On January 26, 2014, at the 56th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, Bill Withers: The Complete Sussex & Columbia Albums Collection, a nine-disc set featuring Withers’s eight studio albums, as well as his live album Live at Carnegie Hall, received the “Best Historical” Grammy Award (in a tie with The Rolling Stones’ “Charlie Is My Darling – Ireland 1965.”) The award was presented to Leo Sacks, who produced the collection, and the mastering engineers Mark Wilder, Joseph M. Palmaccio and Tom Ruff.
On April 18, 2015, Bill was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Stevie Wonder. Withers was stunned when he learned he had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I see it as an award of attrition,” he says. “What few songs I wrote during my brief career, there ain’t a genre that somebody didn’t record them in. I’m not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia.”
On October 1, 2015, there was a tribute concert at Carnegie Hall in his honor, featuring Aloe Blacc, Ed Sheeran, Dr. John, Michael McDonald and Anthony Hamilton recreating his 1973 concert album, Live at Carnegie Hall, along with other Withers material. Withers was in attendance and spoke briefly onstage.
On February 12, 2017, he made an appearance on MSNBC to talk about the refugee crisis, as well as the political climate in America.
