Bobby Womack reclaims his soul in 'Bravest'

By Steve Jones, USA TODAY

Posted July 23, 2012

After being hospitalized this year for pneumonia in March and a cancer scare in May, soul singer Bobby Womack is grateful to live to tell the tale. Or in his case, several tales.

With the release of The Bravest Man in the Universe, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer's first album of new material in 18 years, he's a font of stories about his career and how he got a new lease on his musical life.

The record is a collaboration with British keyboardist Damon Albarn, founder of the virtual band Gorillaz, and Richard Russell, owner of London-based XL Recordings. Womack says they inspired him to write songs again after years of shunning the music business for fear of falling back into old bad habits.

"I know God is in the blessing business because I'm not supposed to be here," says Womack, 68, who says he's been clean and sober for nearly 20 years since beating a cocaine addiction. "There's still a lot for me to do, and if I can sing some great music and make people happy, I've got the best gig in the world."

Just as he is returning to the spotlight, so is some of his most revered work. A 40th anniversary edition of his classic blaxploitation film soundtrack Across 110th Street is out July 31. The package also includes two of his biggest albums, 1973's Facts of Life and 1974's Looking for a Love Again.

The still-vital Across 110th Street theme was featured in both Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown and Ridley Scott's American Gangster. It also was used in HBO's How to Make It in America.

Other artists often tap into the Womack songbook. Notably, If You Think You're Lonely Now was covered in 1994 by Jodeci's K-Ci Hailey. Mariah Carey referenced that same song in her 2005 No. 1 We Belong Together. Just before Womack's 2009 Rock Hall induction, Calvin Richardson recorded an entire album of his music, Facts of Life: The Soul of Bobby Womack.

Though there are echoes of Womack's past work, Bravest was mostly written in the studio by Womack, Albarn, Russell and Harold Payne, Womack's longtime songwriting partner. Womack wrote the title track 35 years ago with Isaac Hayes and the Memphis Horns, and was surprised by interest in reworking it for the album.

"I said, 'Are you kidding me?' " says Womack, who is best known for such hit songs as Lookin' for a Love, That's the Way I Feel About Cha, Woman's Gotta Have It, If You Think You're Lonely Now, Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out, I Wish He Didn't Trust Me So Much, Harry Hippie, You're Welcome, to Stop On By and Across 110th Street.

"I couldn't believe they picked that song, but the writing was so easy for me. I thought it was something I had lost over the years. It has to come from your heart."

One song that's close to his heart is Dayglo Reflection, which samples a monologue by his mentor — soul great Sam Cooke— and features Lana Del Rey, who was about to board a flight when Albarn called asking her to appear on the record.

"They told me in the studio that my mother was near death and that I should take three days or so off," Womack says. "I told them my mom would want me recording because the spirit is there. She would say, 'Don't walk out of that studio. Do what you do best.' " (Naomi Womack died in December at age 91 while he was working on the album.)

Albarn is a longtime admirer of Womack's music and they intially connected when Albarn invited him to work on Gorillaz's 2010 album, Plastic Beach. He was featured on two songs —Stylo with Mos Def and Cloud of Unknowing— and spent three months touring with the band. He says he felt rejuvenated because the tour was drug-free and he felt at ease around the band, whom he'd never heard of before their association.

"They asked if I was hip to the group, and I said, 'No, but I do remember The Monkees,' " he says. "They laughed. But you could have never told me that a group called Gorillaz would come along and turn my whole world around.

"I walked away from the business. If I walked into a restaurant and saw somebody that looked like a musician, I would walk back out. They were either going to turn me back onto drugs or they were going to ask what I was doing, and I would have to lie."

The Cleveland native is the third brother of five born to a Baptist church organist and a minister/musician. Bobby's father, Friendly Womack, was surprised by the boy's guitar-playing talent and the musical skills of his other sons, and they eventually began performing as the Womack Brothers.

The siblings were discovered in 1956 by Cooke, who signed them to his SAR Records label four years later when Womack was 16. They changed their name to The Valentinos and had their first hit, Lookin' for a Love (Womack would re-record it a dozen years later), in 1962. Two years later, the group's next hit It's All Over Now proved a turning point for the budding songwriter.

At Cooke's urging, he reluctantly let a little-known British band, the Rolling Stones, record the song, even though it would mean The Valentinos' version would fade out.

"I know we outsang them on the song," Womack says. "But when I saw the check, I was happy. I said, 'Let me shut my mouth.' It still takes care of me today. That when I said, 'I'm going to be a songwriter.' "

The label folded after Cooke was murdered in December 1964. Womack went solo, but faced resistance in the industry because he married Cooke's widow, Barbara, a few months later. (They divorced in 1971, and he married Regina Banks in 1975.)

Womack found work as a songwriter and session guitarist for Aretha Franklin, Sly Stone, the Stones, Rod Stewart, Joe Tex and others in the late '60s, before enjoying a steady string of his own hits between 1971-1985.

Womack wrote a pair of late '60s hits for Wilson Pickett, I'm In Love and I'm a Midnight Mover. He was one of the last people to see Janis Joplin alive, having spent the day in her Los Angeles hotel room before she was found dead of a heroin overdose in 1970. (He had been working on Trust Me for her album Pearl, which was posthumously released in 1971.)

He also wrote the instrumental Breezin' (later a major hit for George Benson) with jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo. He and Patti LaBelle had a 1984 hit, Love Has Finally Come at Last, and he was featured on Wilton Felder's 1985 hit (No Matter How High I Get) I'll Still Be Lookin' Up to You.

Womack, who underwent surgery to have a tumor removed from his colon in May, says he has recorded two star-studded albums, one blues and one with pop tunes, but won't release them until Bravest has run its course. He was declared cancer-free after the surgery and is now looking forward to getting back to performing.

"This is a new Womack," he says. "The best you've every seen. I survived the storm."