Chords for A conversation with Bill Withers

[G] In the last few weeks, we've been interviewing members of the inaugural class of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.
So far, we've spoken to Billy Ed Wheeler, Hazel Dickens, and Little Jimmy Dickens.
Now, a conversation with Bill Withers.
Withers was born in Slab Fork in Raleigh County, the youngest of six children.
His father, a coal miner, died when Withers was 12.
He was raised by his mother and grandmother and then entered the Navy after high school.
That's when Withers started writing and recording.
His hits include Ain't No Sunshine, Just the Two of Us, and Lean on Me.
Anna Sayles spoke to Withers about growing up in West Virginia as an African American in the era of segregation.
_ _ [C] Just one look at you [D] _ _
and I [Am] know it's gonna be _ [Bm] _ a [E] lovely day.
_ _ _ [C] Wherever you [Em] grow up, I think, influence is just about anything you do, you know.
[Bm] _ [E] _
Coming from West Virginia makes you feel kind of [Abm] _ [Em] unique, I guess, which is a nice feeling.
I want to talk to you first about growing up in Slab [C] Fork.
Yeah.
And when you think about your childhood there, you know, what do you picture and what comes to mind?
My family lived right _ beside this railroad track.
And so all the white people lived on one side of the railroad track
and all the black people lived on the other side of the railroad track.
Well, my mother bought a house that was just on the side that she wasn't supposed to buy it on.
But it was, you know, just two houses, two families, you know, that were allowed over there.
But when I was growing up, wherever I heard noise, that's where I went to play.
And everybody called me little brother.
In fact, my mother was looking for me on the side where all the white people lived once
and she was calling me by my name and nobody said, no, we haven't seen him.
Then she thought, well, maybe they called him so they'd say, have you seen little brother?
And I'd say, oh, yeah, he's right over there.
So there was always a certain interaction here, I think more so than most southern states.
Do you think, I mean, how much of that in terms of like a coal community
and a coal camp kind of community where everybody's doing the same kind of work?
And do you think that played into that?
Well, if you can stand the humor in it, when you come out of the coal mines, everybody's [F] black.
Plus.
You're [Em] in a very dangerous [Dm] situation.
[C] People have [Em] to have a certain trust for each [B] other, you know what I mean?
[C] And then people become necessary [Dm] to each other.
[F] So that environment, [Am] you know, [C] _
will make you kind of get to [G] understand the guy, you know,
working over [C] here because you want him to be reliable.
Sometimes _ [F] in our lives, we [C] all have pain, we all [Em] have _ [G] sorrow.
[C] _ _ _ [F] We are wise, [C] we know that there's always [G] tomorrow.
_ [C] _ Lean on me.
[Em] You know, I [F] think we all become [C] the composite of the places we've been and the people we've met.
_ And I think wherever you grow up, _ you know, you can go somewhere else,
but you never really leave that place, you know, it goes with you, the good and the bad.
I remember we had a phone and the people across the street had a refrigerator,
so they gave us ice and they used our phone.
Just the economics made people kind of share and help each other out.
You just call on me brother if you need a hand.
We all need somebody to lean on.
You knew you didn't want to go into the coal mines.
Did you know you wanted to leave West Virginia?
Yeah, well, see, the connection to the outside world was movies. _
So you'd go to the movies and you'd see all those movies with people in other places.
And in the movies, there's music to everything.
So pick your poison, you know.
My father died right after he turned 60.
I think that a lot of people died as a result of some kind of coal mine thing.
I think it was kidney failure or something, but you want to go under the ground
where everything is clang, clang, clang, or just walking around, you know, those tipples and stuff.
When the coal mines was active, it was noise all the time, [Db] just a constant drone of noise.
The tipple, the thing, the this, the that.
And then to imagine life with background music, you know, it wasn't like that,
but at least you could go in pursuit of that.
I see the [C] crystal [Bbm] raindrops fall and the beauty of _ [F] the sun come shining through.
I want to ask you about the style of your music, and I'm just looking over all the different types of musicians
and artists who have performed your songs and how your songs have found play among so many different audiences.
What do you make of that?
I was just doing what I _ had access to, you know, in my own head.
It was kind of a de facto _ _ integration where I was.
So when I went over and played with the white kids, then I listened to the music they were listening to.
So I was influenced by Little Jimmy Dickens.
I heard all that stuff, Sleeping at the Foot of the Bed, and, you know, Bonnie Guitar, which was a favorite of mine.
I also, when I went on the other side of the tracks to play with the black kids,
then I heard the blues coming out of somebody's house, or went to church, and you heard that.
So all of those things kind of leap [G] into your psyche.
Grandma's hand [Em] used to hand me a piece of candy.
_ Grandma's hand [B] picked me up each time I [A] fell.
[Em] _ Grandma's hand, boy, they really_
If you're looking through the window instead of looking in that mirror, then there's a certain amount of memory in there,
and a certain amount of what comes out of you is just exploration, you know.
_ _ Use me.
[A] I'm [Em] sorry.
_ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ [Em] _ _ _
_ _ _ It's _ _ [Bb] a little bit abstract when you're just walking around trying to think up stuff. _
And there are no physical parts.
You're just trying to grab something out of the air, an idea or something.
And you realize that there's probably a little neuroses involved in that.
A lot of it's just trying to solve the riddle of life, you know.
I was one of those kids that grew up, I mean, I had a pronounced stutter until I was [Eb] almost 30.
_ [Abm] _
I had asthma, you know.
Most of the girls were bigger than I was for a while, so, you know, I was trying to move [Bbm] from that.
[Cm] Something's [Db] wrong like it ain't [Abm] nothing, [G] baby.
[Ab] _ [Bbm] _ [Db] Something jumps up and just moves [Ab] your [G] mind.
[Ab] _ [Bbm] _ [Db] Something come along and make you stronger, [G] baby.
[Ab] _ [Bb] [Db] But you know it's got to take a little [Ebm] time.
[G] _ [N] In the process of going forward, when you get moments for nostalgia, you, you know, you think back on that stuff.
But I don't think I was going around all the time, you know, just reflecting, reflecting, reflecting.
There's a certain element of, you know, where you've been and where you came from.
And then a certain bit of it is just new stuff, new people, new places.
I have a theory that wherever you go, _ you take yourself with you.
So, [B] you know, places don't matter that [Gb] much.
I wish you [Db] well.
[B] _ _
[Gb] _ I wish you [Db] well.
[B] At 69, Bill Withers proudly points out that he's the youngest member of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.
Next week, we'll conclude our series on members of the Hall of Fame.
We'll talk to classical music composer and Pulitzer Prize winner George Grum.
[F] That's your Outlook.
I'm Beth [B] Voorhees.
[E] Good night.
[Gb] I _ _ _ _ wish [Db] you _ [B] truckloads of cheer.
_ _ [Db] _ Many