The Bravest Man in the Universe is the title of soul legend Bobby Womack’s latest album, his 27th studio album to be exact, and the first with original material since 1994’s Resurrection. If the title was a more accurate assessment of both his life and career, however, it would be called “still standing” or “soul survivor.”
For his musical legacy is steeped in an era many would call among the greatest in all of black music. Sam Cooke, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, The Rolling Stones… and if you can name a musical great from his era, Bobby Womack has a personal tie to them.
Born Robert Dewayne Womack on March 4, 1944 into a musical family, where his father was a minister who played the guitar and his mother played the organ. Bobby Womack and his four brothers [Friendly, Curtis, Harry and Cecil] began performing as The Womack Brothers on the gospel circuit when Bobby was just eight. In 1954, when he was just 10, they released “Buffalo Bill,” along with “Bible Tells Me So,” as Curtis Womack and the Womack Brothers.
Sam Cooke, himself, took an interest early, signing them to his SAR Records. At first, they recorded gospel songs but then, like so many others, made the switch to secular music, a move of which their father, in keeping with many elders of their time, highly disapproved. In fact, church black folk frequently boycotted records by one-time gospel artists and ostracized them from those circles.
Recording secularly as The Valentinos, their early work, like most “soul” music, was largely worldly twists on gospel songs. “Lookin’ for a Love,” their first single, played upon the spiritual, “Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray,” which they previously recorded.
In 1964, their future looked especially bright and Bobby’s talent was shining more and more. The Rolling Stones scored their first number one with a cover of The Valentinos’s “It’s All Over Now,” which Bobby co-wrote. Then tragedy struck: Sam Cooke was murdered that same year. Bobby may have very well carried the torch but marrying Sam Cooke’s widow just four months after Sam’s death stopped his career in its tracks.
“They used to have me on the bill as ‘the boy who married Sam Cooke’s wife,’” Bobby said in his episode of Unsung, which premiered on TV One earlier this year. Sam Cooke’s brothers even beat him. Radio disc jockeys flat out refused to play his music. So he turned to session work as a guitarist, playing on records for Joe Tex and Aretha Franklin. He also kept writing. “I’m a Midnight Mover” and “I’m in Love” for Wilson Pickett led to a record deal in 1968, with Bobby releasing his first solo album, Fly Me to the Moon. His gritty cover of “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas and The Papas was his first hit as a solo artist.
During the Sam Cooke scandal, he had turned to drugs. As he worked in the 1970s with Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, whom he was among the last to see alive, and many others, he was constantly high. But so was his career. His albums Understanding and Across 110th Street, the soundtrack for the classic Blaxploitation film, yielded such classics as “Woman’s Gotta Have It,” “Harry Hippie” and, of course, “Across 110th Street,” which was also featured in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, starring Pam Grier.
The hits dried up in the late ‘70s, but then Bobby struck gold again in 1981 with “You Think You’re Lonely Now,” which is a staple in K-Ci and JoJo shows, thanks to the popularity of K-Ci’s 1994 cover of the song, and was referenced by name in Mariah Carey’s 2005 hit “We Belong Together.” He also hit with “I Wish He Didn’t Trust Me So Much,” about a man doing his best not to desire his best friend’s woman, which people easily applied to his situation with Sam Cooke’s widow, as well as the duet “Love Has Finally Come At Last,” with Patti LaBelle.
He got another major musical lifeline from across the pond in 2010 when he appeared on the Gorillaz album Plastic Beach, alongside Mos Def, for “Stylo.” That success led to his latest album on XL Recordings, which also did Gil Scott-Heron’s last album.
“If you tell the truth, truth never goes out of style,” he says in the video “The Making of The Bravest Man in the Universe” on his website. And that’s been a secret to his musical longevity. There’s a raw emotion that permeates his work. You can hear pain, sorrow, regret and even joy in his music, which he says has largely been inspired by his life experiences or that of those around him.
He’s cheated death more times than anybody can count, including a shooting by his first wife, Sam Cooke’s widow Barbara, after she discovered he was romantically involved with her teenage daughter, Linda, who later married his brother Cecil. Drugs, cocaine in particular, which he used for at least 30 years, could have also taken him out but didn’t. And, most recently, he beat prostate cancer. According to an article in The Guardian a few weeks ago, he was just in the hospital with pneumonia.
“It feels like they spared me to tell the story,” he says in that same video. And he didn’t hold much back in his 2007 autobiography, Midnight Mover: The True Story of the Greatest Soul Singer in the World, including his very well-known moral shortcomings.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if The Bravest Man in the Universe, which sometimes displays a man on his last act with songs like “Deep River,” a classic spiritual that harkens back to Bobby’s gospel roots where he truthfully sings “I ain’t got long to stay here,” ranks among his greatest recordings. Certainly the songs with Euro-hip beats won’t be to everyone’s liking and, definitely the lack of true reflection and introspection over the last 68 years of living that have made his work stand out, doesn’t help.
His voice may be weathered but his spirit is omnipresent. After all, if there’s one person who, today, embodies black music history of the 20th century at its best, it’s Bobby Womack and, yes, he still has a story to tell.
Follow Ronda Racha Penrice on Twitter at @rondaracha