Kevin Burt: Embracing anew the sheer humanity and unique voice Withers brought to popular music in his time and which seems in so short supply in ours.
By David McGee
THANK YOU, BROTHER BILL: A TRIBUTE TO BILL WITHERS
Kevin Burt
Gulf Coast Records
Bill Withers’s songs have been attracting cover versions from the time he burst onto the national stage in 1971 with “Ain’t No Sunshine.” In the midst of the singer-songwriter boom, the plainspoken soulfulness of brother Bill’s beautifully crafted songs stood out—“Sunshine” for its bluesy lamenting, “Lean on Me” for its uplifting, gospel-rooted message of friendship and devotion, “Grandma’s Hands” for its irresistible pull of family devotion, the list goes on. No matter the multitudinous covers and sampling of the Withers oeuvre, though, Kevin Burt, with his powerful tribute, is serving notice of the need to embrace anew the sheer humanity and unique voice Withers brought to popular music in his time and which seems in so short supply in ours. Beyond this, Thank You, Brother Bill stands quite apart for the daring Burt brings to burnishing the Withers legacy.
‘Ain’t No Sunshine,’ Kevin Burt, from Thank You, Mr. Bill: A Tribute to Bill Withers
‘Who Is He (and What is He to You),’ Kevin Burt, from Thank You, Mr. Bill: A Tribute to Bill Withers
That Burt’s voice shares an uncanny resemblance to Withers’s in timbre and phrasing is abundantly evident—spookily so–on the classic “Ain’t No Sunshine,” but you don’t have to wait long before being jolted, in a good way, by Burt departing from the original in veering into more intense blues, funk and Latin territory. Similarly, in “What Is He (and What is He to You)” Burt dispenses with the Withers strings, keeps the wah-wah guitar but also injects howling rock guitar into the mix to augment the lyrics’ chronicle of a mind bedeviled by suspicion. In one of Withers’s most affecting treatises on self-reliance, “Another Day to Run,” Burt trades in the funk gallop of the original for a more probing, introspective, blues ballad approach that sounds every bit as inward directed in its medium-cool delivery as did Mr. Bill achieved with a heated shout to the heavens.
‘Grandma’s Hands,’ Kevin Burt, from Thank You, Mr. Bill: A Tribute to Bill Withers
Everything about Burt’s performances here indicates he shares more than a musical sensibility with Withers—their big hearts and love of family are interchangeable, easily discerned in the depth of feeling and emotional investment Burt pours into “Lean On Me” and especially “Grandma’s Hands,” the latter seamlessly bridging blues and gospel territories as Burt personalizes it by amping up the heartache of losing a moral and spiritual force in his own life. The spirit of Withers is strong in Kevin Burt, and we in turn are blessed.
