Still Bill by Bill Withers

Still Bill, Bill Withers' second album, came out on Sussex on May 1, 1972, a year after "Ain't No Sunshine", and it's the West Virginia man producing himself with players from the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. The result is lean, rhythmic and deep in the pocket, soul with funk in its hips and blues in its bones, and not an ounce of fat anywhere.

Withers sings about grown-up stuff, how people really are, what they feel, what they want after the lights go out, and he does it with a plainspoken warmth that makes the big moments land. "Lean on Me" is the hymn everybody knows, while "Use Me" slinks along on a nasty, clipped groove. It sold and drew raves at the time, and it has since come to be seen as a high-water mark of his career and a cornerstone of '70s R&B.

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