Last night I went to complete my exacta of Wythe Ave club venues hosting hip-hop dignitaries spinning tracks behind their decks. That would have made it 1) ?uestlove of The Roots at Brooklyn Bowl last Thursday and 2) Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest at Output last night. Alas the gods of early-90s/late-90s hip-hop were not on my side and after a terse conversation with the club’s manager (who suggested I contact the ticket company for a refund, ha!), I ascertained that Q-Tip, The Abstract, was not to make an appearance. Given that by this point it was 2am and there was an irascible, bearded guy who labelled himself a ‘Florida probate attorney’ huffing and puffing angrily behind me, I decided to cut my losses and relinquish the dream for another week. Which is not to say that I was disappointed by the fare on offer at Output. Instead, the guy who I assumed was Q-Tip but whom the clearing smoke machines and dizzying lights revealed to be someone far younger, balder, probably too jumpy for what I imagine Q-Tip is like, put on a pretty stellar show, tracking through late-80s/early-90s hip-hop, 70s RnB and even a few Tribe tracks. That was awkward.
But when, just before I decided that the main event wasn’t happening, Bill Withers came on over the club’s crisp speakers and the warm tones of ‘Lovely Day’ filled the tiered room, all anxiety about missing my exacta was dispelled. ‘Lovely Day’ is the kind of track that Daft Punk should have made for ‘Random Access Memories’ and perhaps would have had they been able to coax Withers out of the semi-retirement (whatever that means) he’s inhabited since the late 70s alongside another indubitable pioneer of the era, Chic’s Nile Rogers. The difference between Withers’ effortlessly smooth vocals and those of Pharrell (widely regarded as slightly off-key on ‘Get Lucky‘) is that the former was inherently cool, the latter has to strain in some parts to recall that same uncomplicated suaveness. Daft Punk is not Bill Withers and are not trying to be. The point being that Bill Withers probably had something like four ‘Get Luckys’ occur to him every time he got in the shower.
Brother J waxed lyrical a few months ago about how underappreciated Bill Withers is within the context of the RnB/soul canon. To my mind, it’s not a question of underappreciation but non-recognition. While most can immediately recognise a Luther Vandross or Lionel Richie track, there is something about unassuming Withers (and, potentially, the extent to which his creations have been appropriated and interpolated by a whole slew of recording artists [this track has been covered or sampled by Diana Ross, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Twista and Vandross himself]) that has kept him flying under the radar, notwithstanding massive contributions to the zeitgeist including ‘Just The Two Of Us’ and ‘Lean On Me’. That, nonetheless, is no barrier to mass commercial awareness of the track and the kind of uproarious reaction to its broadcast that we experienced last night. It wasn’t Q-Tip or two guys in reflective helmets spinning it but even after 37 years, ‘Lovely Day’ is still a genuine, dancefloor-moving classic.
Bill Withers – Lovely Day
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