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Ain't No Sunshine: The Smooth Soul and Rough Edges of Bill Withers
The first biography of Bill Withers, the most accidental music supernova, who walked away from fame and never looked back.
Bill Withers entered the music fray as hardly an afterthought, rewrote the rules for a decade, earned a fortune, then, unable to square himself with the requisites of the music business, took his leave. When he died in 2019 at eighty-one, he was every bit the mystery he was when he started.
Born and raised in Slab Fork, West Virginia—his father a coal miner, his childhood spent in a pit of racism, and a shy kid who was asthmatic and stuttered—Withers had every reason to say, “People ask what are the blues. Hell, I was the blues!” His adulthood was spent running away from Slab Fork as a navy enlistee who worked military-related jobs, including making toilets for 747s. Music was a fantasy, ruled by unscrupulous brokers whom he thought he would never be able to live easily with. When he sang of calling on a “lonely brother” in “Lean on Me,” his biggest hit and an astounding feast for the ears, few knew that he was singing about himself. He was the lonely brother, and the business whose audio rules he refashioned only made him lonelier. His songs were not riling, but easing and caressing the deepest of emotional clefts that bore the weight of the world and the reassurance of a better day on his shoulders—“Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean on Me,” “Use Me,” “Lovely Day,” “Just the Two of Us”—as well as album cuts that leaped off the vinyl and helped form a coterie of evergreens among his fans. Yet he ruled in his precious fold of time—eight years in the sun—without as much as an agent, manager, lawyer, accountant, valet, or flunky. He was on his own in every way.
This is the craziest success story music has known—a whirlwind that didn’t begin until Withers was in his thirties and carried on as if in neat slow-motion. Now, in this remarkable biography by acclaimed author Mark Ribowsky, Withers is brought to life in vivid detail, told with insights from those who knew him throughout his short but incredibly impactful career.
Bill Withers entered the music fray as hardly an afterthought, rewrote the rules for a decade, earned a fortune, then, unable to square himself with the requisites of the music business, took his leave. When he died in 2019 at eighty-one, he was every bit the mystery he was when he started.
Born and raised in Slab Fork, West Virginia—his father a coal miner, his childhood spent in a pit of racism, and a shy kid who was asthmatic and stuttered—Withers had every reason to say, “People ask what are the blues. Hell, I was the blues!” His adulthood was spent running away from Slab Fork as a navy enlistee who worked military-related jobs, including making toilets for 747s. Music was a fantasy, ruled by unscrupulous brokers whom he thought he would never be able to live easily with. When he sang of calling on a “lonely brother” in “Lean on Me,” his biggest hit and an astounding feast for the ears, few knew that he was singing about himself. He was the lonely brother, and the business whose audio rules he refashioned only made him lonelier. His songs were not riling, but easing and caressing the deepest of emotional clefts that bore the weight of the world and the reassurance of a better day on his shoulders—“Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean on Me,” “Use Me,” “Lovely Day,” “Just the Two of Us”—as well as album cuts that leaped off the vinyl and helped form a coterie of evergreens among his fans. Yet he ruled in his precious fold of time—eight years in the sun—without as much as an agent, manager, lawyer, accountant, valet, or flunky. He was on his own in every way.
This is the craziest success story music has known—a whirlwind that didn’t begin until Withers was in his thirties and carried on as if in neat slow-motion. Now, in this remarkable biography by acclaimed author Mark Ribowsky, Withers is brought to life in vivid detail, told with insights from those who knew him throughout his short but incredibly impactful career.
271 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 28, 2023
5 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Mark Ribowsky
44 books60 followersMark Ribowsky is the author of seven books, including the New York Times Notable Book Don't Look Back: Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball. He lives in Plainview, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 30, 2023
Could have been better
The author clearly did not know what he was talking about on several occasions. Some were just outright lies ( such as saying The Emotions were Earth Wind and Fires backup singers). This book is mainly just excerpts from old album reviews and filled with second hand information and hearsay. Not a single photo. Bill deserved better than this!
The author clearly did not know what he was talking about on several occasions. Some were just outright lies ( such as saying The Emotions were Earth Wind and Fires backup singers). This book is mainly just excerpts from old album reviews and filled with second hand information and hearsay. Not a single photo. Bill deserved better than this!
June 27, 2024
I love Bill Withers.... but this was a tough read.
May 25, 2024
Mark Ribowsky’s biography of Bill Withers is a major disappointment. Not only is it marred by numerous factual errors and inconsistencies, evidencing poor proofreading and editing, but it also fails to accurately cover key aspects of the narrative of Withers’ life and career.
The errors and inconsistencies throughout the book are too numerous to list, but here’s a sampling (and only a small sampling) of Ribowsky’s issues with dates, his inability to keep track of info, and of sloppy and incomplete research, etc.:
• On page 53, Ribowsky writes that Withers went to Booker T. Jones’ place in Malibu “in June 1971” for his initial meeting in anticipation of Booker’s producing Withers’ first album. On page 62, only 9 pages later, Ribowsky reports that that album, Just As I Am, was released “in May 1971.” Of course, it’s impossible for an album to be released before it’s produced, and, in fact, Booker himself wrote in his 2019 memoirs Time is Tight, My Life Note By Note, on page 211, that his initial meeting with Withers happened “in the summer of 1970.”
• On pages 236-7, Ribowsky writes that Withers’ daughter Kori “moved from LA after graduating from UCLA with a degree in English to earn MFAs in English at Columbia and Musical Theatre Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.” But then on page 245--again, only 9 pages later--he writes Kori “earn[ed] her degrees in English from The New School and Columbia University and a Master of Fine Arts from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.”
• On page 251, Ribowsky quotes Withers as making the following statement during his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech: “This has got to be the largest gay meeting in the Western Hemisphere.” Anyone who listens to the recording of Withers’ speech (available on the Rock Hall’s website) knows that what he in fact said was, “This has got to be the largest AA meeting in the Western Hemisphere.” Withers was referring to the frequent visits to rehab by many of the artists in the audience.
• But the prize for Ribowsky’s biggest blunder just may be his failure to correctly identify the Paul Smith who worked with Withers on his ‘Bout Love album. On page 185, Ribowsky describes Paul Smith as “the then-fifty-six-year-old jazz pianist who had played in Tommy Dorsey, Les Paul and Buddy Rich’s bands….” The problem is that that jazz pianist named Paul Smith was a white man. Had Ribowsky taken a look at the picture of Paul Smith on the back cover of the ‘Bout Love album, he would have learned that ‘Bout Love’s Paul Smith was a young Black man.
Ribowsky’s failure to accurately cover key aspects of the narrative of Withers’ life and career include (but is not limited to): his failure to acknowledge the role Buddah Records played in the launch of Withers’ career and Sussex Records’ early success, as well as Sussex’ demise; Ribowsky’s unsatisfactory explanation regarding the breakup of Withers’ band of Ray Jackson, Benorce Blackmon, Melvin Dunlap and James Gadson; the short shrift he gives to what led to the demise of Sussex; his flawed take on Mickey Eichner’s role with Withers during Withers’ stint at Columbia Records; his not even mentioning the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame which inducted Withers (whom it hailed as "the patriarch of West Virginia music") into its inaugural class in 2007; and certain of what Ribowsky writes about 2015’s “Lean on Him: A Tribute to Bill Withers” at Carnegie Hall is so wrong it looks like he simply made it up.
Ribowsky failed to fulfill his obligation as a biographer to Withers--and to his eventual readers--to be diligent about getting the facts and the narrative right. Withers deserves a better biography that sets the record straight and corrects the facts and narrative that Ribowsky got wrong.
Alex S. Avitabile
The errors and inconsistencies throughout the book are too numerous to list, but here’s a sampling (and only a small sampling) of Ribowsky’s issues with dates, his inability to keep track of info, and of sloppy and incomplete research, etc.:
• On page 53, Ribowsky writes that Withers went to Booker T. Jones’ place in Malibu “in June 1971” for his initial meeting in anticipation of Booker’s producing Withers’ first album. On page 62, only 9 pages later, Ribowsky reports that that album, Just As I Am, was released “in May 1971.” Of course, it’s impossible for an album to be released before it’s produced, and, in fact, Booker himself wrote in his 2019 memoirs Time is Tight, My Life Note By Note, on page 211, that his initial meeting with Withers happened “in the summer of 1970.”
• On pages 236-7, Ribowsky writes that Withers’ daughter Kori “moved from LA after graduating from UCLA with a degree in English to earn MFAs in English at Columbia and Musical Theatre Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.” But then on page 245--again, only 9 pages later--he writes Kori “earn[ed] her degrees in English from The New School and Columbia University and a Master of Fine Arts from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.”
• On page 251, Ribowsky quotes Withers as making the following statement during his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech: “This has got to be the largest gay meeting in the Western Hemisphere.” Anyone who listens to the recording of Withers’ speech (available on the Rock Hall’s website) knows that what he in fact said was, “This has got to be the largest AA meeting in the Western Hemisphere.” Withers was referring to the frequent visits to rehab by many of the artists in the audience.
• But the prize for Ribowsky’s biggest blunder just may be his failure to correctly identify the Paul Smith who worked with Withers on his ‘Bout Love album. On page 185, Ribowsky describes Paul Smith as “the then-fifty-six-year-old jazz pianist who had played in Tommy Dorsey, Les Paul and Buddy Rich’s bands….” The problem is that that jazz pianist named Paul Smith was a white man. Had Ribowsky taken a look at the picture of Paul Smith on the back cover of the ‘Bout Love album, he would have learned that ‘Bout Love’s Paul Smith was a young Black man.
Ribowsky’s failure to accurately cover key aspects of the narrative of Withers’ life and career include (but is not limited to): his failure to acknowledge the role Buddah Records played in the launch of Withers’ career and Sussex Records’ early success, as well as Sussex’ demise; Ribowsky’s unsatisfactory explanation regarding the breakup of Withers’ band of Ray Jackson, Benorce Blackmon, Melvin Dunlap and James Gadson; the short shrift he gives to what led to the demise of Sussex; his flawed take on Mickey Eichner’s role with Withers during Withers’ stint at Columbia Records; his not even mentioning the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame which inducted Withers (whom it hailed as "the patriarch of West Virginia music") into its inaugural class in 2007; and certain of what Ribowsky writes about 2015’s “Lean on Him: A Tribute to Bill Withers” at Carnegie Hall is so wrong it looks like he simply made it up.
Ribowsky failed to fulfill his obligation as a biographer to Withers--and to his eventual readers--to be diligent about getting the facts and the narrative right. Withers deserves a better biography that sets the record straight and corrects the facts and narrative that Ribowsky got wrong.
Alex S. Avitabile
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews