Thanks, Keberoxu, Yes, Bill Withers, wrote/sang "Ain't no sunshine..."

Just found this amusing snippet on Wikipedia - more there if anyone cares to look:

"For the song's third verse, Withers had intended to write more lyrics instead of repeating the phrase "I know" 26 times, but then followed the advice of the other musicians to leave it that way: "I was this factory worker puttering around," Withers said. "So when they said to leave it like that, I left it."

Withers, then thirty-one years old, was working at a factory making toilet seats for 747s at the time he wrote the song. On the American Top 40 program of November 6, 1976, Casey Kasem reported that when the song went gold, the record company presented Withers with a golden toilet, marking the start of his new career."