Let's talk about Bill Withers.

yeah i was just going to bring this one up, too. i like the version on the live at carnegie hall album best. more/less relevant than ever?

-- Douglas (il...), April 19th, 2003.

I don't know where it came from, but I've got a version of it by Fiona Apple that's pretty true to the original.

Joe Simon I like too--he recorded for Sound Stage 7 in Nashville. A bit more of a conventionally "good" singer but great.

...and I'd do it again.

It's always a cool breeze to the earholes when "Soul Shadows" comes on during the drive-time Quiet Storm show.

highlights, as vahid noted above, "I can't write left handed" - more relevant than ever now. the long held note on "she's go-o-o-o-o-o-one" in the track "hope she'll be happier" is probably even more astonishing than the one on "Lovely Day".

if you don't have this album you must buy it.

also seek out the soundtrack to SAVE THE CHILDREN (a 1973 concert movie of a Jesse Jackson/Operation PUSH rally from the year before)...bill starts out his portion of the album by saying something like: "ten years ago, if we saw THIS many black people in one place...even WE woulda been scared!" kinda makes up for the fact that he starts out "lean on me" wildly offkey

(you should also check out the DVD that comes with the recent reissue of JUST AS I AM...my man Bill is just going OFF in the modern-day interview segments!)

JUST AS I AM was actually reissued on Columbia in the eighties featuring an updated photo of a bearded Bill in a suit (my, how far we've come), but the new CD version (again on Columbia) restores the original day-job cover from '71!

http://img.hmv.co.jp/image/jacket/190/14/5/8/355.jpg http://www.comicgenius.com/DiscoFever/disco_profiles/george_mccrae/images/rock.gif

Then he changed labels and got more and more "quiet storm" as the years went on, and that's where I get off the train re: Withers. But damn if JUST AS I AM, STILL BILL, the live LP and JUSTMENTS weren't an incredible four-album run.

It's a disco edit/extended mix that sounds like Bill Withers and Quincy Jones being chopped and blunted by Madlib and then fed through the Akufen machine for a futuristic cleaning.

Italo-disco/Cosmic DJs love this track - I have no idea who did this remix - but if it were 3600 minutes long it would still be too short.

OMG just bought Carnegie Hall, and it really is beautiful. And as a rule I hate live albums... It's just so charming, and the band are so understated yet wildly funky. Grandma's Hands is genuinely affecting.

I just felt I wanted to share this.

his drummer is teh shit! so subtle and funky. unbelievable. must get the carnegie hall.

much much love for horace andy's "ain't no sunshine."

Live At Carnegie Hall is the greatest soul record there is. James Brown invented more, Otis Redding is the greater singer, Aretha Franklin could do a wider variety of things, Al Green was more magical. None came close to summing up a cultural moment the way Live At Carnegie Hall did. Bill Withers' world is the one we would all want to live in, and the fact that we don't is why soul died and was replaced by funk and then hip hop (which, of course, have their own virtues).

I just picked up a two-fer of his first couple, but I need to listen. Which is the story with a lot of music I own. : (

Live At Carnegie Hall is the greatest soul record there is

^^^^^^

hmmmmmm. I just have a studio effort.

No, you need that Carnegie Hall album. Seriously.

^

^

more love for Menagerie! it's as good as Still Bill.

Search 'It ain't because of me baby'

Live At Carnegie Hall is the greatest soul record there is

^^^^^^

-- El Tomboto, Friday, October 12, 2007 11:43 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

^^^^^^

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:CK8DlNIOUwuJPM:http://www.80stees.com/images/products/Peanuts_Charlie_Brown_Yellow_Shirt-T.jpg

this is true

got the Live at Carnegie Hall record at the behest of this thread - good shit! thx for the rec everybody

I Can't Write Lefthanded kills - weird version of Ain't No Sunshine tho (I like it but the drummer has an odd take on the rhythm)

I saw a dvd at a friend's house, can't remember now if it was an "Old Grey Whistle Test" or some American thing, but anyhow, Bill Withers doing "Ain't No Sunshine" moved me to tears. Soooo beautiful. I also love the story about how he couldn't come up w/lyrics for a bridge, so he just kept the "I know, I know, I know..." part.

I can feel my heart just athumpinanaskippin

In a room with soft satin pillows
Crackling fireplace keeps us warm
Whispering wind through weeping willows
Sweet Wanomi resting in my arms

In a soft light her eyes are gleaming
Pretty little hand covers up her mouth when she yawns
Wake me up, I must be dreaming that
Sweet Wanomi resting in my arms

Sleepy kisses warm me softly
Get much warmer later on
I reach for the light and turn it off
Sweet Wanomi resting in my arms

so in <3 with that song today

I'm convinced he's one of our greatest songwriters

as am I

Carmen McRae’s version of “Paint your pretty picture” is the only cover I know of that improves on Bill’s take

https://youtu.be/RknfFt06Uzs

Withers got a real royalty juice when S.O.U.L S.Y.S.T.E.M'S pop house cover on The Bodyguard soundtrack got some play

i legitimately love that record

r.i.p. to this great artist

xpost There's something else (very tangentially) cool about that Carmen McRae live album: it might be the first recorded appearance of Joey Baron on drums!

Even chilly darkness has the brightest POLL: Bill Withers' STILL BILL

i moved in to a cozy little trailer with someone i'm in love with a few months ago. we're both jobless since covid but we're lucky to have some savings so in between bouts of anxiety about income we've both slowed down a little bit - not much to do but care for each other.

anyway i played menagerie the morning i heard he'd died and we had coffee and listened to it. the second "lovely day" started i was giving j. meaningful glances and trying to keep from outright bawling. i hadn't actually listened to menagerie before so it was quite a treat -- even the two disco tracks are good. we got to "tender things" and i told j. that bill withers had died and i cried and j. told me that the song's spirit matched mine. a compliment i'll always remember.

i wish i could really say what it is about bill withers that's so special. the familiarity with depression is a part of it. the ability to articulate so clearly what it is about sharing your life with another person that's so fulfilling is another part. and also a healthy, earth-bound sense of ones self in relation to another. a humility, a familiarity with limits. and just the crazy perfect songs, like they're natural fixtures in the world, like the world would be an absurd place by definition if they didn't exist.

My brass band finally finished the tribute that we recorded after he passed, it took awhile to figure out recording in our separate homes and putting a video together:
https://www.facebook.com/mamadigdown/videos/3043741569039500/

All proceeds go to the New Orleans Brass Band Musicians Relief Fund:
https://digdown.bandcamp.com/track/just-the-two-of-us-2

this is solid man, thanks!

thanks u!

The second side of Justments is the best of chill withers

Such a fantastic record. Would like to play Railroad Man out somewhere people might dance to it.

i def would.

also 'justments is his best album.