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Lean On Me Singer Bill Withers Dies At 81
Bill Withers, the acclaimed 1970s soul singer behind hits Ain't No Sunshine and Lean On Me has died from heart complications aged 81, his family said.
The singer died on Monday in Los Angeles, the family told the Associated Press.
They described him in a statement as a "solitary man with a heart driven to connect to the world".
"He spoke honestly to people and connected them to each other," the statement said.
Known for his smooth baritone vocals and sumptuous soul arrangements, he wrote some of the 70s best-remembered songs, including Just The Two Of Us, Lovely Day and Use Me.
On Lovely Day, he set the record for the longest sustained note on a US chart hit, holding a high E for 18 seconds.
Although he stopped recording in 1985, his songs remained a major influence on R&B and hip-hop.
His track Grandma's Hands was sampled on Blackstreet's No Diggity, and Eminem reinterpreted Just The Two Of Us on his hit 1997 Bonnie And Clyde.
Lean On Me has recently become associated with the Coronavirus pandemic, with many people posting their own versions to support health workers.
"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved, devoted husband and father," said Withers' family in a statement.
"With his poetry and music, he spoke honestly to people and connected them to each other.
"As private a life as he lived, close to intimate family and friends, his music forever belongs to the world. In this difficult time, we pray his music offers comfort and entertainment as fans hold tight to loved ones."
US musician Chance the Rapper led tributes, describing the singer as "the greatest" and recalling some of his own personal memories.
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Rock star and actor Lenny Kravitz posted that his "voice, songs, and total expression gave us love, hope, and strength".
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And BBC Radio 2's Trevor Nelson wrote the star's music was "a remedy for these nonsensical times".
"He was a genius singer/songwriter. Can't listen to Bill without feeling emotional."
Born in 1938, Withers was the youngest of six children. His father died when he was a child and he was raised by his mother and grandmother.
His entry to the music world came late - at the age of 29 - after a nine-year stint in the Navy
He taught himself to play guitar between shifts at his job making toilet seats for the Boeing aircraft company, and used his wages to pay for studio sessions in LA.
He recorded his first album, Just As I Am, with Booker T Jones in 1970. It included the mournful ballad Ain't No Sunshine, which earned him his first Grammy award the subsequent year.
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He scored another million-selling hit with Lean On Me in 1972.
Gospel-tinged and inspirational, the song was based on his experiences growing up in a West Virginia coal mining town: When times were hard, neighbours would lend each other help and assistance, and the memory stuck with the singer.
It was later performed at the inaugurations of both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
But Withers quit at the top, walking away from his career after scoring a pop hit with Just The Two Of Us, although he occasionally toured with Grover Washington Jr in the 1990s.
As a younger man, he suffered with a debilitating stutter, and in 2015, he and fellow stutterer Ed Sheeran put on a benefit concert for the Stuttering Association For The Young.
The same year, Withers was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame, and when asked how it felt by US TV show CBS Good Morning, he joked, "It's like a pre-obituary!"
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Despite his influence on generations of musicians, he did not keep track of music after his career ended.
"These days," he said in 2015, "I wouldn't know a pop chart from a Pop-Tart."
But he was aware that his compositions had become part of the fabric of music.
"What few songs I wrote during my brief career, there ain't a genre that somebody didn't record them in," he told Rolling Stone in 2014. "I'm not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with."
"The hardest thing in songwriting is to be simple and yet profound," agreed Sting in Still Bill, a documentary about Wither's career, "and Bill seemed to understand, intrinsically and instinctively, how to do that,"
He is survived by his wife, Marcia, and children, Todd and Kori.
The star was given an Ivor Novello songwriting award in the UK three years ago
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Scotland's Skills: Are They Unfit For The Future?
If you've recently spent time with someone in their late teens, trying to chart their future education and training, you'll probably sympathise with James Withers and his son, going into his final year at school.
Perhaps it's because there's so much choice. There may never have been a better time to be a job-seeker.
But as James Withers and Son discovered, when he was asked to report back to Scottish ministers on the "skills landscape", it doesn't always feel that way. It's more likely to be an alphabet soup of acronyms, and public agencies that look like they ought to be some help but... Well, they just aren't.
Choosing courses and what are officially known as "positive destinations" - that is, having something to do after leaving school - tends towards going to university if you can. That's not only Mr Withers' view: you can overhear that discussion anywhere.
Countries with a more successful track record in skilled workforces have a more balanced approach to what we tend to call vocational skills, including Germany and Switzerland. Singapore offers an example in "skills mastery", in which you continue to develop skills throughout life.
But it would be "nonsense" to claim that universities provide no vocational skills, or that conventional apprenticeships are all about skills and not about deeper learning. The Withers report tells us to ditch that binary thinking, and to stop being so simplistic.
"We need a single, coherent learning system," says Withers", "not a collection of isolated and disjointed parts."
Virtual adviser
From the point of view of the service user - typically, a young person setting out into the world of work, though at the risk of neglecting others at a later stage - this holds out the prospect of harnessing the technology of algorithms to help us throughout life.
By having a coherent set of qualifications, a virtual careers assistant could be available to flag up opportunities at any age and stage for new skills, training, job moves and career development.
Imagine the dogged persistence of LinkedIn or Facebook applied to such a public sector project, continually scanning for opportunities.
So while much political and media attention was focussed on the day of this report's publication on whether there should be a 20 pence Scottish deposit scheme for drink cans and bottles, my hunch is this report could have a bigger influence on the future of Scottish people as individuals and on their economy.
And perhaps that is because the choices it sets out lie almost entirely with the Scottish government, so this does not fit comfortably into a political or media narrative of constitutional confrontation.
'Different future'
You may recall James Withers as an eloquent and passionate advocate for Scotland Food and Drink, as it steered its way through Brexit and the pandemic. He has a gift for cutting through bureaucratic language, and telling it straight.
On leaving that chief executive role, he was asked by ministers to advise them on this part of the economic transformation plan, set out under a previous first minister but still the guiding route map for the new one.
Seven months later, and with different ministers in charge, the Withers report takes quite a personal approach, with that same no-nonsense style he deployed for food and drink producers. He concludes that the current skills, training and education system is a long way from being fit for purpose.
More precisely, in his words: "The skills system is not fit for the substantially different future approaching us. We need a radical rethink or the job opportunities that arise from a changing economy risk being lost; a repeat of the 1980s".
It calls for a "ruthless" focus on those who use the system. That means ruthlessly moving away from instinctive protection of the agencies that are meant to be providing for those service users.
Across 15 recommendations for reform, the relatively easy bit calls for us all to have a different approach and attitude to learning and training: to university, college and apprenticeships: to prestige and stigma in the system.
Everyone is agreed that change is needed, it concludes, but there is no consensus on what that change should be.
'Ruthless focus'
The more difficult bit is in tearing apart and rebuilding the structures which currently exist. So the body that funds universities and colleges (the Scottish Funding Council) would be merged with the agency that funds apprentices and runs the careers service (Skills Development Scotland).
Instead of agencies, the Scottish government could take direct responsibility for skills planning at a national level, and then drive down the delivery of that to local level.
Post-school qualifications, some of which are accredited elsewhere, should rest with the successor to the Scottish Qualifications Authority - a body which has been served notice to quit, after having a bad pandemic, but is being replaced very, very slowly.
"The lack of consensus in the system means that change will not be easy. It may be uncomfortable for many people," says Withers.
"My strong advice to ministers is not to shape change based on the views of those with current delivery responsibilities. Instead, this change requires a ruthless focus on the users of the system; the people of Scotland for whom world-class lifelong learning can be the catalyst to unlock their potential and shape Scotland's economy and communities."
The focus of the report seeks to remain on the future, rather than providing a report card on what we've currently got. But even the section headings on "the current landscape", gives you that judgement.
"A landscape of tensions," it begins, and then: "Lack of strategic direction, shared narrative and measures of success".
"Complex and fragmented funding environment" is followed by "Incoherent, disjointed pathways and a failure of language."
While praising universities and colleges, the people who work in the careers service and much else besides, the verdict on the system as a whole continues to be damning.
The headings continue: "Absence of national prioritisation and regional flexibility: Inconsistency of careers advice and education: Complicated business interface and clarity of expectation from employers."
'Lack of partnership'
Skills Development Scotland (SDS) gets some of the harsher comment. The agency has a "strong internal culture", and good work with employers: "However, this spirit of collaboration is not as evident in how the organisation works with the rest of the public sector, with many other agencies commenting on the lack of partnership working."
The Scottish government agency is told that it seems to be too focused on working with employers on training initiatives (to be fair, an important part of its remit), and not enough on public service or the needs of learners.
'Truly responsive'
SDS's comment on the report avoided any direct response, focusing instead on aligning itself with the ministerial "focus on building a lifelong education and skills system that's truly responsive to future change and meets the needs of Scotland's wellbeing economy, including for industry and employers".
Chairman Frank Mitchell went on: "We will work constructively with the new minister and our partners to consider the review findings", adding in other reviews crowding in on this landscape and also worthy of consideration. In other words, the Withers report is not the only game in town.
However, the judgement on what we've got does not go further back into how we got here. And there may be lessons there.
Through the early years of the Scottish Parliament, there were repeated attempts to find the right place for the careers service and the best role for enterprise agencies. If skills are bundled with education, how do they align with another minister's responsibilities for the economy, for which they're clearly vital?
With the dawn of the Sturgeon era, there was an attempt to rationalise and simplify enterprise agencies and skills, which ended up creating a more complex "landscape" and a new agency, for the south of Scotland.
Wherever you put skills, the careers service and support for business, the 'landscape' quickly develops new boundaries that are some way short of optimal.
Education minister Graeme Dey responded cautiously to the Withers report. Delivery of the plan he's been given will require a brave politician.
Bureaucracies don't respond well or cheaply to being ripped up and reshaped, least of all when current incumbents are not trusted with the task of reforming themselves.
"I am supportive of the broad direction of travel James Withers identifies," the minister said, "but will take a little time to consider fully the detail of the recommendations and the practicalities of implementing them."
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