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It was the dog-end days of the 1960s.
The Black Panthers were both preparing for war and being entertained in Leonard Bernsteins Park Avenue apartment.
Four students were gunned down by National Guard troops at Ohios Kent State.
And the Vietnam War was still going on more than 10,000 dead in 1969 alone.
Withers,who diedearlier this week of heart complicationsat 81, had talent and an air of imperturbable gravity.
That combination made his deceptively simple songs sound genuinely real and somehow necessary.
He was black, in a genre that had become almost entirely white.
(His big job: installing toilets in 747s.)
He was separated enough from his contemporaries to have been born during the Depression, in 1938.
Hed grown up in West Virginia coal country in a company town.
A brother died when he was 7; his father passed away when he was 13.
He worked for years in L.A. and its environs, looking for a way to break into the industry.
The sound was unique for the time.
His second album, 1972sStill Bill, produced Lean on Me, which became a No.
1 pop hit and drove the album into the top five.
It was an aspect of his personality that would eventually mean the end of his recording career.
Withers had a firm, rectitudinous cast, and wasnt in the business to play games with his art.
On the outside, at least, he professed indifference: I wasnt into that, he shrugged.
Boy, you sure do get better looking when you have a hit record, Ill tell you that!
At the same time, he never played at being too cool to talk about his artistic process.
I am proud of myself because I did not hit him.
I met another executive who was looking at a photo of the Four Tops in a magazine.
He actually said to me, Look at these ugly niggers.
He cranked out albums through the decade, a total of eight.
The best of these isLive at Carnegie Hall, a compelling and stark account of his artistry.
2 hit in 1980.)
He was tired of being a star, he said later.
The fame game was kicking my ass, he said.
In November 1972, Nicholas broke up with him.
She married him the next year, and they broke up for good a year later.
Withers has remained a touchstone for those who savor the remarkable spectrum of sounds and songs the 1970s produced.
He was my idol.
(This is a great man who has written some incredibly great songs, Wonder said.)
