In Memory Bill Withers

In April 2020 Bill Withers died of the Corona Virus. He was 81.

William Harrison Withers Jnr was born in 1938 in Virginia USA and in 1970 he sent a demo tape to Sussex Records, which led to his first album JUST AS I AM which was released in 1971. The album included the huge worldwide hit and Grammy winning song Aint No Sunshine.

The song was inspired by a 60s film about main characters overcoming alcohol addiction. Surprisingly in the UK it only got to No 40 in the single charts

In 1972 he released the classic Lean On Me that charted to No. 1 in the US and no.18 in the UK from the album Still Bill.

Withers recalled to SongFacts the original inspiration for the song:

"I bought a little piano and I was sitting there just running my fingers up and down the piano. In the course of doing the music, that phrase crossed my mind, so then you go back and say, 'OK, I like the way that phrase, Lean On Me, sounds with this song.'"

The song was covered by many artists including the Glam Rock group MUD.

Another pop classic followed in 1977 with the incredible Lovely Day single that has been re-released many times since. The song has an 18 second note at the end and has Ray Parker Jnr on guitar.
Skip Scarborough was a songwriter and producer who worked with Earth, Wind & Fire, Patti Labelle, LTD, and many other R&B stars before his death in 2003. He wrote the music for this song, and was also the inspiration for the lyrics Withers came up with. In our interview with Bill Withers, he explained: "Skip was a very nice, gentle man. The way Skip was, every day was just a lovely day. He was an optimist. If I had sat down with the same music and my collaborator had been somebody else with a different personality, it probably would have caused something else to cross my mind lyrically. It was a combination of the music and the person and the ambiance in the room."