BILL WITHERS: JUST AS I AM (1971)
1) Harlem; 2) Ain't No
Sunshine; 3) Grandma's Hands; 4) Sweet Wanomi; 5) Everybody's Talkin'; 6) Do It
Good; 7) Hope She'll Be Happier; 8) Let It Be; 9) I'm Her Daddy; 10) In My
Heart; 11) Moanin' And Groanin'; 12) Better Off Dead.
There has certainly been many a strange album
recorded in 1970-71, as idealistic psychedelia began losing ground to musical
psychotherapy, but the official debut of Bill Withers definitely deserves a
special place of its own. He was certainly not the first performer to combine
aspects of the post-Dylan «singer-songwriter» approach with the foundations of
soul and R&B, but he may have been the first black artist to try it out on
such a consistent basis — generating a sound and a feel that you cannot get
from any other artist, black or white, circa 1971. The title of the album itself
seems almost ironic in that light: Just
As I Am? It actually takes quite a while to figure out just as what exactly the man is, and even then,
it's hard to be sure.
Unlike typical R&B performers, Bill Withers
materialized out of nowhere — rather than being spotted in some local church or
club and put through a period of grooming, he just sent in some demo tapes to
L.A.-based Sussex Records; the label owner Clarence Avant liked what he heard,
signed Withers to a contract, and assigned no less than Booker T. Jones himself
to produce the man's first album. (Yes, boys and girls, it used to be that
easy, provided you had real talent to burn and a proper place to turn it up). More
than that — on his debut album, Withers is accompanied by Jim Keltner on
drums, Chris Ethridge (of the Flying Burrito Brothers) on bass, and Stephen
Stills on electric guitar. Any other debutant could have pissed his pants from
utter happiness right there in the studio — but one single listen to Just As I Am will suffice to understand
that Bill Withers is as far from a potential pants-pisser as can be.
Most encyclopaedias and online review sites tag
Just As I Am as a «soul» or
«R&B» album, just because it had some members of Booker T. & The MGs
playing on it, and was sung by a black performer, and we all know black people used
to sing «soul» or «R&B» before they all turned to rap and other crap. In
reality, this is ridiculous: Just As I
Am is a dark, seriously disturbing and
disturbed singer-songwriter album that mixes some elements of traditional soul
and R&B (and blues, and jazz) with the «whitebread» folk-rock scene of the
time — in fact, it is more James Taylor than Al Green, I'd say, but way, way
bleaker than both. In fact, if we were to believe that the album title tells
the truth, we probably wouldn't want to mess around with the guy. The album
ends with the sound of a gunshot, for Christ's sake!
Most of the time, however, the album simply
resonates with tension, never coming to the brink of a genuine explosion.
ʽHarlemʼ initiates us into the world of Bill Withers with a swinging, danceable
rhythm, and lines like "Saturday night in Harlem / Ev'rything's alright /
You can really swang and shake your pretty thang / The parties are out of sight"
would suggest that we are invited to have fun — but the dark bass groove and
almost threatening strings, gradually rising up and gaining in shrillness,
insist that the party is rigged, and then there's the counterpoint: "It's
too hot to sleep / And I'm too broke to eat / I don't care if I die or
not". Immediately, it is made clear that we are not to be entertained —
that the performer's vision of Harlem and everything that goes with it is certainly
not encumbered by rose-colored glasses.
From there on, song after song deals with the
little horrors of life — loneliness (ʽAin't No Sunshineʼ), nostalgia for dead
relatives (ʽGrandma's Handsʼ), losing your loved one to another (ʽHope She'll
Be Happierʼ), and losing a battle with alcohol (ʽBetter Off Deadʼ — the idea of
shooting oneself in a bout of alcoholism would later be explored by Alice
Cooper on ʽPass The Gun Aroundʼ to a more dramatic, but less subtle and
suggestive effect). Every now and then the atmosphere is a bit alleviated with
the joys of a healthy sex life (ʽSweet Wanomiʼ, ʽMoanin' And Groanin'ʼ), but
when romance is rather seen as temporary salvation from a life full of misery
and self-inflicted stupidity, maybe «healthy» is not quite the right word to
use.
Creepiest of the lot is ʽI'm Her Daddyʼ, a
gloomy, threatening blues-rock number whose lyrics may look innocent on paper —
a father demanding to see his six-year old daughter of whose existence he was
only recently informed — but sound nearly psychopathic on record, even though
Bill himself resorts to screaming only occasionally, preferring to impersonate the
neurotic father as quietly as possible, to convey an even more disturbing
image. Not grief, not remorse, and obviously not happiness — this is a
«give-me-back-my-daughter-you-bitch-or-face-the-consequences» type of rant,
stunningly realistic and just a tad shivery.
On the other hand, as long as the protagonist is
not high and does not present an immediate threat to society, he is prone to
acute fits of murderous loneliness — ʽAin't No Sunshineʼ, which became Bill's
first major hit and went on to be covered by lots of people, tells it like it
means it, in a brief series of four-line verses, each line pinching sharp and
painful. One of the verses did not work out at first and was temporarily filled
by Bill with a series of "I know, I know, I know..." that he was
later convinced to keep — this must be a technical record of sorts (how many "I
know"s can one fit within one breath?), but it also works very well emotionally
within the song. For that matter, Bill is a fantastic singer — check out the
way he drawls out "she's gone" on ʽHope She'll Be Happierʼ without a
single wrong fluctuation in the airwave.
Strangely, the only relative «misfires» on this
weird, haunting album are two cover versions, neither of which is particularly
bad, yet they just do not seem to fit. Well, ʽEverybody's Talkin'ʼ could fit thematically, but in the
process of reinventing it, Bill somehow flushes out the sad-and-tired mood of
the original; and the gospel-style, clap-your-hands-together rewrite of ʽLet It
Beʼ can only be qualified as sheer filler. There ain't no talk about finding
inner peace, like the song suggests, on this album — ʽLet It Beʼ and ʽAin't No
Sunshineʼ are mutually exclusive, not to mention ʽBetter Off Deadʼ which is
sort of an anti-ʽLet It Beʼ if there
ever was one. It's almost as if they told him, "hey, we won't release the
record unless there's a McCartney number on it", and he went, "oh
yeah? I'll show you McCartney!"
— and recorded this quasi-parodic deconstruction that replaces solemnity with
stupid forced cheerfulness.
Everything else rules, and is as far removed
from «formulaic» soul records of the period as possible; if anything, Just As I Am belongs on the same shelf
as John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and
Joni Mitchell's Blue and all those
other singer-songwriters' confessionals, even if the lyrics are relatively
straightforward in comparison — but when it comes to psychological layers,
there is comparable depth in here, sadly, not often mentioned in reviews of the
album, which prefer dwelling on formal aspects (such as the subtle textures of
Stephen Stills' electric guitar, which are
important to the album's sound — in fact, I could easily see some of these
songs covered by Stills on an auspicious day — but are hardly at the very heart
of it). Major thumbs
up.
Check "Just As I Am" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Just As I Am" (MP3) on Amazon
Shouldn't this be this week's Wednesday/Thursday review (the 1967-1970 or 1971-1976 period), or am I missing something here?
ReplyDeleteYes, there has been a slight change in scheduling, described on the Facebook page. For those who are not part of the group, I repost:
Delete"The "7 artists per week" and basic chronology principle will be retained, but the distinctions will be less fine grained. The first 3 days will feature reviews of records by 3 different "old" artists, i. e. everybody up to around 1975-76, which will be defined as the major turning point. The second 3 days will feature reviews of records by 3 different "young" artists, and by "young" I mean "about as young as Blondie and the Buzzcocks, or younger than that".
The last day will be an "odds and ends" day: new releases by already reviewed artists, or, if no such releases turn up for a certain period, certain round-outs of already reviewed discographies."
My guess would be that George is trying to give the 70's a chance to catch up with the rest of the decades.
ReplyDeleteCertainly nothing wrong with that... I love the '60s and '70s more than anyone, so if bands from that era get to take up more space, count me as happy. I was just a bit confused, 'sall.
DeleteThank you for covering Bill Withers, George! Definitely one of the most memorable and admirable of singer-songwriters.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my favourite albums.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is one of my favourite jokes:
Q. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer?
A. Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers