Kiss my ass.” —Bill Withers, 2005
Bill Withers is one of those artists I keep in my pocket for people who tell me they don’t listen to certain types of music. If they claim they don’t like blues, I say, “Oh, you don’t like ‘Ain’t No Sunshine?’” If they say they don’t listen to much gospel music, I hit them with “What, you don’t like ‘Lean On Me?’” Without fail, they end up stuttering amendments and qualifiers. The reason why this trick works is because Bill Withers is like air: You don’t think about how present it is in your life. You just breathe.
It only took Withers two albums to secure his place in music history, 1971’s Just As I Am and 1972’s Still Bill. In those 22 songs were 90% of the biggest…
