10 Things We Learned Spending Two Days With Bill Withers
In a little under a month, Bill Withers will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I’m grateful to whoever remembered me,” he says. “When I die, they’ll probably put this on my tombstone.” Withers hasn’t performed a public concert since the early 1990s, and the 76-year-old soul icon still isn’t sure if he’s going to at the April 18th ceremony at Cleveland’s Public Hall. “I have to fix my mind so that I’m not wounded by people who will blame me if I don’t,” he says. “Someone might say to me, ‘Why not?’ Well, what if I can’t? Why do you want to make me feel bad about it? People can be cruel.”
Last month, we spent two days at Withers’ Los Angeles house for a feature that covers his whole life story, from growing up in the tiny coal mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, to making it big in the early 1970s with immortal songs like “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” to his decision to walk away from it all nearly 30 years ago, never once looking back. Here’s 10 things we learned that we were unable to fit into the story.
1. Near the end of his time with Sussex Records, he erased an entire album in a moment of rage when the label was on the verge of bankruptcy.
“They weren’t paying me,” he says. “They looked at me and said, ‘So, I owe you some money, so what?’ I was socialized in the military. When some guy is smushing my face down, it doesn’t go down well. Since I was self-contained and had no manager, my solution was to erase the album. I don’t even know which one it was, but it’s gone.” Cryptically, he refuses to say whether or not there’s a copy of the LP hidden away somewhere. “I ain’t gonna tell you what happened to it,” he says. “In hindsight, I have some regret and could probably have handled that differently.”
Sussex founder Clarence Avant dimly recalls the incident. “I guess we had an argument and he erased his album,” he says. “It was a hard time and there just wasn’t that much money.
2. He loves the MSNBC prison docuseries Lockup and CBS sitcoms.
“Lockup is a window into another way of life,” Withers says. “In prison, it’s OK if you’ve killed nine people, but if you’re a child molester, they’re gonna get you. I like to watch the show because right now the whole country, and really the whole world, is trying to sort out how you reconcile peace among different value systems.”
As for less heavy fare, “The Big Bang Theory is my favorite show,” he says. “Well, Mike and Molly is kind of gaining on it. I have them all recorded and I watch the reruns and stuff. I can’t stop listening to the closing theme from Mike and Molly. It’s this blues guitar that Keb’ Mo’ plays.”
3. Joe Walsh is one of his good friends.
“Joe’s stepson and my daughter were basically best friends in elementary school,” he says. “I call him my ‘Link to the Stars.’ He’s taken me to dinner with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. We went down to Craig’s on Melrose. They had to go through the back door to avoid the paparazzi, but I just walked through the front door and nobody noticed me. One other time, he brought me into the studio where he was recording. I looked around saw Mick Jagger, Ringo and Keb’ Mo’ all in the room. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, there’s an Eagle, a Beatle and a Rolling Stone in this room.'”