Just As I Am

Withers worked at an aircraft parts factory and did not quit when the album came out, because he assumed the music business would not last. The cover photo is him at the plant, holding his lunch pail. Booker T. Jones produced it and Stephen Stills plays guitar, but the center is Withers' voice and the plain way he writes: about his grandmother's hands, about loneliness, about a lover who keeps leaving. Ain't No Sunshine started as a B-side until DJs flipped the single, and it became a hit while he was still clocking in.