{"id":88504,"date":"2015-04-17T08:51:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T06:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackouthiphop.com\/?p=88504"},"modified":"2015-04-16T18:53:13","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T16:53:13","slug":"bill-withers-the-soul-man-who-walked-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/bill-withers-the-soul-man-who-walked-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Withers: The Soul Man Who Walked Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"88505\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/bill-withers-the-soul-man-who-walked-away\/720x405-133221638\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/720x405-133221638.jpg?fit=720%2C405&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"720,405\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Bill Withers\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/720x405-133221638.jpg?fit=640%2C360&amp;ssl=1\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/720x405-133221638.jpg?fit=640%2C304&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Bill Withers\" width=\"640\" height=\"304\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-88505\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/720x405-133221638.jpg?resize=540%2C304&amp;ssl=1 540w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/720x405-133221638.jpg?w=720&amp;ssl=1 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On a clear day, you can see the Staples Center from Bill Withers&#8217; house, which sits high in the hills above West Hollywood. Today, in about two hours, the Los Angeles basketball arena will host the Grammy Awards; every once in a while, a limo will rush through Withers&#8217; neighborhood, on its way to the event. But the 76-year-old Withers could not be less interested. He&#8217;s padding around his home wearing Adidas track pants, an old T-shirt with a drawing of a bus on it, and athletic sandals with blue socks. On the mantel in a hallway, there is a Best R&#038;B Song award, for 1980&#8217;s &#8220;Just the Two of Us,&#8221; from the last time he attended the show, three decades ago; it sits next to two other Grammys, for 1971&#8217;s &#8220;Ain&#8217;t No Sunshine&#8221; and 1972&#8217;s &#8220;Lean on Me.&#8221; A few years after &#8220;Two of Us,&#8221; Withers became one of the few stars in pop-music history to truly walk away from a lucrative career, entirely of his own volition, and never look back. &#8220;These days,&#8221; he says, &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t know a pop chart from a Pop-Tart.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the full article on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/features\/bill-withers-the-soul-man-who-walked-away-20150414\" target=\"_blank\">Rolling Stone<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a clear day, you can see the Staples Center from Bill Withers&#8217; house, which&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pG6fW-n1u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}