Still Bill

Released in 2009, this documentary catches up with 1970s/80s R&B singer-songwriter Bill Withers, who wrote, among a lot of songs to which you might be surprised to find you know all the words (“Lean on Me,” “Lovely Day,” “Just the Two of Us”), one of my very favorites: “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

He released his final studio album in 1989 and left the limelight with little explanation in the early 90s. After growing up in a coal mining camp in West Virginia with a stutter, serving 9 years in the Navy and making toilet seats on a Boeing production line, Withers didn’t find fame until, with zero music education or experience, he wrote his first song, “…Sunshine,” in his early 30s. Incredible. I’m a fan and this doc only increased my appreciation of the music and the man. Especially touching are his visit to a theater group for kids with stutters and his daughter, Kori, singing her song “Blue Blues” for him.

Incidentally, I learned about this one listening to the podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience." Turns out the former Taekwando champion, “Talk Radio” player, “Fear Factor” host and current UFC commentator, is a pretty clever monkey and a rock solid comic. His specials “Live” and “Talking Monkeys in Space” are both streamable on Netflix.

As Blake would say now, “ooh-ooh-ooh-ah-ah-ah!"