Two Passings in Popular Music

The music world lost two great, and I would say, underrated, popular singers this year.  The first one died of coronavirus, and the second one died of cardiovascular disease.

John Prine, who died on April 7, was a witty country-folk rocker who came up with wry, sharp observations of life around him in songs such as the iconic "Angel of Montgomery" and the humorous "Crazy As a Loon."  My favorite song from John Prine was "Paradise," a sad environmentalist broadside about the destruction of western Kentucky by the Peabody coal company with its strip-mining tactics to dig out all of the coal.  The narrator hopes that  his ashes will one day be scattered on the Green River, along which the small town of Paradise was.  The ongoing environmental degradation makes it a relevant song today.

Bill Withers, who died on March 30, was one of the greatest soul vocalists and songwriters of the 1970s.  While he didn't have as many hits as some of his contemporaries, but the hits he did have showed his remarkable versatility, from his lonely ballad "Ain't No Sunshine" (in which he managed to sing the words "I know" 26 times without making it sound boring) to his funky groove "Use Me."  Withers - or, as Joe Simon once called him, "my man Bill Withers" - scored his biggest triumph with "Lean On Me," a song about friendship, brotherhood, and the need to helping hand that topped the Billboard singles chart for three weeks in July 1972.  My favorite Bill Withers song, though might be his ballad "Lovely Day," about something we could all use right now.

John Prine was 73. Bill Withers was 81. Both will be greatly missed.