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The Poet, The Preacher, The Midnight Mover -- Bobby Womack has a number of nicknames, but they all add up to one thing: Soul Man Extraordinaire. A phenomenally talented singer, songwriter and guitarist, he’s written hits for Wilson Pickett (“I’m In Love,” “I’m A Midnight Mover”), and he’s played on sessions with everyone from Sam Cooke and Sly & The Family Stone to Janis Joplin and the Rolling Stones. But in the soul music community, Bobby’s best known for the several dozen R&B hits he’s racked up during the course of his four-decade career, including such classics as “Woman’s Gotta Have It,” “Lookin’ For A Love” and “Nobody Wants You When You’re Down and Out.”
Born March 4th, 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio, Bobby grew up listening to gospel, country and R&B music. When his father was off at work, Bobby would slip his guitar out of its case and try to learn it by ear, resulting in his unique “left-handed and upside-down” style of play. In the mid-1950s, he and his four brothers formed the Womack Brothers, a singing group that became quite popular on the local gospel circuit. In 1961, they were enticed to moved to Los Angeles by Sam Cooke, who changed their name to the Valentinos and asked them to record some pop material for his new label, S.A.R. Records. Two singles, 1962’s “Lookin’ For A Love” and 1964’s “It’s All Over Now” (later covered by the J. Geils Band and the Rolling Stones, respectively) fared well on the R&B charts, and Sam eventually hired Bobby to play guitar in his touring band.
Bobby went solo after Cooke’s death, but his marriage to Cooke’s widow scandalized the black music community, and almost ruined his career. Since he couldn’t get his own records played, he kept afloat by playing on other artists’ records and writing songs for Wilson Pickett. He finally broke through in the early 1970s with a succession of hits, including “That’s The Way I Feel About ‘Cha,” “Woman’s Gotta Have It” and “Harry Hippie.” In 1973, he wrote and recorded the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Across 110th Street, and he scored a Top 10 pop hit in 1974 with a remake of “Lookin’ For a Love.” Since then, his career has been marked by a series of ups and downs, both personal and commercial, but he’s still respected throughout the world as one of the greatest living soul singers.
“New Day,” a new track written and recorded exclusively for MUSICBLITZ, shows that Bobby hasn’t lost a step. His voice is still the very definition of soulfulness, and he puts across the optimistic lyrics of spiritual awakening with plenty of heart and guts. As an added treat, he begins the song with a lovely, Spanish-style acoustic figure, before kicking things into overdrive with a funky, propulsive groove. If you dig old-school Womack (or old-school soul, in general), you’re gonna like this a lot.
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