Bill Withers — The Lasting Impact of One of Music’s Most Unlikely Stars
And one of the best singer-songwriters so far
When Bill Withers died at the beginning of April 2020 at the age of 81, even many of his biggest fans were unaware that he was still alive up to that moment. The reason was quite simple. The man who wrote and sang some of soul music’s biggest hits decided to quit making music at one point in 1985.
Rare live appearances that came up later on just confirmed the quality of his talent, with “Lean On Me” ― one of his biggest hits ― re-emerged at the time of his death “as an anthem of hope and solidarity in the time of COVID-19.”
When the same magazine wrote a big feature on the artist back in 2015, Questlove had this to say about the three-time Grammy winner: “He’s the last African-American Everyman. Jordan’s vertical jump has to be higher than everyone. Michael Jackson has to defy gravity. On the other side of the coin, we’re often viewed as primitive animals. We rarely land in the middle. Bill Withers is the closest thing black people have to a Bruce Springsteen.” And it is Withers’ extraordinary story that tells it why.
