Aside from knowing a few of his classic songs; ‘Just The Two
Of Us’, Grandma’s Hands’, ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ & ‘Lean On Me’, I never
knew much about the man behind the music when it came to Bill Withers, so I was
determined to catch this show when it re-aired on BBC4 Friday night and can’t
say I was disappointed.
It was so much more interesting than I had anticipated, as Withers
spoke very candidly about being the last of 13 children, ignorantly labelled
handicap as a child by a teacher because he had a stutter, serving in the navy where
his duties involved toilet camera installation (lol) and most notoriously, the shadiness
of the music business and the way in which it operates, thus influencing his decision
to not release an album since 1985!
In regards to the industry, Withers dropped several relevant nuggets of wisdom, about
how the “Blacksperts” and suits running things, always tried to tell him how he
should market himself (with one sad suggestion being that he should’ve covered
Elvis’ ‘In The Ghetto’) but the best thing, in the words of Dr Cornel West, was
that he defied their rules by remaining authentic and still managed to cross
over on his own terms. #Preach
Including today, there are only 4 days left to view this
show on BBC iPlayer, so don’t delay in learning about yet another underrated
Soul Man;
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