Mar 28, 2019
The Album: Bill
Withers: +Justments (1974)
Despite the massive success of Withers's first two
albums, Just As I Am and Still
Bill, label problems
prevented +Justments (his fourth LP) from being
released on CD until 2010. As such, it's been a sleeper of an album
despite how good it is. Withers was never the most confessional of
artists but this album, which came about during the dissolution of
Withers's marriage to Denise Nicholas (amidst accusations of
abuse), is about as close to he gets to talking about his personal
life via song. Meanwhile, scoring all this were former members of
the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band, as good a rhythm section that any
artist in L.A. could hope to be hooked up with.
+Justments was the pick by L.A. soulster Joey Dosik,
who's recorded extensively with Vulfpeck but has recently
branched into his solo career with his debut album from last
year, Inside
Voice, which includes a cover of "Stories" from Withers's
album. Amongst other things, we discussed how Dosik discovered this
slept-on album in his ex-girlfriend's crates, how he learned his
own singing voice by studying Withers's, and how drumming great
James Gadson is supernaturally clean in the pocket.
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Note: the first half of our episode was taped in the MaxFun kitchen
on a remote rig because the power had gone out in our building. We
were able to get back into the studio properly for the second half
but we apologize for the uneven sound quality of the first
half.
More on Joey Dosik
More on +Justments
Show Tracklisting (all songs from +Justments unless indicated otherwise):
Here is the Spotify playlist of as many songs as we can find there
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