Bill Withers in concert from London this morning – keeping everything mellow and calm.
This is from Bill Withers’ site (which you can explore and grab a few things).
His songs speak for themselves. Mary J. Blige‘s version of “Lean on Me” echoed in Washington D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial at the “We Are One” pre-inaugural festivities for president Barack Obama, just as Withers’ words had similarly honored president Bill Clinton. “Ain’t No Sunshine” set the scene for a much talked about episode in the hit series Scandal in 2013. Commercial uses, including the Amazon Prime’s campaign featuring “Lovely Day,” match the music to new markets. Alternative Rock group Alt-J brings a new interpretation to “Lovely Day” while Justin Timberlake performs a mash-up of the song at the Oscars in 2018; Willie Nelson and Mavis Staples’ duet of “Grandma’s Hands” is a striking rendition on his latest release To All The Girls; and at the unveiling of the Bill Russell Legacy Project in Boston, a newly-penned song “I Am My Father’s Son” is performed by Johnny Mathis
Legacy Recordings’ box set of all nine of Withers albums, The Complete Sussex and Columbia Albums, released in late 2012, won a Grammy for Best Historical Recording in 2014. Withers’ riveting 1974 concert performance in Zaire preceding the fabled Muhammad Ali/George Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle” face-off is in the feature film, Soul Power and Withers himself is the subject of the documentary, Still Bill, that debuted at the SXSW Film Festival, is available on DVD.
Withers music goes beyond classification, and that’s a good thing; because his music and his message is universal.
Give a listen and see what I mean.
As you probably know by now, Past Daily has been going through a few changes. Over the past several months we’ve been introducing new features and losing old ones. We’ve begun to run ads, only because we really need the income in order to stay online and hope this isn’t a problem. Of course, if you consider subscribing and becoming a Patron via Patreon, you get the posts ad-free and the option to download all the audio we post here – our way of saying thank you for your support and to help you build your own archive. Joining Patreon is easy and we’ve made it even easier for you by offering you a free trial to kick the tires, as it were. All you have to do is click on the red box just below, the one that says Become A Patron, and be part of the family. You can support us one time or forever; your choice. We’ll be offering more perks as time goes on – but we need to get stable first and we can only do that with your support. So do everybody a favor and join us – we’d love to have you!
