Bill Withers, Bill Withers Live At Carnegie Hall

"I appreciate you coming out in this rain!" Bill Withers says, after he and his band smoke through "Use Me," the opening selection on this landmark live album. Then, they dive right back into the groove. Withers sounds ecstatic here — as anyone who’d gone from being a mechanic who wrote songs to an R&B superstar inside of two years might be. He’d hit No. 1 in the summer of 1972 with the instant standard "Lean on Me"; now he was headlining Carnegie Hall. Who wouldn’t want to kick back in and play some more?

Or, as much to the point, hear some more? Withers made wonderful records, but he never sounded this free and loose. When, in the middle of "Friend of Mine," he says, "Let me introduce you to some friends of mine," meaning the band, it’s genuinely warm, not just stage shtick. (For the record, that band consists of pianist Ray Jackson, percussionist Bobbye Hall, drummer James Gadson, guitarist Bernard Blackman, bassist Melvin Dunlap, who’s "so quiet he said eight words last year; six of those were ‘airport,’" as well as hired horns and strings.)

Withers was a brilliant storyteller: the intro to "Grandma’s Hands" ("At the funerals, they used to have to tie the caskets down!") is almost better than the song itself. (Almost.) And the crowd is a fully functioning member of the band: the audience’s claps bring it all home during the near-14-minute encore medley of "Harlem" and "Cold Baloney" as much as Withers and his killer combo. This show would have been worth coming out for in a hurricane.