Bill Withers was 33, a former navy mechanic and aircraft-parts assembler, when the Still Bill album came out on Sussex Records on 1 May 1972. A year earlier the cover of his debut had shown him at his job at Weber Aircraft in Burbank. By the summer he had a number one single, a number one R&B album and a record that, more than fifty years on, still sounds like a man thinking out loud with a very good band behind him. It is the best thing he ever made, and one of the finest soul albums of the decade.
From Slab Fork to the Record Plant
Withers was born in Slab Fork, West Virginia, in 1938 and grew up in nearby Beckley. He enlisted in the navy at 17, served nine years, and only started writing songs seriously in his late twenties. Clarence Avant, who owned the young Sussex label, heard his demo in early 1970 and signed him. The debut, Just as I Am (1971), was produced by Booker T. Jones, with Stephen Stills on lead guitar, and gave Withers “Ain’t No Sunshine” and a Grammy for Best R&B Song.
For the follow-up he took control. The Still Bill album was recorded at the Record Plant in Los Angeles and co-produced by Withers with the musicians who played on it, most of them drawn from Charles Wright’s Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. That decision is the key to the whole record.
The band behind the Still Bill album
The line-up is small and every player counts:
- James Gadson – drums and percussion
- Melvin Dunlap – bass
- Benorce Blackmon – guitar
- Ray Jackson – piano, clavinet, Wurlitzer electric piano, plus the horn and string arrangements
- Bill Withers – vocals and guitar, and piano on “Lean on Me”
Gadson is the star. His playing on “Use Me” and “Kissing My Love” is a lesson in how much groove you can get from very little: dry, tight, slightly behind the beat, with ghost notes doing the work that a busier drummer would hand to fills. It is no surprise that hip-hop producers from Dr. Dre onwards have sampled him. Dunlap and Blackmon lock in beside him with the kind of understanding you only get from a working band, and Jackson’s keyboards fill the space without ever crowding the voice. If the Muscle Shoals and Memphis players gave southern soul its grit, this crew gave Withers something leaner and more urban, closer in feel to the records in our essential funk 45s than to anything on Stax.
Track by track: the songs that matter
Side one of the Still Bill album opens with “Lonely Town, Lonely Street”, a loping, faintly sardonic song about the isolation of city life, and it sets the tone: conversational lyrics, a groove that never hurries. “Let Me in Your Life” is the album’s tenderest moment, Withers almost whispering over piano and strings.
“Who Is He (And What Is He to You)?” is the record’s darkest song and, for many listeners, its best. The lyric, credited to Withers and Stanley McKenny, is a jealous interrogation, and the arrangement matches it with a creeping bass line, sharp guitar and strings that sound genuinely menacing. It was never a single, yet it has been covered and sampled more than almost anything else here, from Creative Source’s version to Meshell Ndegeocello’s.
Then the two hits. “Use Me”, built on Gadson’s rimshots and a clavinet figure, reached number two on the pop and R&B charts; it is cheeky, self-aware and very funny about desire. “Lean on Me”, released as a single on 21 April 1972, went to number one on both charts. Withers plays the piano himself, and you can hear the simplicity in the chord pattern, which climbs like a hymn tune. It has been sung at so many school assemblies, funerals and stadium events that it is easy to stop hearing it. Put it on in its album context, straight after “Use Me”, and the contrast between the two sides of the man is striking.
Side two is stronger than its reputation. “Kissing My Love” is one of the great drum records of the 1970s. “I Don’t Know” and “Another Day to Run”, the latter co-written with Blackmon, keep the reflective mood, and “I Don’t Want You on My Mind” is a slow, bruised blues. The closer, “Take It All In and Check It All Out”, is gently philosophical, a summing-up rather than a showstopper.
How Still Bill was received
The Still Bill album went straight to the top of the Billboard soul albums chart and into the top five of the pop chart, and the RIAA certified it gold on 7 September 1972. Vince Aletti in Rolling Stone rated it an improvement on the debut. Robert Christgau gave it a B-plus in Creem, then upgraded it to an A in his 1981 Record Guide, which feels like the right verdict. In 2020 Rolling Stone placed it at number 333 in its revised list of the 500 greatest albums.
Why has it lasted? Partly because on the Still Bill album Withers wrote about adult life without melodrama. Partly because the playing is so economical that nothing has dated. And partly because his voice, unvarnished and conversational, never sounds like it is performing. Set it beside a classic of the previous decade such as Otis Blue and you hear how far soul had moved in seven years, from the church towards the living room.
Buying the Still Bill album on vinyl
The original US pressing is Sussex SXBS 7014, distributed by Buddah. Copies pressed by American Record Pressing carry “ARP” and “STERLING” in the run-out, the latter indicating mastering at Sterling Sound. Because the Still Bill album sold in large numbers, clean originals are not hard to find, and you should not need to pay collector prices for a decent copy. Check the vinyl for groove wear on “Lean on Me” in particular, since it is the track most people played to death; our vinyl grading guide explains what to look for.
For a new copy, Music On Vinyl issued a 180-gram European edition (MOVLP379), and audiophile labels have also had a go. On CD, the 2003 Columbia/Legacy reissue adds two live tracks from Carnegie Hall, and a 2012 nine-CD Columbia/Legacy box gathers all of his Sussex and Columbia albums in mini-LP sleeves, remastered from the analogue tapes. The wider reissue market is covered in our guide to soul reissue labels, and the album’s full credits are listed on Wikipedia.
If you only own one Bill Withers record, it should be the Still Bill album. The live album from Carnegie Hall in 1973, with the same band, is the natural next step.
Still Bill FAQ
Who played on Bill Withers’ Still Bill?
James Gadson (drums), Melvin Dunlap (bass), Benorce Blackmon (guitar) and Ray Jackson (keyboards and arrangements), most of them from the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, with Withers on vocals, guitar and piano.
Which hit singles came from the Still Bill album?
“Lean on Me”, which reached number one on the US pop and R&B charts in 1972, and “Use Me”, which reached number two. “Kissing My Love” followed as a single in 1973.
Is an original pressing of Still Bill valuable?
Not especially. The album went gold in 1972, so US Sussex originals (SXBS 7014) are common. Condition drives the price far more than rarity.