Bobby Womack

BOBBY WOMACK: THE LAST SOUL MAN (40th Anniversary Collection)
No one sets out aspiring to be the king of pain. Some just get served more bitterness than the rest. As time ticks by, they understand that the real deal is not “survival of the fittest.” It’s an unfathomable equation of wits, balance, perspective, self preservation, dumb luck and a great big helping of God’s grace. It was grace in the form of a guitar that set apart soul man Bobby Womack.
There is only one Bobby Womack – the black Zelig who contributed to, and was in the presence of, so much astounding greatness. He was born Robert Dwayne Womack in the ghetto of Cleveland, Ohio - sickly and the third of five brothers who all slept in one bed with Bobby’s face always at their funky feet. He’s the one who couldn’t stay away from the guitar with which papa Friendly Womack threatened a thrashing if even touched by any of the boys. Playing left-handed with the strings still strung for right, he developed a singular playing style inspired by the clean economical lines of white country pianist Floyd Cramer and the reverently bluesy black keys emphasis of Pops Staples (whose family the Womacks often toured with). The God-fearing Womack Brothers became lady-lovin’ Valentinos when, after one gospel single failed, Bobby flipped the next one from “Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray” to “Lookin’ For a Love” – a two million-seller in it’s ..62 incarnation. They got a week of boot camp sweating bullets under soul sergeant James Brown at the Apollo. Later on the chitlin circuit, Bobby kicked it with Hendrix on rickety tour busses, swappin’ lefty guitar slinger tricks. And when the Valentinos disbanded, 18 year-old Bobby was the one SAR Records CEO Sam Cooke asked to stay, singing and playing his guitar, inspiring the legend every night ..til the one on which his life was taken.
When Bobby first set sail solo, radio dissed him to his face for marrying Cooke’s widow, Barbara, mere months after his mysterious murder. So he took his guitar to American Studios in Memphis and “shedded” as a sideman on sessions for everyone from Aretha to Elvis…and a wicked kindred spirit named Pickett who grabbed 17 of Bobby’s songs, including “I’m in Love” and “Midnight Mover.” Earlier, the Stones copped an early hit by snatching up Womack’s ditty-bopper “It’s All Over Now.” And later, he was among the last musicians to hang with Janis – she recorded his song “Trust Me” with his accompaniment, then wrote her last song, “Mercedes Benz,” in the classic one Womack was driving, recording it three days before she overdosed. He was there when Sly temporarily dismissed his day-glo Family Stone to incubate a darker statement called There’s a Riot Goin’ On. And a wistful improvised instrumental that Bobby tossed off for Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo later became the title track of a career redefining album called Breezin’ for jazz man turned pop star, George Benson.
Bobby’s early records revealed an identity crisis. Music and life lessons were pouring out of him. He was writing decent songs like “How I Miss You Baby” and bending MOR smoothies such as “Fly Me to the Moon” and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” to his soulful will. But after watershed albums like Isaac Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Womack found that the key to his sound would be to stretch out, as he did in concert monologues like the one he used to set up “More Than I Can Stand.” And when Liberty Record’s Minit label was folded into United Artists Records, Bobby got just the fresh lease on his creative life he needed. Instead of cramming twelve 3-minute tunes to an album, he cut eight and took his time to tell the whole story.
With his landmark albums Communication (1971) and Understanding (1972), Bobby Womack morphed into “The Preacher.” And with his hand-picked band, Peace, he delivered soul sermons such as “Woman’s Gotta Have It,” “That’s The Way I Feel About Cha” and a slice of hard lived autobiography titled “Across 110th Street” that he turned into a dynamic early ..70s blaxploitation theme, poignantly reprised two decades later by director Quentin Tarantino for Jackie Brown, starring Bobby’s one-time girlfriend (and background singer) the vivacious Pam Grier. He followed that with the cautionary “Nobody Wants You When You’re Down and Out” from the appropriately titled Facts of Life album which also included “I’m Through Trying to Prove My Love to You” (featuring his baby brother Cecil chiming in heavenly falsetto backing vocals).
But just as Bobby’s train picked up speed, tragedy struck in 1974 when his brother Harry, whom he’d immortalized in the song “Harry Hippie,” was stabbed to death by a jealous girlfriend. It was Cecil who called Bobby while he was doing a radio interview to break the news to him on the air. Bill Withers immediately drove over to the station to lend moral support. Then a few years later after remarrying, Bobby lost his infant son Truth in a freak bedding suffocation. Bobby’s shows and albums became inconsistent. He tried to cope, as many did then, by turning to drugs...but he knew better. Several years later, another son committed suicide. Life just had a way of steadily kicking Bobby in the behind. Miraculously, he always manages to rebound.
1980 saw the remarkable comeback album on the independent black-owned Beverly Glen label titled The Poet featuring the timeless “If You Think You’re Lonely Now.” It was followed by The Poet II where he held his own paired with fireball Patti LaBelle on three songs including their hit “Love Has Finally Come At Last.” Then, following a third LP and legal battles with the label, Bobby signed to recording giant MCA and scored one last smash with 1985’s “I Wish He Didn’t Trust Me So Much,” some outside writers’ cheatin’ song that Bobby related to oh too well.
It’s been over two decades since Bobby Womack’s last smash but he’s still here, writing and living quietly in the San Fernando Valley. He comes out to play, occasionally, but mostly lays low - the survival mechanism of a card-carryin’ Soul Legend that’s always seen himself as an outsider.
Bobby Womack’s greatest hits have been song jacked by stellar players from ..70s soul bands Rufus featuring Chaka Khan (“You’re Welcome, Stop On By”) and New Birth (“I Can Understand It”) to new jack upstarts K-Ci Hailey (“If You Think You’re Lonely Now” AND “Woman’s Gotta Have It”) and Gerald Levert & Mary J. Blige in a great duet version of “That’s The Way I Feel About Cha.” His legacy glows steady on low, but it’s still burning. And that is why we take our time to tell his story (“so incredible”) with this career-spanning collection honoring 40 years of musical genius as marked by his 1968 solo debut LP.
What do you say to the last soul man who’s outlasted not only peers like Lou Rawls but soul sons like Gerald Levert who studied him? I leave the final word to The Preacher, “I'm still writing music. It's impossible to always rise to the occasion, but it's important that when the spirit has you, you work with it. That’s when you have something to say - not because you're under pressure to prove to somebody that you're still here and valid. Many times I’ve felt out of place here because I've outlived most of the folks I started out with. The few that are here are so distant from me now… But every time I go on that stage, it’s for the guys that I was taught with and worked with - great people. When I get off that stage, all I know is my heart is racing, my clothes are wet, my hands and feet are sore, my throat is hot and I breathe a sigh of relief.”
“As long as I've got that breath and my God-given talent, every time someone thinks of soul music, they'll remember me and say, ‘That's one motherfucker who wouldn't die.’”
A. Scott Galloway October 2007