Can We Pretend
Bill Withers
+’Justments, 1974
I’ve hesitated to put this song up for a while because it’s so…peaceful, but this week seems like the right week for some reason. This is one of my favorite Bill Wither’s songs, and I’m sure that, in part, it’s due to it not being included on any compilations or greatest hits, that I know of.
+’Justments is B.W.’s 4th album. He breezed onto the scene in 1971 with Just As I Am at the tender age of 32 (what? you mean I could still become famous?). It featured “Ain’t No Sunshine” (the first thing out of my mouth when asked “what is the best song ever?”) and “Grandma’s Hands.”
He, followed in 1972 with Still Bill which featured “Who Is He (and What Is He To You)?”, “Use Me” and “Lean On Me,” all next to each other on Side 1. I would be pretty happy if the artistic output of my entire life had those three songs as the highpoints. For B.W., it was just the first side of his second album. This album also features “Kissing My Love,” a bluesy-funk track that I play out a lot, which opens with an oft-sampled drum pattern (see “In The Jungle” by the Jungle Brothers and three others that I could name – which means there are about 15 others that I can’t).
1973 followed with “Live At Carnegie Hall.” I’m usually not into live albums but this is something to behold. In addition to great live band chemistry, different takes on songs, and the best story about his grandmother ever, there are a couple of stellar songs that aren’t on other albums, including a song about a Vietnam Veteran that he met, called “I Can’t Write Left-Handed.”
+’Justments was B.W.’s 4th and final album for Sussex Records. Overall, it’s not on par with the previous three but there are some high points including “The Same Love that Made Me Laugh” which is included on the expanded 1994 Columbia/Legacy Greatest Hits and “Can We Pretend.” I won’t say too much about the actual song, I honestly don’t know how to sum it up. But, I did want to mention that the guitar “commentary,” as I like to call it, is played by Jose Feliciano. I just read that they did a song together in 1973 called “Compartments” on one of Jose’s albums – that’s the newest addition to my shopping list!
Still Bill and Live at Carnegie Hall are available on CD and if you haven’t heard them, I strongly encourage you to put your $$ down. Especially as Bill is still around (or “still bill”), in fact, he was recently inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame. Here’s a picture of Ralph MacDonald, Isaac Hayes, B.W., and David Porter (L to R) at the Induction Ceremony (courtesy of The Crusade).
>> songs are available for two weeks [5.2 MB]
January 2nd, 2006 at 6:09 am
This album was a launch for some of the most delicate times of my adolescent life. It was filled with a wholsome driven energy of awareness and subtle understandings of life.
I was given this information through a favorite uncle of mine. A psychiatric head case if ever there was one, but he was the kindest, funniest, animated of human beings
one could ever be blessed to know.
With the very first song on the album, YOU, it brought me to an understanding of the world of adults around me, who didn’t necessarilly quite have it all together.
There was drug use, adultery, and whole host of other things that were raised in Bill’s messages, like black flags, urging, warning me of some of the pitfalls and snares of life.
I enjoyed that album emensely and have searched for a copy, high and low. Hoping that the record companies and executives might see the sense in having it re-released on CD so that an entire generation of young ones could witness for themselves, the greatness of much of the music that came out of the 70′s.
I loved that album that my uncle introduced me to. The song YOU came to be his national anthem. Identifying the snares and pitfalls of drug addiction and the oftentime superficiality of psychiatrist and modern medicine. It came to mean even more to me as life would show me face to face, just how fragile and difficult it can be.
In the Autumn of 77, my favorite
uncle for the last time effectively succeeded in ending his own life. A life filled with the pains of no longer being able to be employed, a string of destructive relationships, as well as the seperation and divorce of his wife and the dismantling of the family with his children.
I was so devestated at the time, that at the age of 18, within the spanse of 30 days after his death, I would thereafter suffer my first nervous breakdown and would never be the same again.
January 4th, 2006 at 7:07 am
thank you so much for sharing your (intense) experience.
i don’t know that you will return to see this comment but if so, please email me by using the “contacts” page – i would be happy to record the entire +’Justments album for you and mail it to you on CD.
July 29th, 2006 at 1:46 am
You are so right…I’ve spent hours and hours, not to mention weeks— trying to find this album.
Duh–is all I can say!?_)+#. Can You, will you tell me how much it’ll cost me to purchase this album (Bill Withers:Justments). I especially want “Green Grass”. please reply ASAP Charismaamani@aol.com
April 15th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
[...] mentioned this album before and election week seems like as appropriate a time as any to revisit it with this song. I wonder [...]
December 4th, 2011 at 6:50 am
Hi there, I’m about to say a phrase you love to hear, but before I do, I’d like to send appreciation for your Blog, I’ve just stumbled upon it whilst looking for a decent sized scan of the Eddie Harris Plug Me In LP cover for my iTunes coverflow. I can’t have an album in my iTunes without the cover art. I’ve been digging since I was 13 (1986) and despite succumbing to the digital format for use on the move and for reference, Vinyl is my mistress, and flicking through the coverflow view of iTunes makes me feel more satisfied and at home than scanning down a list of albums in the alternative view.
Anyway, congratulations, you are very informed and humble, and your blog has a clean, smart look to it and is well maintained.
Now for that phrase ” ” You know what this samples right?”* or rather, in this case, you know what samples this.
Positively Black: Ebony Princess. http://www.discogs.com/Positively-Black-Positively-Black/release/343429 from their 1989 s/t album.
A small piece of overlooked Hip-hop mastery, and one of my favourites from that golden year. It’s such a slamming piece of vinyl but yet seldom does one come across anyone who knows it. In a way It brought me directly to this particular Bill Withers album so I owe it a great debt regardless, and that’s even before commending it, and recommending it for it’s pedigree.
Ebony Princess’ mood and tone used to hypnotise me and the innovative use of the guitar sample had me pulling my hair out trying to get a handle on where it may of come from. The haunting use of the vocal in the Positively Black tune was a coup in those days. Imagine, and I know you know, the feeing and rush I experienced when playing my latest Bill withers find and this tune just comes on. Bliss and perfection and a puzzle piece found, all at once. The best thing about this was that it enhanced the original and the Positively Black tune simultaneously, when so many uncovered samples sometimes leave you wanting more, this was just a perfect symbiosis. I highly recommend the Positively Black album, for reference purposes I have found it for you here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jwjlzkzynkj
The breadth and use of the samples is fantastic and sometimes stunning and you’ll be recognising a lot of them such as the BT Express House is Smoking and Kool and the Gang Open Sesame. Well known by most but used so inovatively for the time it still sounds fresh (and mean). A year before LL Cool J ripped it up with the Sly Stone sample on his come back track Mama Said knock you out, and to my ears a direct influenece on Cool J’s wall of sound sampling on that track. A more direct and in your face sound, and influence in a way, than even Public Enemy’s layered barrage. Smokey’s Quiet Storm is another sublime piece of sampling used on a cut celebrating the groups DJ.
You may know this album by now, but I hope also that I may have introduced you to something new.
The Jose Feliciano album you mention is one of his brilliant funky outings you should cross off that list as soon as you can too. We used to play out a track called I’m Leaving in our sets in the 90′s here in the UK, the album has a few funky cuts on it including the title track and features a nice slinky version of Lee Dorsey’s Yes We Can Can. It has a great Die-cut sleeve too.
Listen here:
http://open.spotify.com/album/5a1y5joWuKfOpDv0Pdz8B2
Anyway, congratulations again, and keep on digging and keep the vinyl alive.
Dom.
*Jackie Sommer: Dec 17th, 2009. Billy Cobham Crosswind post.