Live Bill Withers

Bill Withers performs a heartfelt song expressing his love for his partner and his dreams for their future together. He also shares his thoughts on the struggles and hardships of being a black man in America. Withers delivers a powerful spoken word performance, reflecting on the pain and frustration felt by the black community and encouraging the audience to remember the struggles and stand up against oppression. The episode also features a conversation between Bill Withers and poet May Jackson about love, urban life, and black consciousness. Additionally, Bill Withers shares memories of his grandmother and her influential role in his life.

Bill Withers performs a heartfelt song expressing his love for his partner and his dreams for their future together. He also shares his thoughts on the struggles and hardships of being a black man in America. Withers delivers a powerful spoken word performance, reflecting on the pain and frustration felt by the black community and encouraging the audience to remember the struggles and stand up against oppression. The episode also features a conversation between Bill Withers and poet May Jackson about love, urban life, and black consciousness. Additionally, Bill Withers shares memories of his grandmother and her influential role in his life.

Bill Withers performs a heartfelt song expressing his love for his partner and his dreams for their future together. He also shares his thoughts on the struggles and hardships of being a black man in America. Withers delivers a powerful spoken word performance, reflecting on the pain and frustration felt by the black community and encouraging the audience to remember the struggles and stand up against oppression. The episode also features a conversation between Bill Withers and poet May Jackson about love, urban life, and black consciousness. Additionally, Bill Withers shares memories of his grandmother and her influential role in his life.

More generous than the 20-track The Very Best Of, Essential Bill Withers is a 34-track anthology that features all of Withers' notable singles, along with other highlights from the singer's albums for the Sussex and Columbia labels, from 1971's Just as I Am through 1985's Watching You Watching Me. This is a fine and extensive introduction to Withers' catalog, featuring "Ain't No Sunshine," "Lean on Me," "Use Me," "Lovely Day," and "The Same Love That Made Me Laugh." He also recorded scads of excellent deep album cuts that could not fit. In 2013, the lovingly packaged The Complete Sussex and Columbia Albums Collection – released the previous year – retailed for roughly three times the price of this set. Anyone with a serious interest in Withers' work should seriously consider that option, though it doesn't contain "Just the Two of Us," the big hit from Grover Washington, Jr.'s Winelight album.

A good compilation that illustrates Bill Withers recording career which ended with his disillusionment with the recording industry. He performed and recorded from 1970 until 1985. On this CD, there is all the major songs, some of which are very inspired writings and many are in a class of there own. There is no doubt that Withers was a perfectionist and the musically, he was well ahead of his time. Take 'Grandma's Hands' and all of the early Sussex recordings that feature the acoustic guitar. with and without the lovely string backings (by Booker T. Jones). Disc 1 illustrates some of his great early material. Later on, we get the Columbia recordings which are good but musically, you get the impression that Withers was being pressured by the company to deliver what they wanted and not necessarily the material that he wanted to do. He is a unique artist and sincerely hope that one day, he will surprise the public by releasing some amazing new songs with the poetry and musicality of his 1970's material.

Recorded live at the New Daisy Theater with Bland's regular working road band, this captures him in fine form, bringing together old favorites with some other numbers for a heady blend. When called for, the old Joe Scott heavy horn-laden arrangements are summoned up on tunes like "St. James Infirmary," "Farther on Up the Road," "That's the Way Love Is," "I Pity the Fool," and "I'll Take Care of You" with consummate ease. But even more telling is how effortlessly and seamlessly material like Buddy Ace's "Love of Mine," "Members Only," "Soon as the Weather Breaks," and Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" and "Get Your Money Where You Spend Your Time" meshes with the old standbys. A lengthy slow blues medley brings guest appearances from Johnnie Taylor and Bobby Rush on "Stormy Monday," but the real star here is Bland himself. He's in good voice and good humor, and this makes a fine addition to his stack of latter-day recordings.