Bill Withers' Greatest Hits

Product Information

Just the Two of Us,""Soul Shadows" - 1/4" / 15 IPS / Dolby A analog copy to DSD 64 to analog console to lathe Use Me” came one spot away on both the Hot 100 and R&B Songs chart to matching the supremacy of “Lean On Me,” and it’s not hard to see why the song was as massive as it was — or why it was just the tiniest bit less universally accessible than “Lean.” The belching bass-and-organ saunter is irresistible, but the subject matter — about Withers’ shrugging, even smiling acceptance of an emotionally abusive but sexually fulfilling relationship — was a little real for 1972 pop radio, and the song’s greatest joys come in its negative spaces, particularly the gleefully torturous pause in between “You just keep on using me… until you use me up.”— A.U.

Or listen to City of Angels from Naked and Warm. A hymn to the sunkissed land of opportunity that is LA, it suddenly loses its rhythm midway through, leaving behind five more minutes of beatless drift that are both gorgeous and unsettling. “I heard you got a Disneyland not too far away,” sings Withers, “and when it rains I understand the skies are clear all day.” There’s a yearning tone to his voice that suggests he knows paradise isn’t going to materialise, that life is going to be hard regardless of the climate. It says something that an oeuvre as concise as his contains hidden gems: his biggest hits got so big that they couldn’t help but cast a shadow over everything else. Like the earlier decade’s “Let It Be” or “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Withers’ signature ballad has taken on such near-hymnal significance and transcendence over the decades that it’s almost impossible to imagine it ever being a contemporary pop song. But of course it was — and an exceedingly popular one at that becoming his first (and, improbably, his only) No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard‘s R&B Songs listing in 1972. While its gentle up-and-down melody and message of unconditional support are unsurprisingly timeless — to the point where a much more playful Club Nouveau cover also topped the Hot 100 a decade and a half later — the main selling point is still Withers’ delivery, sturdy but not overpowering, helpful but not pushy. — A.U.

Rate/Catalog

Like Withers himself, his debut single, 1971’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” was a gentle masterpiece that quietly pioneered a new breed of R&B, melding sparse blues-folk rhythms with lush, soulful strings. It’s so gorgeously melancholy in its low-key wistfulness that you almost don’t realize he’s repeating the words “I know” over and over until he’s d–n near close to the 26th time. – JOE LYNCH

In a scant two minutes of acoustic blues reverie, Withers paints a detailed, nuanced portrait of a woman’s entire life – the quiet hardships, the tough benevolence – and how it fit into her community without ever describing anything other than her hands. A master course in poetic brevity. — J. Lynch

10 Reviews

Arguably the slinkiest groove in a career full of ’em, “Who Is He (And What Is He to You)” is an absolute master class in single-measure funk, one unsettling four-note guitar-and-bass loop that burrows its way further into your bones with each repetition. Withers matches it with a vocal that derives an entire universe of suspicion and betrayal from one passing glance from a stranger on the street —“I don’t know who he is, but I think that you do”— letting us draw our own conclusions about whether he’s really that intuitive, or just a jealous guy with his own s–t to work through. Either way, the word “dadgummit” never hurt so bad. — A.U.