Sold girl town withers away
He was the treasurer for the union, the United Mine Workers Union over there. At that age, when you're with an adult, you're kind of taking care of each other.ĪS: What was your father like, what kind of man was he?īW: Well he was a very stable guy. You know, he needed some help.ĪS: So were you taking care of him when he was ailing?īW: Well we were taking care of each other. The last year of his life I lived with him. And then I went back and lived with my father for one year. so we lived weekends in Slab Fork and the week in Beckley. That's when his parents split up and his mom moved to a little city near by called Beckley.īW: My father was very faithful, he picked us up every Friday. Slab Fork is the name of the town where he grew up. You know, the infant mortality rate was high so I think my mother had about thirteen kids but six of us lived to be adults. He was the last of six kids.īW: Six that lived to be adults.
But Bill Withers grew up poor, in West Virginia. Jones on it and it won him a Grammy and he knew he would never have to worry about money again. He was a grown man, in his early thirties already, when his first album came out. But I go in and look at the treadmill every morning and then I turn on the TV.
I should be doing yoga and you know riding the exercise bike. Like a lot of people, if I'd known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself. But, he's totally ok with that.īW: When you live this long, living is sort of like a habit. Use Me. Bill Withers hasn't released a new studio album in almost thirty years.
It's the story of rock 'n' roll right there.Īnd you know his songs. Ain't No Sunshine. It's the show from WNYC about the things we think about a lot.and need to talk about more.īW: Who in the world would come up with a title like that?īW: Yeah, yeah if you reverse them, it's the story of a lot of people's lives. If something bothers me, you know, I would say, I don't want to talk about that. We’ve been taking a deep dive into manhood at Death, Sex & Money, and it reminded me that the first episode of this show, back in 2014, was one we called “How to Be a Man With Bill Withers.” It remains one of my all-time favorites, and so in honor of his 80th birthday, which is today-July 4, 2018-we’re sharing that with you again.īILL WITHERS: Don't worry about that, sugar.