As private a life as he lived close to intimate family and friends, his music forever belongs to the world. The statement continued, “A solitary man with a heart driven to connect to the world at large, with his poetry and music, he spoke honestly to people and connected them to each other. “We are devastated by the loss of our beloved, devoted husband and father,” they said. He was perhaps best known for his hits “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Lean on Me.” Withers’ family announced his death in a statement. The renowned soul singer Bill Withers died on Monday, March 30, at the age of 81. 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.Inductee Bill Withers speaks on Apin Cleveland, Ohio. “My first goal was, I didn’t want to be a cook or a steward,” he says. 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. “I thought, ‘Didn’t he know better?’ ”ĭesperate to get out of Slab Fork, he enlisted in the Navy right after graduating from high school in 1956. “ was right around my age,” says Withers. “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 a teenager when Emmett Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago who allegedly whistled at a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi, was beaten to death by two men who were cleared of all charges by an all-white jury. That was compounded by the unvarnished Jim Crow racism that was a way of life in his youth. “When you stutter, people have a tendency to disregard you,” he says. The youngest of six children, Withers was born with a stutter and had a hard time fitting in. “I heard guys playing country music, and in church I heard gospel. “We lived right on the border of the black and white neighborhood,” he says. His father, who worked in the coal mines, died when Bill was 13. Withers’ hometown is in a poor rural area in one of the poorest states in the Union. I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia.” I’m not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. “What few songs I wrote during my brief career, there ain’t a genre that somebody didn’t record them in. “I see it as an award of attrition,” he says. Withers was stunned when he learned he had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. Bill Withers is the closest thing black people have to a Bruce Springsteen.” On the other side of the coin, we’re often viewed as primitive animals.
“Jordan’s vertical jump has to be higher than everyone. “He’s the last African-American Everyman,” says Questlove. His career lasted eight years by his own count in that time, he wrote and recorded some of the most loved, most covered songs of all time, particularly “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” - tunes that feature dead-simple, soulful instrumentation and pure melodies that haven’t aged a second. You’re too light-skinned to be Bill Withers!’ ” I got up on my elbow, leaned into their booth and said, ‘Ladies, it’s odd you should mention that because I’m Bill Withers.’ This lady said, ‘You ain’t no Bill Withers. They were talking about this Bill Withers song they sang in church that morning. These church ladies were sitting in the booth next to mine. Others don’t believe he is who he says: “One Sunday morning I was at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. “A very famous minister actually called me to find out whether I was dead or not. “Sometimes I wake up and I wonder myself,” he says with a hearty chuckle. Withers has been out of the spotlight for so many years that some people think he passed away. “These days,” he says, “I wouldn’t know a pop chart from a Pop-Tart.” On the mantel in a hallway, there is a Best R&B Song award, for 1980’s “Just the Two of Us,” from the last time he attended the show, three decades ago it sits next to two other Grammys, for 1971’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” and 1972’s “ Lean on Me.” A few years after “Two of Us,” Withers became one of the few stars in pop-music history to truly walk away from a lucrative career, entirely of his own volition, and never look back. He’s padding around his home wearing Adidas track pants, an old T-shirt with a drawing of a bus on it, and athletic sandals with blue socks. But the 76-year-old Withers could not be less interested.
Today, in about two hours, the Los Angeles basketball arena will host the Grammy Awards every once in a while, a limo will rush through Withers’ neighborhood, on its way to the event. On a clear day, you can see the Staples Center from Bill Withers’ house, which sits high in the hills above West Hollywood.
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