BOBBY WOMACK: THE STREET PHILOSOPHER
Hearing over the weekend that Bobby Womack had passed away was a shock. Though I knew he had been experiencing various health problems in recent years, I knew he was still performing. In fact, I had narrowly missed seeing him at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival this year. He went at on 3PM the final Sunday of the Fest and our plane landed around 1:30PM. If I had known, I would have scheduled an earlier flight; I never saw Bobby perform. And now he’s gone.
What is strange to me is that so many people seem unaware of what a monumental figure has left us. A fair number of people in my close circle of friends and acquaintances know the extent of Bobby’s talent and achievement. But many other people seem bemused when I express what a great loss it is. I am experiencing the same surprise as when a couple years ago I was talking about doing a Nina Simone tribute recording and a couple people who I know are pretty aware musically said something like “Nina Simone….isn’t she a cult artist?” That description stunned me. A cult artist? Who didn’t know that Nina Simone was one of the deepest, most profound musical artists who ever lived? I thought everyone knew that. Apparently not. Same with Bobby. He was a top session guitarist, who played on many hit records and indeed wrote George Benson’s breakthrough instrumental hit “Breezin’.” He started out young in his family gospel group, was mentored as a teenager by none other than Sam Cooke, had a couple hits when the group—re-named The Valentinos—went secular. Their recording “It’s All Over Now” was covered by The Rolling Stones and became a big hit in 1964. By the late Sixties Bobby had launched his solo career and recorded a string of R & B hits, truly hitting his stride in the early 70’s songs such as “Woman’s Gotta Have It’” “Looking For A Love”, Harry Hippie”, “You’re Welcome, Stop On By”. His trademark was his spoken intros, little bits of preaching and street philosophy, delivered in his raw, raspy voice. Bobby’s voice was not a beautiful instrument but you recognized it instantly.
More importantly, he wrote massive hits and classic album tracks for other artists such as Aretha Franklin “I’m In Love”, Wilson Pickett “I’m A Midnight Mover”, Millie Jackson “I’m Through Trying To Prove My Love To You” and Janis Joplin “Trust Me.” He also hit with the title track to the film “Across 110th St.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe9s63ruvpo
But he was never really a crossover artist—he only had one Top Thirty pop hit—“Looking For A Love.” And even in the R & B world, his only had two periods of strong solo success—1971 – 1976 and 1981 -1985. But musicians, hard core R & B fans and people close to the streets knew how special Bobby was. You see Bobby was kind of a complex guy. His talent and his approach to life took him outside neat categorical lines.
For instance some of his successful early solo recordings were re-workings of such relatively middle of the road pop songs as “California Dreamin’” , “I Left My Heart In San Fransisco” and the standard “Fly Me To The Moon”; of course he rendered them completely in his own style. He knew blues, he came from gospel, and he stretched naturally into jazz. He was just one of those pure musicians who could make music out of anything.
And his lyrics revealed perspectives that were far from rote; Bobby was deep! A lot of his lyrics sounded like they came from quite a bit of pain, from someone who had seen the dark side, even slipped into it sometimes himself. Usually they were close to the bone, without illusions, like a street hustler who has survived. His cover of of the Depression-era song “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out” is so natural you’d think it was one of his songs. Sometimes the songs come from his life or the life around him that he has observed. “Harry Hippy”, for instance, is about his free-spirited brother a died an untimely death. That death, along with death of his mentor Sam Cooke, and the death of a son, no doubt haunted him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn9hpgXaWAg
In any case, even many of his lesser-known songs are gems, even if they aren’t necessarily “hits.”
I never met Bobby, never saw him perform, but crossed his path a couple times. One time was when he took part in a tribute recording to Don Covay that my company was producing. Bobby flew in and did a great version of Don’s song “I Was Checking Out, She Was Checking In.” I wasn’t in the studio that day, but I remember paying the bill for the car we had hired to take him from the hotel to the studio. He kept it for 24 hours! ‘Course those were in his dark, drug fueled days. More recently, I suggested that newer generation R & B singer Calvin Richardson record an album of Bobby’s songs in tribute to Bobby, knowing that Calvin not only was a Bobby Womack fan but that vocally he could cut it. I sent a copy to Bobby and later called him He liked what Calvin had done.
Bobby Womack was a giant but maybe not in obvious ways. Listen to his songs and you can see the multi-faceted greatness. We won’t see the like of Bobby Womack again soon!