Photo credit: David McClister
Walking casually toward the front of the stage as the song was ending, William Bell pulled his microphone up and down from his mouth slowly and purposefully as he sang “Everybody Loves a Winner,” sending out solid soul shivers to an enthusiastic audience at Potawatomi Hotel & Casino’s Northern Lights Theatre Friday night. Bell, who will turn 80 in July, introduced the song—which he wrote in 1967 after returning from a stint in the military to find his star had dimmed some—as one about “life.”
Despite his dramatic mic moves, Bell is famously not flashy or full-throated like his one-time labelmate and friend, the great Otis Redding. Bell was Stax Record’s first star, and the label billed him as a pipe-smoking intellectual, according to Peter Guralnick’s Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom, where you’ll also learn that Bell once performed as Stanley Kowalski in an Atlanta production of A Streetcar Named Desire (!).
Indeed, Bell connects through his introspection and a softness that is still deeply soulful on songs like “Everybody Loves a Winner” and the oft-coved “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” which he also delivered with simmering intensity. Backed by a 10-piece band, Bell delighted the crowd while celebrating the Stax legacy by performing Eddie Floyd’s “Knock on Wood,” The Big O’s “Hard to Handle” (which he also encored) and “Born Under a Bad Sign,” a song made famous by Albert King that Bell co-wrote with Booker T. Jones. He also paid tribute to soul music history at large by including song snippets and references to artists such as his hero, Sam Cooke, Ben E. King and others throughout the show.
Bell took a brief break while backup singer Phyllis Smiley, wearing a wonderful flapper dress, saluted Stax legend Carla Thomas with a heart-tugging take on “Gee Whiz” followed by a spin through “B-A-B-Y.” Bell joined Smiley for an enjoyable update (Instagram, Facebook, etc. referenced in the intro) of “Private Number,” which Bell originally performed with the late Judy Clay. An incredible, extended jam of “I Forgot To Be Your Lover” was a definite highlight, as was “The Three of Me,” which leads off Bell’s Grammy Award-winning 2016 album, This is Where I Live, on Stax.
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Bell, who has written and performed several of the all-time greatest soul songs, is not necessarily speeding up as he enters his eighth decade, but, as evidenced by his performance at Potawatomi, he’s certainly not slowing down, either, and he deserves every bit of attention and affection he gets.
