Bill Withers

Year:
2015
Inducted by:
Stevie Wonder
Category:
Performers

Introduction

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.

Stevie Wonder Inducts Bill Withers

Stevie Wonder Inducts Bill Withers at the 2015 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

Stevie Wonder Inducts Bill Withers

00:03:45
Bill Withers Acceptance Speech

00:13:09
"Ain't No Sunshine"

00:03:05
"Use Me"

00:04:39

Hall of Fame Essay

2015

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).”