“Ain’t No Sunshine” –
April 4, 2020 – “I lived a good portion of my life before I started to play music,” Withers recalled in “Still Bill,” the 2009 documentary about his life and career. He was in his late-20s when, as he told Rolling Stone, he bought a secondhand guitar after seeing R&B singer Lou Rawls perform at an Oakland, Calif., bar. But it wasn’t necessarily musical inspiration that motivated the former Navy aircraft mechanic’s purchase: the bar manager had groused that Rawls was late despite being set to earn $2,000 from the gig. When Rawls finally arrived, women flocked to him. “I was making $3 an hour, looking for friendly women, but nobody found me interesting,”…
