Billboard #1 Hits: #623: ‘Lean On Me’- Club Nouveau. March 21, 1987. #1 for 2 weeks in Billboard Hot 100.
- Single: ‘Lean On Me’- Club Nouveau
- Record Company- Warner Bros.
- Genre: R&B, Soul
- Written by Bill Withers
- Time: 3:58
- B-side: ‘Pump It Up [Reprise]
- Album-Life, Love & Pain
- Grade: B
- Peaked at #1 2 weeks in Billboard Hot 100. #3 in UK Singles Chart, #1 in Canada and New Zealand.
A song that went to #1 with Bill Withers in 1972- was remade with a go-go beat by Club Nouveau and went to #1 again 15 years later. It also won Bill Withers a 1987 Grammy for Best R&B song. The fact it helped shine a light again on Bill Withers- is good enough for me to like it of course it doesn’t hold a candle to Withers original. Club Nouveau had only one other Hot 100 single- the follow up single ‘Why You Treat Me So Bad’ which peaked at #39.
slicethelife 
My thought was ‘bloody hell, how did they make such a mess out of a really good song?’ but it did win Bill a Grammy and make him money so I give it a backhanded compliment for that.
I like it for putting Wither’ back in the spotlight.