The story of how a 33-year-old Navy vet from Slab Fork, West Virginia, went from building toilets for 747s in a factory to playing Carnegie Hall in less than two years could fill an entire documentary. Still Bill is more ambitious than that. Instead, Alex Vlack and Damani Baker strain to make sense of soul icon Bill Withers, now a retiree in his seventies whose decision to reject the music industry in 1985 comes back, if not to haunt him, then at least to tug gently at the sleeve of his sweatshirt while he pads around his well-appointed Los Angeles home.

With his two children now fully grown, the singer and songwriter who produced some of the biggest singles of the ’70s (“Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean On Me”) is remarkably content. Listening to Withers explain why he quit show business in response to record company meddling in his music and image makes you wonder what kind of person doesn’t quit. If, per Hunter S. Thompson, the music biz is a place where “good men die like dogs,” Withers got out while the getting was good. Besides which, seeing him wiping away tears of happiness at his daughter’s own singing is a reminder that music’s true value lies beyond being used to make money.

Vlack and Baker generally avoid tired Behind The Music–isms (Withers’ old friends from Slab Fork and the Navy offer far more insight into his character than talking heads like Angelique Kidjo), and maintain the film’s narrative tension without resolving the possibility that Withers might make another album. Either way, the enviable smile on his face through much of Still Bill hints that his happiness doesn’t exactly depend on it.