Bill Withers, `Lean On Me` Attitude Back The 47-year-old Singer, Whose Style And Delivery Fall Somewhere Between Lou Rawls And Marvin Gaye, Has Released A New Album And Embarked On A Concert Tour.

October 27, 1985|By Scott Benarde, Music Writer

Remember Bill Withers?

Think back to the early `70s, to songs such as Ain`t No Sunshine (When She`s Gone), Lean on Me and Use Me. All hit at least No. 3 on the pop charts.

The singer-songwriter whose style and delivery fall somewhere between Lou Rawls and Marvin Gaye had subsequent, but less impressive hits throughout the `70s. Then the hits stopped coming and, finally, so did Bill Withers` albums and concert tours. Withers resurfaced briefly in 1981 with the No. 2 hit single Just the Two of Us, but that song was part of Grover Washington Jr.`s Winelight album.

Eight years after his last album and tour, Bill Withers is back.

The 47-year-old singer recently released a new album, Watching You, Watching Me, and has just embarked on a concert tour opening for singer Jennifer Holliday. The tour brings Withers and Holliday to the Sunrise Musical Theatre tonight.

Withers did not willingly retire from the music business. The eight-year hiatus between records has been painfully long. It also has been frustrating and confusing.

There is a reason for it, Withers says.

``I just wasn`t able to get any songs past the A&R; (artist and repertoire) department at CBS. A lot of that was the same music that`s on the current record. Two of three singles released from the album so far were rejected in 1982.``

Asked why CBS didn`t release him from his contract, Withers replies: ``I asked myself that. CBS is a big place and they can forget about you, bounce you around for 20 years.

``The hard part for me is when they were putting out Mr. T records and I couldn`t make one. I don`t understand how it could happen.``

Withers may not understand, but Denny Diante, a vice president and executive producer at CBS who co-produced Watching Me, Watching You, explains what happened this way:

``There was not a musical harmony between Bill and some of the guys in the A& R department at the time. I don`t think those people understood Bill as a man or an artist. He`s very sensitive.``

Diante adds that even with that conflict, enough people believed Withers would eventually come through.

``You don`t drop a great artist you believe in just because he doesn`t deliver a project you like. You wait until he`s ready. CBS is big enough where we don`t have to depend on a Bill Withers album to exist.``

Though his singing on the album is lean and soulful and the songs ring with romance, Withers views the record as more of a psychological triumph than an artistic one.

``When you`re excluded for that many years, you lose touch. Things happen to your confidence. My intention with this record was to try to get it past someone`s desk.

``The record was mostly influenced by not allowing what happened to turn me into someone who was not romantic. When that happens, then you`re no longer free. You become a true shadow and people can manipulate your inner emotional feelings.

``The completion of this record was a big relief. From 1978 to 1985, I tried to get the record out. That`s a long time to sustain a goal. During that period I normally would have made seven records.``

During that recording chasm Withers still managed to accomplish quite a bit. He continued to write songs. And friends like Grover Washington Jr. and the Crusaders invited him to sing on their records.

``I had two kids and got five Grammy nominations between albums,`` Withers says, laughing at the irony of it all. To answer the repeated question of when his next album would be released, Withers says, ``For a while I would say I was busy with my children.``

Withers also got involved with causes such as sickle cell anemia research and the anti-apartheid movement. In August Withers performed in Detroit to help raise money for an Afro-American History Museum and dedicate an award to South African apartheid opponent Winnie Mandela.

``There`s no way I could not be involved in it. If I wasn`t black, maybe I`d be indifferent to it. But my mother`s father was a slave. I`m not far enough removed from that myself.

``I grew up in West Virginia in the `30s, `40s and `50s and was stationed in Pensacola in 1956 in the Navy. Racism has been a part of my life.``

As an example of racism in the music business, Withers points to how the same song gets classified differently depending on whether a white or black singer performs it.

``Tracks of My Tears is rock when Linda Ronstadt does it, but it`s called R&B; when Smokey Robinson does it. When Mick Jagger does an old blues song, it`s rock, but when an 80-year-old black man in Mississippi does it, it`s the blues.``

He adds that South Africa is part of ``a situation where we can hope to structure as many places in the world as we can where somebody can`t kill you, just for being black. It`s ludicrous that this is even an issue of whether (South Africa`s) policy is valid or not. If we can meddle in Grenada and Nicaragua, there`s no reason we should allow people to be disenfranchised in South Africa. There`s no need to discuss whether it`s right or wrong. That`s absurd.``

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