- Just As I Am · 1971
- Love Songs · 1980
- The Best Of Bill Withers: Lean On Me · 1972
- The Best Of Bill Withers: Lean On Me · 1981
- The Best Of Bill Withers: Lean On Me · 1977
- Menagerie · 1977
- Still Bill · 1972
- Just As I Am · 1971
- Still Bill · 1972
- + 'Justments · 1974
- + 'Justments · 1974
- Still Bill · 1972
- Ain't No Sunshine (Lido Remix) - Single · 2007
Essential Albums
- Bill Withers' first two albums, Just As I Am and Still Bill, make a potent one-two punch. Both are loaded with some of the most ubiquitous standards of '70s pop, let alone R&B. On his debut, Withers was backed by an all-star cast of players, but Still Bill features his hard-grooving road band, one of the funkiest ensembles of the era, and they infuse the album with feeling. For instance, the supple syncopation of James Gadson's drums and the serpentine slink of Raymond Jackson's clavinet on "Use Me" help make it simultaneously sensual and super-funky. And the understated insinuation of the groove on "Who Is He (And What Is He to You)?" perfectly underscores the narrator's slowly growing paranoia. But funky propulsion is far from the whole story here. The enduring, much-covered "Lean on Me" moves like a hymn before bursting into a clap-along gospel chorus that punctuates its openhearted message of compassion. And within a framework of gently jazzy guitar and billowing strings, Withers works the tender side of his sound on "Let Me in Your Life," directed at a wounded heart wary of opening up again. Withers would keep making killer records throughout the '70s, but Still Bill (and its predecessor) set a standard soul singers would follow for generations to come, with Withers’ warm, oaky voice and deep-but-unpretentious examinations of heart and soul pushed along by a sensitive but slamming band.
- By the time Withers recorded his debut, 1971’s Booker T.-helmed Just as I Am, he was a well-lived 32-year-old who had done time in both the armed forces and factories. The album is, without reservation, one of the greatest, most personal soul LPs ever recorded. Mixing ’70s-style singer-songwriter confessionals with ’60s Southern soul, it crossed genres and racial boundaries, topping both the pop and R&B charts, and defining a moment in early ’70s music. The huge “Ain’t No Sunshine” draws you in and then Withers’ grabs you with everyday truths, which populated the other tunes — culminating on “Better Off Dead,” where an alcoholic commits suicide after drinking away his woman and life. Yes, his songs are fraught with melancholy and sadness, sometimes with zero redemptive qualities; they’re very vérité in a sense, like life. The album feels and sounds like it had to be made, that other options were none for a West Virginian son from a tiny coal-mining town who grew up in a world of railroad yards, welfare lines, and deceitful congregations.
Albums
- 1978
- 1976
- 1975
- 1974
- 1972
Artist Playlists
- The introspective soul singer spins tales of lovely days and lonely nights.
- Throwback soul and piano ballads that reflect his warm glow.
- His rich catalog includes jazz fusion and a Bobby Womack duet.
Singles & EPs
Live Albums
More To Hear
- Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bill Withers' 'Still Bill.'
- Annie's selections for an aspiring actor hustling in Hollywood.
About Bill Withers
Singer-songwriter Bill Withers took soul music in a radically introspective direction in the early '70s, reviving the world-weary storytelling of the blues and embracing the autobiographical intimacy of folk rock. Already shaped by a lifetime of racial injustice and emotional upheaval by the time he first entered the studio in his early thirties, the West Virginia-born Withers applied hard-won, humanistic wisdom to sketches of striving city dwellers ("Harlem"), estranged fathers ("I'm Her Daddy"), and anguished alcoholics ("Better Off Dead”) with a voice that could soothe or scald. Bringing that same maturity to soul's greatest subject, Withers could revel in the small moments that make love feel sublime ("Lovely Day”), capture the devastation of a relationship’s regrets ("Ain't No Sunshine”), and offer inspiration while reaching out to a friend in need (“Lean on Me”). While he passed away on March 30, 2020, Withers left an undeniable stamp on socially conscious, intimately personal R&B singer-songwriters like Anthony Hamilton and D'Angelo, freeing them to mine life's deepest pleasures and darkest pains while finding poetry in day-to-day struggle.
- HOMETOWN
- Slab Fork, WV, United States
- BORN
- July 4, 1938
- GENRE
- R&B/Soul