Bill Withers RIP

Bill Withers was born in Slab Fork, West Virginia, in 1938, the youngest of six children. Slab Fork was once considered a model community amongst the Appalachian coal mining towns. At its peak, it had 210 homes, most of them neat wooden bungalows with picket fences, built by the Slab Fork Coal Company. It went bust in 1983, and the town is down to thirty homes.

Bill's father, also William, was a coal miner, and then became a domestic for the William Gaston Caperton family that owned the coal company. He was a Baptist deacon and the treasurer for the local chapter of the United Mine Workers. He died in 1951, when Bill was 15. His mother, Mattie Rose, died in 1972. Bill presented the Gold Disc for Ain't No Sunshine to her six months before her death.

Here's a lovely local tv piece with Bill from 2007, when he was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.