R&B and Soul legend Bobby Womack has passed away at the age of 70. One of the classic “middleweights” of the African-American music scene in the 1960s & 70s, Womack made hugely popular singles that, like Tyrone Davis and Johnny Taylor, charted big time in R&B but did not have the crossover appeal of a Marvin Gaye or Al Green as radio was becoming more & more re-segregated.
Mentored by the legendary Sam Cooke, Womack followed a similar trajectory by emerging from strong Gospel roots to perform “profane” secular music. That connection was further cemented when Womack married Cooke’s widow not long after the latter’s shooting death, a move which many found distastefully opportunistic and led to de facto blacklisting by the music industry. But, as Womack always maintained, it was probably just a case of two people devastated by the loss of the most important person in their lives who found solace with each other.
In any event, Womack recovered after many years in the shadows doing important back up work with the likes of Sly and the Family Stone and Janis Joplin to release two exceptionally strong albmus in the early 1970s, Communication and Understanding. These yielded a string of major hits including “That’s the Way I Feel About ‘Cha”, “Woman’s Gotta Have It” and the quirky “Harry Hippie”. Womack also scored with the socially conscious “Across 110th Street”, the theme to a mediocre 1972 Blaxploitation movie that was reused 20 years later by Quentin Tarantino for Jackie Brown, his excellent homage to that unique genre.
Womack stayed busy and relevent to the end, recording with the Rolling Stones, The Roots, Mos Def and Gorillaz among many others. But it is for his special run of 1960s and 70s hits that he will be best remembered. One thing’s for sure: ain’t nobody gonna forget about Bobby Womack.
His full New York Times obituary is here.
