Still Bill is the second studio album by American soul singer-songwriter and producer Bill Withers, released in 1972 by Sussex Records. The album was recorded and produced by Withers with musicians from the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. The rhythmic music produced for the record features soul, funk, and blues sounds, and lyrics that explore human nature, emotion, and sex from a middle-class male perspective. It also features some of Withers' most popular songs, including the hit singles "Lean on Me" and "Use Me". A commercial and critical success at the time of its release, Still Bill has since been regarded by music journalists as a highlight of the singer's recording career and a classic of 1970s R&B.
Still Bill was well received by contemporary critics. Reviewing for Rolling Stone in 1972, Vince Aletti regarded the album as an improvement over Withers' debut, attributing it to the singer's production, which sustains even the less exceptional songs. "On the whole", Aletti wrote, "it's a tougher, more relaxed, more assured album than Withers' first effort. Nothing is thrown away, everything works with an unexpected clarity and strength."[1]Billboard hailed it as justification of the critical hype behind Withers' first album and live performances, while observing "plenty of sunshine" in the music, highlighting "Lean on Me", "Who is He (And What Is He to You)", "Kissing My Love", and "Lonely Town, Lonely Street".[2] In Creem, Robert Christgau gave the record a B-plus and said, "Withers has created the most credible persona of any of the new middle-class male soul singers, avoiding Marvin Gaye's occasional vapidity, Donny Hathaway's overkill, and Curtis Mayfield's blackness-mongering. He sounds straight, strong, compassionate. This album moves out rhythmically, too, yet in the end he's still missing some essential excitement."[3]
The album produced two hit singles: "Lean on Me", which went to number 1 on the Billboardpop and R&B charts in summer of 1972; and "Use Me", which went to number two on the same charts in fall of 1972.[4] On September 7, 1972, Still Bill was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[5]
Retrospective appraisals of the album have also been positive. Reviewing years later in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Christgau expressed more enthusiasm about the record, saying Withers is "also plenty raunchy and he can rock dead out. The self-production here is adamantly spare, with Ray Jackson furnishing the hook of the year on 'Use Me,' one of the few knowledgeable songs about sex our supposedly sexy music has ever produced."[7] In anticipation of the album's CD reissue by Columbia Records in 2003, PopMatters critic Andy Hermann reviewed the release and called it "essential listening for any fan of early '70s funk and R&B". Hermann highlighted the contributions of session musicians from the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, who helped Withers develop "a unique style of bluesy funk that was the perfect soundtrack to the emotional drama [that] leaked out from around the corners of Withers' laid-back West Virginia drawl."[12] Writing for Rolling Stone in 2005, David Wild found the album "finer and funkier" than Just as I Am and "still a stone-soul masterpiece",[10] while Stylus Magazine's Derek Miller called it "a stone-cold, gold-plated soul classic … far and away Withers’ best, and one that stands tall next to monolithic classics like Call Me, Roots, Hot Buttered Soul, and Talking Book." Miller also viewed it as an example of Withers' musical daring, fusing 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".[13]
In 2007, Still Bill was included in The Guardian's list of "1,000 albums to hear before you die", with an accompanying essay saying 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)?' but the blend of patient, understated, insistently funky acoustic playing is just as vital."[14]Tom Moon included the album in a similar publication, 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (2008), citing it as "one of the most eloquent records" of rhythm and blues. "These are shades-of-gray stories, full of a mature understanding of human nature", Moon observed, before concluding that, "even when reflecting on weighty matters, Withers cultivates a mood of unflappable calm, making everything sound like a lazy summer evening on the front porch."[15] In 2020, the album was ranked number 333 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[16]
Track listing[]
All tracks are written by Bill Withers, except where noted.
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