Take 20 minutes of your Friday or weekend and listen to Bill Withers’ acceptance speech at the 2015 Rock Hall ceremony, largely considered to be one of the best speeches in Rock Hall induction history. Joyous, funny, moving, honest — it’s got everything we need today, plus Stevie Wonder performing “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
Talking to Rolling Stone about his experience in Cleveland that weekend in a backstage interview, Withers said, “The weirdest thing for me is, I walk around all the time in Los Angeles. Nobody knows who I am. I couldn’t convince some ladies in Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles it was me. It’s a true story. So to come over here and all of a sudden this thing – it’s like, going to dinner with Paul McCartney and ducking the paparazzi, I don’t have to do that stuff. So this was a big switch for me. Normally I’m just going to Home Depot and trying to get back before Judge Judy!”
Withers passed away today at the age of 81.
This article appears in Apr 1-7, 2020.
