STILL BILL: THE REVIEW

Still Bill Trailer from B-Side Entertainment on Vimeo.

B-Side Entertainment is releasing a documentary later this spring on Bill Withers as I previously mentioned. What's really cool about the way their distribution works, though, is that you can actually get a screener of it - for free, except for S&H - prior to its release date for purchase, and through their Host Your Own Screening program you can screen it in your home, and even charge admission. The difference in the screening DVD you get and the retail copy that will be released in the coming months is, in part, that the retail version will have bonus features. More details of hosting a screening can be found on their site as linked above. It is certainly a bold alternative to the normal business model for movie distribution and one that I think can truly succeed for certain genres of film.

Now onto the film...

Bill Withers won't soon be confused as an artist to be a representative on the Mount Rushmore of soul. That, however, doesn't make his music any less important. A late bloomer, he didn't have a hit in the music business until his early 30s. His path wasn't about the glitz and glamour, the fame or fortune; it was about telling great stories.

His sound, though, wasn't necessarily what the labels thought it should be. Instead of stories about grandmas and dark corners of love, they felt he should incorporate "horns, gold suits, and 3 chicks." He did it his way, though, proving he didn't need their advice as his first album produced the #3 hit "Ain't No Sunshine." It was a song that led him to a spot on the Johnny Carson show, a call which he got the same night he also got called back to his real job - installing toilets on 747s.

The most enjoyable part of Still Bill: The Movie is not in hearing the music or its background but in hearing HIS background. As anyone could tell who has spent any time with Mr. Withers through their headphones, the music and stories match perfectly with the person that Bill is. He's perhaps the most humble artist/person who has ever topped the charts.

That life started in the shantytown of Slab Fork, West Virginia. A coal mining town to the core, it was also predominantly white. In fact, the black cemetery is now wooded over. While searching for graves of relatives, Bill had to stoop to make his way through. The corresponding white cemetery is well kempt.

It was in a town like this, though, where he learned such a hard work ethic. During a segment where he's talking with Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, he flipped a commonly held notion on its head. "As an entrepreneur the best sign you can put up is SOLD OUT," he states. The trio go on to discuss how he remained true to himself in his career in which he admits that at times, "Fame was kicking my ass."

That wasn't the only trouble that he encountered in his life. Early on he battled a stuttering problem. He felt labeled as he was told, "You can't do nothing." It led to a self-proclaimed crisis of confidence. From this he learned valuable life lessons. Some of these he passed along to a group of kids with the same affliction in the Our Time Theatre Company as a guest speaker. His time with them hit close to home and brought tears to his eyes.

He has passed many of these life lessons along to his kids of whom one is in law school and another who is aspiring to perform music. In a nugget we could all take to heart in telling ourselves and our own children, Bill offers this advice: "It's okay to head out for wonderful. But on the way to wonderful, you're gonna have to pass through alright. When you get to alright, take a good look around and get used to it because it may be as far as you're gonna go." He himself, though, didn't make a permanent stop in alright. He defied expectations, but only those of others. He knew he had a gift and a story to tell.

While he may not have one of the all-time great singing voices in terms of range, he more than makes up for it in sincerity. His voice exudes confidence - in what he sings about and who he is as a man. Again, he may not be a part of the Mount Rushmore of soul, but he's lived to tell the tale into his septuagenarian years.

The directors of this introspective and riveting film have done a superb job in bringing out the man behind the music. While following him around Slab Fork recounting stories from yesteryear, to a class reunion, to honorary concerts, and into the studio where he still records and tinkers today, they have brought us even closer to the man than what he brought us to through his music. It's the touching story of a man having the balls to succeed or fail on his own terms. He left music when many people still thought he had plenty more to accomplish and record, but doing it on others' terms wouldn't be the Bill Withers way.

That aforementioned fame may have been getting the best of him then, but he has persevered and become one of the truly great - and underappreciated - musical songwriters and performers in recorded music history. He's a blue collar guy through and through. Fame never swallowed him. He's been Making Music and Making Friends, as he would say, Just As I Am. Through it all, he is truly Still Bill.