Soulful songwriter turned his back on fame, exasperated by the music industry
Bill Withers, who has died aged 81, grew tired of people telling him ‘‘We thought you were dead’’, but as the superstar who walked away at the height of his success and opted for 35 years of self-imposed silence, it was an easy mistake to make. ‘‘Sometimes I wake up and I wonder myself,’’ he joked.
After a stream of memorable hits in the 1970s that stand among the best-loved in the canon of popular music, he stopped making records and performing in 1985. There were no comebacks and no desire to put himself back in the spotlight. Even when a tribute concert was arranged in his honour in 2015, he declined to sing with Ed
Sheeran and others who had gathered to pay homage.
Yet his presence lives on through his ubiquitous songs, from Ain’t No Sunshine and Lean On Me to Lovely Day and Use Me. Sting, one of the countless artists who covered Ain’t No Sunshine, summed up the appeal: ‘‘The hardest thing in songwriting is to be simple and yet profound. And Bill seemed to understand, intrinsically and instinctively, how to do that.’’
In his brief career Withers won three Grammy awards. Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Liza Minnelli, Aretha Franklin, Tom Jones, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Diana Ross were among those who covered his work. It was also sampled by hip-hop artists including Jay-Z, Kanye West and Tupac Shakur, and featured in countless Hollywood films and television commercials.
All that was missing from the celebration of his music was Withers himself as he hid away in the luxury home his royalties bought him high in the hills above West Hollywood.
There were occasional sightings, such as his induction by Stevie Wonder in 2015 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ‘‘I’m not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with,’’ he said at the induction. ‘‘I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia.’’
Yet he had been away so long that mostly when he ventured out, nobody recognised him. In a rare interview around the time of his induction, he told a story about having lunch in a restaurant one Sunday and overhearing a group of women in the next booth mention his name.
‘‘They were talking about this Bill Withers song they sang in church that morning,’’ he said. ‘‘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.’ ’’ Needless to say, nobody believed him.
William Harrison Withers Jr was born on Independence Day to Bill, a coal miner, and Mattie (nee Galloway), who remembered a grandmother who had been born into slavery. The youngest of six children, he grew up in rural poverty, made worse when his father died when he was 13. Asthma and a stutter led to him being designated as ‘‘handicapped’’ at school and his main pleasure came from singing in church.
Desperate not to follow his father down the mine and even keener to escape the systemised racial segregation across the South, at 18 he enlisted in the US Navy, which was theoretically non-segregated. He was disappointed to find out the practice was somewhat different, but he served for nine years.
Later he moved to Los Angeles, where he took a job installing lavatories in aircraft. He had no thoughts of turning professional until he attended a Lou Rawls show. ‘‘I was making US$3 an hour, looking for friendly women, but nobody found me interesting. Then Rawls walked in, and all these women are talking to him,’’ he recalled. ‘‘He was being paid $2000 a night and he didn’t even have to get out of bed in the morning.’’
He bought a cheap guitar from a pawn shop, taught himself a few chords and began writing songs between factory shifts. Eventually he was recruited by the new Sussex label, and Booker T Jones produced his 1971 debut album, Just As I Am. ‘‘He came right from the factory and showed up in his old clunk of a car with a notebook full of songs,’’ Jones recalled.
By the time the album was released Withers was 33. It was an extraordinarily late age to be launching a recording career, but Just As I Am made an immediate impact. Singing in an understated, conversational style with sparse arrangements, covers of Everybody’s Talkin’ and Let It Be were fine enough in their own way. But it was the 10 compositions from Withers’ own pen, including Ain’t No Sunshine, that grabbed the attention. It gave him a million-selling hit single and won a Grammy for best R&B song.
His second album, Still Bill in 1972, was arguably even better and included the No 1 hit Lean On Me, a tender and poignant gospelinspired ode to friendship, which he explained was inspired by growing up in a poor but supportive rural community.
When Sussex folded in 1975, in what seemed like a good move Withers signed with the far bigger Columbia Records. Instead his experiences at the label led to him quitting the music business.
There were further hits, including Lovely Day and Just The Two Of Us, but by 1980 he had almost given up in exasperation at executives telling him what his music should sound like. ‘‘Blaxperts, I call ’em. That’s the white guys who are supposed to have some kind of tap into your black psyche.’’
When the label suggested he should cover Elvis Presley’s In the Ghetto, he refused on the grounds that his own songs were better. ‘‘I’m a songwriter. That would be like buying a bartender a drink.’’ When another executive told him, ‘‘I don’t like your music or any black music, period,’’ he said he was ‘‘proud’’ that he managed to refrain from hitting him.
Withers is survived by second wife Marcia, whom he married in 1976, and two children.
He had no regrets about his decision to quit. ‘‘I’m not motivated to draw attention to myself or travel all over the place. There was a time for that and when it was done it was done,’’ he said. ‘‘Back where I’m from, people sit on their porch all day.’’ –
‘‘Blaxperts, I call ’em. That’s the white guys who are supposed to have some kind of tap into your black psyche.’’
Bill Withers on music industry executives