[1] Reviewing in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau wrote: "Hearing Withers urge the audience on, as drummer James Gadson and pianist-arranger Ray Jackson drive their crack combo, really wipes out the man's MOR aura—nobody else in the music combines hard rhythms and warm sensuality so knowingly.

A natural shouter who raises his voice judiciously and a deliberate wryly moralistic rapper, his authority comes through even when you can't see him frowning mildly in his unshowy Saturday-night sports clothes.

"[3] He was more enthusiastic about the album years later in The Village Voice, arguing that it functions as Withers' "legacy", "far more than best-ofs obliged to respect the career he maintained after this hypercharged 1972 night ... a moment of lost possibility": Withers sang for a black nouveau middle class that didn't yet understand how precarious its status was.

Warm, raunchy, secular, common, he never strove for Ashford & Simpson-style sophistication, which hardly rendered him immune to the temptations of sudden wealth—cross-class attraction is what gives 'Use Me' its kick.

"[6] In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked the recording 27th on the magazine's list of the 50 greatest live albums.