Bill Withers (born July 4, 1938) is an American vocalist and hall-of-fame songwriter who performed and recorded from 1970 until 1985.

Bill Withers was born the youngest of nine children in the small coal-mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia. Raised in nearby Beckley, West Virginia, he was thirteen when his father died. He joined the United States Navy at eighteen and served for nine years, during which time he became interested in singing. He began writing songs to fill a need for lyrics that expressed what he felt. Following his discharge from the Navy in 1965, he moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to pursue a career in music.