BILL WITHERS LESSER KNOWN

Bill Withers, who died lat week, was one of the most underrated songwriters of his generation. Everyone knows his popular songs – ‘Lean On Me’, ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’, ‘Lovely Day’ – but it is in his lesser-known works that his craft really shines. He was, as the Beach Boy’s Brian Wilson observed in a tweet, a‘songwriters’ songwriter’, a story teller as much as a writer of songs. So, here are some of his less well-known recordings, which bring out both his story-telling ability and the funkiness of much of work, from ‘I Can’t Write Left-Handed’, a softly angry song about the aftermath of the Vietnam War, to the quiet tribute to his grandmother, ‘Grandma’s Hands’, to ‘Kissing My Love’, a truly funky cut.