YEAR
2015
INDUCTED BY
Stevie Wonder
CATEGORY
Performers
Brilliant. Tough. Uncompromising. Bill Withers stuck to his guns.
Some people labeled him as difficult, but Bill Withers was simply a man with a vision that he would not compromise. Ever faithful to his muse, he refused to play along with the industry and carved out his own success.
Bill Withers
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Rob Bowman
Bill Withers was simply not born to play the record industry game.
His oft-repeated descriptor for A&R men is “antagonistic and redundant.” Not surprisingly, most A&R men at Columbia Records, the label he recorded for beginning in 1975, considered him “difficult.”
Yet when given the freedom to follow his muse, Withers wrote, sang, and in many cases produced some of our most enduring classics, including “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean on Me,” “Use Me,” “Lovely Day,” “Grandma’s Hands,” and “Who Is He (and What Is He to You).”
