Still Bill

Product Information

The album was recorded and produced by Withers with musicians from the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. These characteristics – along with Withers’ strong singing, hybrid arrangements, and deceptively simple songwriting – have allowed the album to endure to the point where it sounds as fresh today as in 1972. No track better exemplifies those principles than “Lean on Me,” a feel-good paean to brotherhood and community that hit No.

Not in the sense that he plays to it, but in the way he approaches it without so much as acknowledging its presence. On Still Bill, his second album, Withers holds forth on all aspects of love, on its wonders; on Kissing My Love, he talks of closing his eyes and seeing a pretty city with a million flowers.Like those landmarks, Still Bill plays with a mix of consistency, effortlessness, and complexity that rewards repeat listening and transcends categorization.

Still Bill boasts the classic Bill Withers sound: warm and easily accessible, with a depth and complexity that reveals itself over numerous plays. When he sang of hurt, the need for love and solidarity, you knew he was talking from first-hand experience.His proclivity for authenticity extends to the record’s other big hit: the sexual, funk-laden “Use Me,” which reached No. That's the genius behind Withers' music: it's warm and easily accessible, but it has a depth and complexity that reveals itself over numerous plays. Music Direct reserves the right to change the terms of this promotion or discontinue this offer at any time. and "Take it All in and Check it All Out" have lyrics that grabbed my attention the first time I heard them. Beside song "Lean on Me", which is number on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, this album contains many other soul and funk hits.

Included by The Guardian on its “1,000 Albums to Hear Before You Die” list (2007) as well as in Tom Moon’s 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die book (2008), its contemporary standing as one of history’s most venerated soul efforts eclipses the positive reception it enjoyed in the early ‘70s.Miller added that Still Bill exemplified Withers' musical daring, having fused soul, blues, and "muscular funk" into a sound that finds "form between the lines … bound by the heated muscle of its rhythms and the satin berth of its softer moments". In 2007, Still Bill was included in The Guardian 's list of "1,000 albums to hear before you die", with an accompanying essay that said the album "contains two of [Withers'] most epochal and best-loved compositions 'Lean on Me' and 'Who Is He (And What Is He to You)? And there are some good tracks here (I quite like Withers delving into funk), along with some pretty standard soul music.

I've decided that the 2012 that was taken directly from the masters (not a copy tape) and released in the EU only is pretty hard to beat.Hoping for better with this Bill Withers, but reading the above it appears to be par for the MFSL course. The first time I spun it I was happy but not blown away, on my 3rd play now and it sounds MUCH better. No track better exemplifies those principles than "Lean on Me," a feel-good paean to brotherhood and community that hit No.