Charlie Withers

Charlie Withers ( 6 September 1922 in Edmonton–died 2005) was a professional footballer who played for Tottenham Hotspur, Boston United and represented the England B team.

Football career

Withers joined the Spurs as a junior and signed as a professional in October 1947. He played in the position of full back and completed 164 games and scored ten times in all competitions between 1947–55. An integral member of the push and run Championship winning side of 1950–51 when he featured in 39 games. On leaving Spurs, Withers transferred to Boston United.

Honours

Tottenham Hotspur

Football League First Division Winners: 1950–51

External links

References

http://www.bufc.drfox.org.uk/rollcall.html List of Boston United players.

Bill Withers

William Harrison "Bill" Withers, Jr. (born July 4, 1938) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who performed and recorded from 1970 until 1985. He recorded several major hits, including "Lean on Me", "Ain't No Sunshine", "Use Me", "Just the Two of Us", "Lovely Day", and "Grandma's Hands". Withers won three Grammy Awards and was nominated for four more. His life was the subject of the 2009 documentary film Still Bill. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.

Early life

Withers was born the youngest of six children in the small coal-mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia. He was born with a stutter and has said he had a hard time fitting in. Raised in nearby Beckley, he was thirteen years old when his father died. Withers enlisted with the United States Navy at the age of 18 and served for nine years, during which time he got over his stutter and became interested in singing and writing songs. Discharged from the Navy in 1965, he relocated to Los Angeles in 1967 for a musical career. Withers worked as an assembler for several different companies, including Douglas Aircraft Corporation, while recording demo tapes with his own money, shopping them around and performing in clubs at night. When he debuted with the song "Ain't No Sunshine" he refused to resign from his job because of his belief that the music business was a fickle industry.

Ray Charles

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Raymond Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), professionally known as Ray Charles, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and composer. He was sometimes referred to as "The Genius", and was also nicknamed "The High Priest of Soul".

He pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining rhythm and blues, Gospel, and blues styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He also contributed to the racial integration of country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.

Charles was blind from the age of seven. Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, and country artists of the day, including Art Tatum, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, and Louis Armstrong. Charles' playing reflected influences from country blues, barrelhouse, and stride piano styles. He had strong ties to Quincy Jones, who often cared for him and showed him the ropes of the "music club industry."

Withers

The withers is the ridge between the shoulder blades of a four-legged mammal. In many species it is the tallest point of the body, and in horses and dogs it is the standard place to measure the animal's height (in contrast, cattle are normally measured to the top of the hips).

Horses

The withers in horses are formed by the dorsal spinal processes of roughly the 3rd through 11th thoracic vertebrae (most horses have 18 thoracic vertebrae), which are unusually long in this area. The processes at the withers can be more than 12 inches (30 cm) long.

Since they do not move relative to the ground (as the horse's head does), the withers are used as the measuring point for the height of a horse. Horses are commonly measured in hands – one hand is 4 inches (10.16 cm). Horse heights are extremely variable, from small pony breeds to large draft breeds. The height at the withers of an average Thoroughbred is 16 hands (64 inches, 163 cm), and ponies are up to 14.2 hands (58 inches, 147 cm).

Conformational issues

Ain't No Sunshine

"Ain't No Sunshine" is a song by Bill Withers from his 1971 album Just As I Am, produced by Booker T. Jones. The record featured musicians Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass guitar, Al Jackson, Jr. on drums and Stephen Stills on guitar. String arrangements were done by Booker T. Jones, and recorded in Memphis by engineer Terry Manning. The song is in natural minor.

The song was released as a single in September 1971, becoming a breakthrough hit for Withers, reaching number six on the U.S. R&B Chart and number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 23 song for 1971.

History

Withers was inspired to write this song after watching the 1962 movie Days of Wine and Roses. He explained, in reference to the characters played by Lee Remick and Jack Lemmon, "They were both alcoholics who were alternately weak and strong. It's like going back for seconds on rat poison. Sometimes you miss things that weren't particularly good for you. It's just something that crossed my mind from watching that movie, and probably something else that happened in my life that I'm not aware of."