333. Bill Withers, "Still Bill"

 


Do you remember the first time you encountered "Lean On Me"?  I do.  It was the 80's, and it was Club Nouveau's cover version, which takes Bill Withers' original, from this album, runs it through an 80's music processor, and blasts it into a club banger or whatever they called them at that time.  I didn't realize it was a cover until shortly thereafter when I heard Withers' original on the radio.  "Lean On Me" has been covered dozens of times I think because it's so open to musical reimagining and expresses a sentiment you don't get a lot in popular, which is that friends are very important!

Any album with the original "Lean On Me" is bound to be good, but this album is better than that.  Withers was smart enough to see that other black artists of his era were getting ripped off because they either didn't write the songs they recorded or didn't own the publishing rights and so they didn't make the real money.  Not only was Withers a gifted singer, he was a gifted songwriter, as this album demonstrates.

And it's such a coherent sound!  It's a blend of funk and soul and blues, really held together by Withers' voice.  "Lean On Me" went to #1, of course, and then "Use Me" did too, with its memorable hook and head-nodding backbeat.  That one's been covered a ton of times too, by everyone from Fiona Apple to Widespread Panic.  (Wiki says GWAR covered it too which immediately gave me the vapors and I started furiously searching for any evidence of this but sadly came up empty.  If you have any documentation of GWAR covering "Use Me" please rush it to me ASAP thank you.)

This album is so good at creating a mood and that mood is "riding in the back of a cab semi-drunk on a slightly rainy night looking out the rain-streaked window as the city lights glide by in smears on the window."  

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Yes, totally.

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