Bobby Dwayne Womack was born in
Cleveland on March 4, 1944, the third of five brothers. His father, Friendly, a
part-time Baptist minister and a member of the gospel group the
Voices of Love, molded the five boys—Friendly, Jr., Curtis, Bobby,
Cecil and Harry—into the gospel-singing Womack Brothers at an early
age, with Curtis and Bobby sharing the lead duties. Bobby patterned
his singing after Archie Brownlee of the Five Blind Boys of
Mississippi.
Bobby first met Sam Cooke, then the
lead singer of the Soul Stirrers, in 1951, at age seven, when the
brothers opened for the Stirrers at a Cleveland church. Ten years
later, they walked into the studio of SAR Records, a label Sam Cooke
started in order to nurture young talent. The Womack Brothers
released several gospel songs on SAR, but at Sam's urging, they also
recorded pop songs under the name the Valentinos. This caused a permanent
rift with Friendly, Sr. Two of the Valentinos' songs made the
charts. “Lookin' For a Love” (1962) was covered a decade later
by the J. Giels Band, but “It's All Over Now” (1964) was covered
almost immediately by the Rolling Stones. This cost them sales, but
Bobby was compensated by songwriting royalties and the boost to his
reputation.
During the last few years of Sam Cooke's life, Bobby was his guitarist, driver and almost constant
companion. He suffered both personally and professionally when Sam
was shot and killed in December, 1964 and SAR was disbanded. The
melodrama was compounded when Bobby, then 20, married Sam's
29-year-old widow Barbara Campbell less than three months after Sam
was slain. Although he denied that they were having an affair prior
to Sam's death, the marriage made him an outcast in the music
business.
Bobby survived this dry spell as a
session guitarist in Memphis and Muscle Shoals, AL, and as a
songwriter for artists such as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and
Joe Tex. Pickett alone recorded 17 of his songs, including “I'm a
Midnight Mover” and “I'm in Love.” He also wrote an
instrumental, “Breezin',” for jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo, which
later was a hit for George Benson.
Bobby Womack signed with Minit Records
in New Orleans and made his way back onto the charts in 1968 with
covers of “Fly Me to the Moon” and “California Dreaming.” In
1970, he began a long association with United Artists, which produced
hit singles and albums (such as Communication
[1971] and Understanding
[1972]) throughout the decade. He also contributed the title
song to the 1972 ghetto gangster flick Across 110th
Street. Here are his biggest
hit and a non-hit that's my favorite from the peak years of his
creativity.
Bobby
Womack's self-confessed heavy drug use brought him down during the
latter half of the '70s. However, he continued to ride the charts
through the early '80s with albums like The Poet
(1981) and songs like “If You Think You're Lonely Now” (1981) and
“I'll Still Be Lookin' Up to You” (1985), a collaboration with
the Jazz Crusaders' saxophone player, Wilton Felder.
Memorials
to Bobby Womack emphasize the chaotic nature of his personal life.
In addition to drug and alcohol abuse, he struggled through three
failed marriages, the death of an infant son, the murder of his
brother Harry, and the suicide of Vincent, his son with Barbara
Campbell. In 2012, he had surgery for colon cancer.
He was
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. In
2012, he cemented his status as a soul survivor with the release of
The Bravest Man in the Universe,
named by Rolling Stone
as one of the 50 best albums of the year. Here is one of his last public appearances, singing "Across
110th
Street" at the 2013 Montreux Jazz Festival.
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