It would have been understandable if Bill Withers, the legendary singer-songwriter behind classics like “Lean On Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine,” felt some antipathy toward horses. According to his daughter, Kori, an accident when he was young had long-term consequences.

“He had a horse fall on him when he was maybe 12,” she says. “It affected the bottom four vertebrae of his back; my mom said that the cartilage was gone and they were always stiff as a result.”

Even so, Kori says her dad never felt resentful toward horses in general and he encouraged his childrens’ interest in them. Her brother, Todd, rode horses at summer camp. “Dad said to me, ‘Make sure you get him to horses, he has a great understanding of horses.’”

One way Kori Withers exercises her interest in horses is through her service on the board of FreeHorse Arts, the Richmond-based nonprofit that, among many arts education and nature-based programs, offers equine experiential learning for people with diverse abilities.

“My interest hasn’t been about [equine] sports or athleticism, but more about understanding the animals,” says Withers. “Then with the programming being arts-based, we’ve been talking a lot about creating, whether it’s songwriting, recording, or writing poetry and original lyrics. So with FreeHorse, there’s a synergy of things that were important to my dad and his interests.”

Withers will be headlining two performances celebrating the music of her father and showcasing the work of FreeHorse Arts on June 28. It is the latest in the organization’s “Songwriters Series” that brought Paul Williams of “Rainbow Connection” fame to Richmond last December.

A father’s legacy

A singer-songwriter herself, Withers has co-written songs with artists like Matisyahu and performed with Booker T. Jones, the musician who produced Bill Withers’ first album. She has also devoted a lot of energy toward extending the musical legacy of her father, working with her mother on projects like the children’s book, “Grandma’s Hands,” based on a 1971 Bill Withers song.

Withers says doing a book made sense given her father’s approach to music. “I asked him once, ‘How do you know when you’re finished with a song’ and he said, ‘When I can see it,’” she says.

The creative director at FreeHorse, Alex Ginsberg, says that Withers really understands the mission of the organization: “What’s been really special about working with Kori is that she has dug into our vision of interconnection with the world, building conscious community, and creating music that is a reflection of that.”

Ginsberg says that the two main themes that emerged in exploring Withers’ music have been legacy and migration. Bill Withers grew up in West Virginia then relocated to Los Angeles after serving in the Navy for 9 years. He worked blue collar jobs in the commercial aerospace industry, playing clubs at night before being discovered at the relatively late age of 32.

His first single, “Ain’t No Sunshine,” was an immediate hit in 1971, his 1972 classic “Lean On Me” has been covered dozens of times, and he continued penning hits into the 1980s, co-writing “Just The Two of Us,” which won the Record of the Year Grammy Award in 1981. He died in 2020 at the age of 81.

Ginsberg says participants in FreeHorse programming leapt at the chance to build on the legacy of their featured songwriters: “After the Paul Williams show, a participant sent me an email saying they were inspired by Bill Withers’ music and they really wanted to write a song called ‘Love Sandwich.’ So we did that.”

Kori Withers helped participants flesh the idea out and assisted in developing instrumentation. FreeHorse ultimately recorded the song at In Your Ear studios and it will be performed at the upcoming live show.

Withers says that working with people with diverse abilities also dovetails with her father’s legacy: “My dad stuttered very prominently as a young person and was later involved with the Stuttering Association for the Young.” She says her father was able to receive speech therapy, thanks to it being paid for by a man in the community who had cerebral palsy.

“My dad didn’t want to be called handicapped and he identified with people who had different talents,” she says. “He also saw the power of compassion and that’s what he wanted us to think about.”

“Celebrating the Music of Bill Withers with Kori Withers and Friends,” the latest event in FreeHorse Arts’ Songwriters Series, will have two performances (3 p.m. and 7 p.m.) on Saturday, June 28 at the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, 2880 Mountain Road. Additional performers include Desirée Roots, City Dance, Weekend Plans, and the First African Baptist Church Choir.  Information is available at https://www.freehorsearts.org/ and tickets are available here.