Bill Withers
The man who debuted at thirty-two in his factory work clothes, consoled the world with a handful of unadorned songs, and then left the stage of his own accord.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
People along the way ⏳🌊
- FamilyMattie Galloway Withers
His mother, who worked as a housemaid and, after her divorce, raised her youngest son in Beckley.
- PatronClarence Avant
The record executive who heard the factory worker's demo and signed him to Sussex Records, and a lifelong champion.
- ColleagueBooker T. Jones
Produced the debut album and arranged its strings.
- ColleagueJames Gadson
The drummer who made “Still Bill” with him and shaped the groove of “Use Me.”
- InfluenceMichael Jackson
At thirteen he covered “Ain't No Sunshine,” carrying the song to another generation.
- CollaboratorGrover Washington Jr.
The jazz saxophonist with whom he made “Just the Two of Us,” the song that earned him his second Grammy.
I. The boy from Slab Fork · 1938–1955
(Coal town) He was born on July 4, 1938, in Slab Fork, West Virginia. His given name was William Harrison Withers Jr. Slab Fork was a small town built by a coal company; his father, William Withers, was a miner, and his mother, Mattie Galloway Withers, worked as a maid. He was the youngest of six children. (Parting) His parents divorced when he was about three, and he followed his mother to the nearby city of Beckley, where he grew up among her side of the family. His father died when he was thirteen. Money was scarce, and it was an era when a Black child could hardly picture a future beyond the mines. (Stutter) As a boy he stuttered badly. In many later interviews he admitted, quite calmly, that he had dreaded opening his mouth in front of people. His temperament, quiet and more inclined to watch than to speak, resembles the spare lyrics he would one day write. (Grandmother) The grandmother who looked after him was a deeply devout woman. He grew up listening to the songs people sang, clapping their hands, at the church she attended. Years later he carried that memory into “Grandma's Hands.” (Community) The people of the coal town were poor, but they leaned on one another. When someone was struggling, he recalled, the neighbors shared what food they had, and he said this memory became the root of “Lean on Me.” (Enlisting) At seventeen he chose the Navy over the mines. It was nearly the only road out of town.
II. The Navy and the factory · 1955–1970
(Navy) He served nine years in the Navy, where he learned aircraft maintenance. During this time he also got his stutter under control. As he recalled it, he came to realize that the problem lay not in his tongue but in his fear of how listeners would react. (Songs) In the Navy he began writing songs. The story goes that after seeing Lou Rawls perform at a club, he was astonished that a singer could earn more in a single night than he made in a month, and he began to think seriously about music. (Los Angeles) Discharged in 1965, he moved to Los Angeles in 1967. He worked as an assembler at aircraft-parts companies, and later he would laugh as he told how he had built the lavatories for Boeing 747s. He saved from his paychecks to record a demo tape and went knocking on record-company doors with it. (Sussex) In 1970 the tape reached Clarence Avant, the businessman who would come to be called the godfather of Black music. Avant signed him to his newly founded Sussex Records. He was nearly thirty-two. In an age when young stars filled the charts, it was a remarkably late start. (Work clothes) Even after signing, he did not quit the factory right away. The music industry was fickle, and factory work was certain; that, he recalled, was his reckoning. This caution and practical sense stayed with him all his life.
III. A debut in work clothes · 1970–1971
(Booker T.) Avant entrusted the production of the debut album to Booker T. Jones, a central figure of Memphis soul. Session players gathered in the studio: Booker T. & the M.G.'s bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn and drummer Al Jackson Jr., along with Stephen Stills on guitar. A factory worker with almost no recording experience found himself standing before renowned musicians. (Cover) On the cover of Just As I Am, released in May 1971, he stands in work clothes holding a lunch pail. It was not a pose but his actual life. (B-side) The A-side of the first single was “Harlem.” But radio DJs began flipping the record and playing the B-side, “Ain't No Sunshine,” which climbed to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. He said he conceived the song while watching Days of Wine and Roses, a film about lovers undone by alcoholism. The song won him the 1972 Grammy for Best R&B Song. (The empty space) In the middle of the song he repeats the same phrase twenty-six times. It was meant to be filled with lyrics, but, as he recalled, the musicians urged him to leave it as it was. That spot, left as if unfinished, became the song's most famous moment. (Michael) The song soon spread through other voices. Thirteen-year-old Michael Jackson covered it on his 1972 solo album Got to Be There, and in Britain it was released as a single and reached the Top 10. A thirty-three-year-old's lonely confession was sung anew in a boy's voice.
The B-side of a thirty-two-year-old newcomer who still worked in a factory became a hit when DJs flipped the record. The empty space he left, as if unfinished, became the song's emblem.
- At just over two minutes, the song is strikingly short. It ends without swelling the refrain, leaving a lingering echo like the absence of someone who has gone.
- Over an acoustic guitar in a dark-sounding scale (minor key), strings arranged by Booker T. Jones lie low. It is a surprisingly modest lineup for a soul record.
- In the middle comes the passage where the same phrase is repeated twenty-six times. The repetition, rushing on like ragged breaths, seems to pile up feeling as it goes.
- Al Jackson Jr.'s drums and Donald “Duck” Dunn's bass deliberately play very little. The space left open makes his calm voice all the clearer.
- Footage of his 1972 appearance on the BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test, singing with just a guitar, is still widely talked about.
A song from the debut album that carries over, unaltered, his memory of a grandmother who clapped and sang in church.
- It opens with a sound sung through closed lips (humming), an introduction that seems to grope for and draw out an old memory.
- The song recalls, one by one, the things his grandmother's hands did. It shows only scenes, never displaying emotion openly, and that restraint is all the more moving.
- The guitar rhythm repeats in short, clipped strokes that sound like the hand-clapping beat of a church.
- In 1996 Blackstreet's “No Diggity” sampled the song's intro, introducing it again to a new generation.
IV. Songs to lean on · 1972–1974
(Band) On his second album he took control of the production. He co-produced it with drummer James Gadson, bassist Melvin Dunlap, guitarist Benorce Blackmon and keyboardist Ray Jackson, all alumni of the Los Angeles funk band the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. The result was Still Bill, in 1972. (Comfort) “Lean on Me” was born at a Wurlitzer electric piano he had just bought. He explained that the melody came as he walked his fingers up and down the keys, the way children do when learning piano. Onto that he laid his memories of the neighbors in Slab Fork. In July 1972 the song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and held the spot for three weeks. (Groove) “Use Me,” from the same album, rose to No. 2. Over a groove built from Gadson's drums and clipped keyboard chords, he sang of love in a voice mixing sly humor and stubbornness. Tender comfort and mischievous candor sat side by side on a single album. (Carnegie) In October 1972 he took the stage at Carnegie Hall in New York. The live album Live at Carnegie Hall, released the following year, preserved his voice between songs as he talked about his hometown, his grandmother and his Navy days. The record is still counted among his finest work. (Sussex) In 1974 came +'Justments, his last album for Sussex. But Sussex, beset by financial trouble, closed its doors the following year, and he had to find a new home.
Finger exercises on a newly bought electric piano met memories of coal-town neighbors and became a Billboard No. 1.
- The piano melody steps through neighboring notes in turn, as if climbing up and down a staircase. True to his account that it came from a beginner's finger exercise, its strength is a simplicity anyone can sing along to.
- The spirit of church music (gospel) runs strong. As handclaps and chorus join in, one person's song widens into the song of many.
- In the closing section the same words are repeated as the song steadily heats up. The handclaps quicken, and the mood grows elated like the final stretch of a prayer meeting.
- His voice never strains, right to the end. Because he sings in a low, warm range (baritone), almost as if speaking, it sounds not like a sermon but like a neighbor's promise.
A song from the same album as “Lean on Me,” showing a sly candor set beside tender comfort.
- James Gadson's drums are the song's backbone. His sense of time, firm yet loosely swaying, creates the rhythmic feel that makes the body move on its own (groove).
- An electric keyboard that sounds by striking its strings (clavinet) repeats short, clipped rhythms. This is the source of the sticky texture peculiar to 1970s funk.
- He spins out, in a playful voice, his confession that he likes this relationship no matter what others say. His humor shows in the passages where he sings the same words with slight twists.
- On the Carnegie Hall live version the song stretches out much longer, with improvised exchanges with the band.
V. Discord with Columbia · 1975–1985
(The move) In 1975 he signed with the major label Columbia. Making Music (1975), Naked & Warm (1976), Menagerie (1977) and 'Bout Love (1978) followed. The autonomy he had enjoyed at a small independent label was not easily granted at a big company. (Family) In 1976 he married Marcia, and they had a son and a daughter. From then on, it is said, he placed family at the center of his life. (Conflict) Columbia's A&R staff often interfered with song selection and musical direction. He recalled in many interviews feeling forced into a mold prescribed for Black singers. Even so, “Lovely Day” from Menagerie shone. Written with the composer Skip Scarborough, it reached the Top 10 in Britain and has been loved ever since. (Collaboration) His biggest hit came, ironically, from someone else's album. “Just the Two of Us,” sung as a guest on jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr.'s 1980 album Winelight, reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981. Written with Ralph MacDonald and William Salter, it brought him his second Grammy for Best R&B Song in 1982. Around the same time he also lent his voice to “Soul Shadows” by the jazz-funk group the Crusaders. The song's chord progression would later be used so widely that it became a kind of formula. (The last) After Watching You Watching Me in 1985, he never released another studio album.
Though it emerged amid friction with his label, it is the clearest, brightest morning song he ever sang.
- In the final stretch he holds a single note, unbroken, for a little over 18 seconds. It is often cited as one of the longest-held notes in an American chart hit.
- A bouncing bass and soft strings move together, painting in sound the gradual brightening of a mood after waking.
- Without exaggeration, it tells the simple story of how even a hard day turns out all right, thanks to one person by your side.
- In 1988 a remix became a hit again in Britain, and 10 years after its release the original found a new generation.
The biggest hit of his later career came not on an album under his own name but as a guest vocal on an album by Grover Washington Jr.
- Grover Washington Jr.'s soprano saxophone sleekly opens the door. The mood is a soft night in the city, a blend of jazz and R&B.
- A distinctive chord progression, its harmonies settling downward as if sliding, envelops the whole song. The progression became so famous that it is called by the song's name, and it has been adapted countless times in Japanese popular music and elsewhere.
- He sings calmly, never raising his voice. It sounds like a conversation between lovers who have been together a long time.
- Behind him, the percussion of co-writer Ralph MacDonald, himself a percussionist, quietly underpins the rhythm.
VI. Song of the one who walked away · 1985–2020
(Retirement) At forty-seven, he left the record industry of his own accord. He said he would rather not make records at all than record them the way others dictated. Afterward he lived with his family at his home in Los Angeles and never gave in to requests for a comeback. (Covers) Even after he left the stage, his songs went on being sung. In 1987 the group Club Nouveau's cover of “Lean on Me” reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart, and in 1988 he won his third Grammy, as a songwriter. In 1996 Blackstreet's “No Diggity” sampled “Grandma's Hands.” He is said to have lived comfortably on the publishing income from his songs, and his wife, Marcia, managed his music publishing business. (Documentary) The 2009 documentary “Still Bill” captured him in retirement. On screen he was a man who did not cling to past glory, and he even met and talked with children who stutter. (Induction) He entered the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Stevie Wonder gave the induction speech. Taking the stage, he delivered his remarks with his characteristic dry humor. (Farewell) On March 30, 2020, he died in Los Angeles of heart complications. He was 81. The COVID-19 pandemic had only just begun and people were keeping apart from one another, and all over the world “Lean on Me” was being sung again.
Lesser-known stories
In 1974 he took the stage at Zaire 74, a music festival held in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), alongside James Brown, B.B. King and others. The festival was timed to coincide with the fight of the century between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, but when the bout was postponed and the music fell into boxing's shadow, the performance itself was long forgotten. Footage of him singing “Hope She'll Be Happier” with nothing but a guitar became widely known only after the 1996 documentary “When We Were Kings” and 2008's “Soul Power” were released. “Live at Carnegie Hall” includes an antiwar song that appears on none of his studio albums, “I Can't Write Left-Handed.” Sung in the voice of a soldier who lost his right arm in the Vietnam War, it was preceded by a long story he told before the song. It was the song of a man who had spent 9 years in the Navy, but because it was never released as a single, it is always left off lists of his hits. He recalled on several occasions how, during his Columbia years, an A&R man suggested he try singing Elvis Presley's “In the Ghetto.” To him it symbolized the stereotype that a Black singer must naturally be suited to songs about the ghetto. It is a passage that lets us see his retirement not as mere caprice but as the accumulated result of experiences like this.
Notes on terms 📚🔎
B-side
(In pop) Old single records carried one song on the front (the A-side) and one on the back (the B-side) of a single disc. The record company put the song it wanted to push on the A-side and a song thrown in as a bonus on the B-side, and that flip-side song is called the B-side. Just as a side dish in the school cafeteria sometimes proves more popular than the main course, a B-side occasionally wins more love on the radio and becomes the hit. That is exactly what happened with “Ain't No Sunshine.”
Session musician
(In pop) A professional musician who is not a full member of a band but is hired to play for individual recordings or performances. Their skill lets them work on records by many different singers. It is like asking a friend from another class who plays well to accompany your school play when no one in your own class can play the piano. Renowned session musicians gathered for Withers's debut album. (Elsewhere) In computing and on the internet, a session is the span of time you stay connected in one go.
A&R
(Word origin) An acronym for the English Artists and Repertoire. It stands for the artists (singers) and the repertoire (the list of songs they will perform). (In pop) The person or department at a record company responsible for discovering new singers and deciding which songs to record and whom to work with. Think of it as a sports team's scout and coach rolled into one. Good A&R brings out a singer's strengths, but too much interference leads to clashes with the singer. The conflict Withers went through at Columbia was just such a case.
Cover
(In pop) To newly record or perform a song that another singer released first. The original melody is left as it is and reinterpreted through one's own voice and arrangement. It is like singing a favorite singer's song your own way at karaoke. Michael Jackson and Club Nouveau covered Withers's songs, and Withers, who wrote the originals, also received income and awards as their songwriter. (Elsewhere) In everyday use, a cover means a book's jacket or something laid over an object.
Groove
(Word origin) The English word groove originally meant the fine channel cut into a record. Just as the needle glides along that channel, it came to describe the feeling of the body locking into a rhythm and flowing with it. (In pop) The rhythmic feel, created by rhythm instruments such as drums and bass, that makes the body move on its own. Accurate timing alone is not enough; there has to be a subtle push and pull. It is like the way your body naturally falls into time with the rope your friends are turning in a game of jump rope. The drums on “Use Me” are a fine example.
Chord progression
(In pop) A chord is a harmony of several notes sounded together, and a chord progression is the order in which those harmonies change as a song unfolds. Even with the same melody, a different progression underneath can transform a song's mood entirely. In cooking terms, it is like how the same ingredients taste different depending on the order in which you add the seasonings. The progression of “Just the Two of Us” became so famous that it is called by the song's name, and it has been used in many other songs.
Sampling
(Word origin) A sample means a specimen, that is, a small piece taken from a whole. (In pop) A technique of cutting out part of another song that has already been recorded and using it as material for a new one. It is especially common in hip-hop and R&B, and it requires permission from, and payment to, the rights holders of the original. It is similar to an art-class collage, in which you cut out magazine photos and paste them together into a new picture. Blackstreet's “No Diggity” sampled the intro of “Grandma's Hands.” (Elsewhere) In statistics and science, sampling means selecting part of a whole for study.
Publishing rights
(In pop) Music carries two separate sets of rights. One covers a particular recording itself; the other covers the song itself, that is, its melody and lyrics. Managing the latter is called music publishing, and that right is called the publishing right. Every time someone sings the song anew, uses it in an advertisement or samples it, money flows to whoever holds the publishing rights. If a dish a chef has made is the recording, then the recipe for that dish is the song, and the publishing right is the right to collect a fee every time the recipe is used. (Elsewhere) In everyday use, publishing means printing and issuing books or magazines.