BILL WITHERS: LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL

Performer: Bill Whiters, vocals and guitar
Author: Bill Withers
Number of discs: 2
Label: Original Master Recordings
Support: LPs
Genre: Jazz
Year: 2014

While it has nothing to envy from the more vaunted concert albums of the 1960s and 1970s, Bill Withers' brilliant Live at Carnegie Hall is an unjustly forgotten classic, a beguiling portrait of a soul artist deeply rooted in tradition and always ready to share with the public every hint of his creativity. With his style subtly soothing and charming without excesses and a voice as soft as the songs he performed, Bill Withers used the stage to build his fan base and communicate with the audience. Thanks to a careful remastering that has restored the original balance of the performers and greatly improved the soundstage, this reissue allows you to relive the emotions of an unforgettable album. Overall, this record has the merit of highlighting the most important elements, such as the irrepressible vigor of the sound, the desire of Withers and the other band members to prolong the arrangements and the impressive communicative force that unites the protagonist to his fans. While many live albums fail to convey the exciting feeling of a live event, this reissue gives the impression of actually experiencing the musical event firsthand. In this way, one becomes not only a listener but even an almost witness of a historic concert. For this and other reasons, Live at Carnegie Hall ranks on the same (very high) level as James Brown's Live at the Apollo and B.B. King. It's not about advertising bluster at all, but about the greatness of an artist and an exceptional sound recording technique. The antithesis of the sweaty R&B screamers who prowl the stage, Withers stakes all his cards on a soft sweetness and touching vulnerability, qualities that appear evident in almost all of his songs. The songs on the program range from soul to blues and folk, and in some cases elements of all these styles coexist. Live at Carnegie Hall examines in a very direct way and with crystalline honesty some very burning issues at the time. In the songs performed by Withers and his band topics such as friendship, poverty, war, maturity, family and love enter, which are treated without awkward reticence and hypocritical moralism. Much of the credit for this approach must be attributed to Withers' disarming spontaneity, the expressive intensity of the lyrics and the absolutely flawless performance of the band, who evidently had to be in a state of grace that evening. «Shall we continue?», Withers asks, responding to the pressing requests to repeat a verse of “Use Me” and – at the snap of the leader's fingers – his musicians resume playing and the audience punctuates each note with incessant clapping. This unsinkable classic, the famous "Ain't No Sunshine", the intense "Grandma's Hands" and the unforgettable "Lean on Me" are performed with vitality, passion and a wonderful soul vein. Throughout the history of the record, very few records have managed to express the same harmony between the artist and the audience as Live at Carnegie Hall. A simply indispensable disc.

Tracklists
Use Me
Friend of Mine
It ain't no sunshine
Grandmas Hands
World Keeps Going Around
Let me in your life
Better Off Dead
For My Friend
I Cant Write Left Handed
Lean on Me
Lonely Town, Lonely Street
Hope Shell Be Happier
Let Us Love
Harlem/Cold Baloney