William Bell (born July 16, 1939) is an American soul singer and songwriter. A principal architect of the Stax/Volt sound, he remains best known for his classic "You Don't Miss Your Water," one of the quintessential soul records to emerge from the Memphis scene.
William Bell was born William Yarbrough in Memphis, Tennessee. He took the last name "Bell" as a stage name in honour of his grandmother, whose first name was Belle. Hel sang in church as a child and considered himself a student of The Soul Stirrers, the popular gospel group led by Sam Cooke. At age ten, he began songwriting with the original composition "Alone on a Rainy Night". At the age of 14, Bell won a talent contest and began making a name for himself singing in Memphis-area clubs.
He made his first leap into the music scene backing Rufus Thomas. In 1957, Bell recorded his first sides as a member of the Del Rios, a teenage vocal group that caught the eye of Stax Records. Bell was an early signing on Stax Records initially as a songwriter, but he made his solo debut in 1961 with the self-penned "You Don't Miss Your Water," an archetypal slice of country-soul and one of the label's first big hits. A two-year Armed Forces stint effectively derailed his career, however, he continued to record singles while on break from deployment, including the song "Marching Off to War".
It was only after Bell finished his stint in the military that he was finally able to release his debut album, 1967's The Soul of a Bell, on Stax Records, generating a Top 20 hit with the single "Everybody Loves a Winner." That same year, Albert King also scored with another classic Bell composition, the oft-covered "Born Under a Bad Sign." Bell was a close friend of fellow Stax recording artist Otis Redding. Bell was supposed to be on the same tragic 1967 flight that led to Redding's death. "It started snowing so bad in Chicago, the promoter up there canceled my show," recalls Bell.
The tragedy led to a collaboration between Bell and Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. & the M.G.'s) who Bell knew from high school and church. Bell and Jones released "A Tribute to a King" in honour of Redding and it quickly became a hit. The R&B Top Ten hit "I Forgot to Be Your Lover" soon followed, and a series of duets with Judy Clay, most notably "Private Number," also earned airplay. In 1969, he relocated to Atlanta and set up his own short-lived label, Peachtree. During his time in Atlanta, he took acting lessons and played Stanley Kowalski in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire.
The hits dried up as the next decade dawned, but in 1977, Bell capped a major comeback with "Trying to Love Two," which topped the R&B charts. In 1985, he founded another label, Wilbe, and issued Passion, which found its most receptive audiences in the U.K. (although "I Don't Want to Wake Up Feeling Guilty," a duet with Janice Bullock, was a minor U.S. hit). Two years later, Bell was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and received the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's R&B Pioneer Award that same year. Starting in 1992, Bell took a hiatus from the recording studio, while still performing regularly.
In 2000, he released an album of all-new material on Wilbe entitled A Portrait Is Forever. In 2003, he was honored with the W.C. Handy Heritage Award. It wasn't until six years after his previous album that he released the album New Lease on Life. In between those releases, he was honored with the 2003 W.C. Handy Heritage Award. In 2016, Bell teamed with the reactivated Stax Records label to release a new album. Produced by John Leventhal, This Is Where I Live featured Bell performing a batch of new songs, along with a fresh recording of "Born Under a Bad Sign."
In 2017, the album was awarded a Grammy for Best Americana Album, which took Bell's career to new heights including a featured performance alongside other legendary Stax acts at BBC's 50 Years of Soul event at Royal Albert Hall in London, UK. Additionally, Bell was one of the final performances at BB King's Blues Club in NYC before it closed in the spring of 2018. Bell performed at the 2019 Blues Music Awards, where he was nominated for Best Soul Blues Male Artist.
Bell joined several other soul legends for BB King's tribute concert at the Capitol Theatre on February 16, 2020. A few months later, the National Endowment for the Arts named Bell one of their 2020 fellows, the "nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. These lifetime honor awards of $25,000 are given in recognition of both artistic excellence and efforts to sustain cultural traditions for future generations." In April 2023 William Bell released an Album titled “One Step Closer To Home” with 12 new songs which proves William Bell continues to be a major force in the music industry!
(Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia)