Facts Of Life

You can't talk about Bobby Womack without discussing the people he has worked with or been directly associated with over his long career. The most basic research reveals a roll call of some of the most important figures in popular music since its very beginnings. These stories and anecdotes could fill volumes – starting with the man who gave him his first break, Sam Cooke, the characters that are important to the Bobby Womack story reads like a history of music itself. James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Sly Stone, Janis Joplin, Dusty Springfield and so many more benefited from his style, talent, credibility and personality.

The fact that today, at 69 years of age, he is still blowing audiences away should be no surprise. Beginning with a guest spot with Damon Albarn's Gorillaz, the pair's musical relationship has resulted in the release of The Bravest Man In The Universe.

“Well ,I'll tell ya,” he drawls with a thick accent and a disarming friendliness, “I was out (of the music business) for a time – didn't have the taste for it. When I was made acquainted with Gorillaz I didn't know who they were. My daughter educated me and she was so excited. I ventured into finding out who they were and consequently the tour came up and they were such nice people to work with. Not like the musicians that you see today that have egos, they didn't have any of that. They kind of made me feel needed and wanted and it just all came back with them. This album is special because of that.”

The record is a contrast of quite modern-sounding electronic flourishes complementing Womack's authentic-as-ever pure soul. He says that he was initially taken aback by the sound of the recordings, but quickly came around.

“I embraced it,” he says, “and I even embraced it more when I saw the response from the young people around the world travelling with Gorillaz, and they were just so receptive. So I thought if they're receptive now, wait until we do this album, and that just kind of planted the seed. I've had so many people that I've worked with over the last year who have had nothing but praise for the album, which is always a good feeling coming from your peers.”

Womack says that working in the studio with Albarn and XL Recordings owner Richard Russell was unlike any recording experience he had before.

“I'm used to going into the studio all day and all night and the next night,” he says. “They went in about 11 o'clock during the day and at five or six o'clock they were wrapping it up just like a regular job. I thought, wow, this is kinda strange, but they were like, 'we're gonna take time with our families and we want you to take time and relax and listen to the tracks and see what you can come up with lyrically'. That was a whole new twist for me but it was a ray of sunshine. Anytime that you stay up all night like that, you have to have help and I think that's what made me drift off into my problems with drugs – being up two or three nights in a row is just not possible. They were doing it the way that I always should have been doing it. They showed me you don't have to stay up for three days in a row to get what you want.”

Even though Womack's well documented struggles with drugs saw him leave the limelight for a period, his music never did. When a new generation of hip hop artists started biting his back catalogue for samples in the early-'80s, his music began to find a whole new generation. Previously he has taken to publicly deriding hip hop and rap music, but in recent years his opinion has changed dramatically, and he has even collaborated with rappers like Mos Def and Snoop Dogg.

“I feel a lot differently about it,” he says. “Financially it's been good, for one, but other than that and more so, there are a lot of talented people out there and even though they're doing things a lot differently than we did in the old days – you know, with sampling and using electronics to make the music – it's working. Young people are buying the music and it's been a resurgence for me with people sampling my music and using my name on their records. It really, really let me know that there's a whole world out there. I run across so many young people – I was speaking with LL Cool J the other day and he wanted to rap over something of mine. He was telling me about how his mother and father and uncles and different people were into my music when he was a kid, and that's all he would hear, and he identifies with me like that. It really surprised me because I'd never talked to him before but I knew who he was. I just thought wow, this is great. This is what legacy means.”

Womack's first personal introduction to the rap world came via his nephew Cecil Womack Jr, who produces hip hop under the name Meech Wells.

“He said, 'Uncle Bob! Calvin wants to do something with you,' and I said, 'who's Calvin?' He said, 'Oh, Snoop Dogg'. I said, 'Are you kidding?' (laughs) And so he hooked us up and the rest is history. When I met him I realised this is a guy who has a persona that looks one way but in person he is different and he is a business man on top of that. I kind of related to that and he opened the door for me to meet lot of people I didn't know anything about like, Lil Wayne. But they all knew me! (laughs)”

Womack has lived through devastating emotional losses with so many of his peers, friends and family falling prey to the rock'n'roll lifestyle or just tragic circumstances. He has recently had to overcome one of the biggest challenges of his life and has just been given a clean bill of health after a close call with cancer. When our conversation takes place he is at his oldest brother Friendly Womack Jr's house in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

“I haven't seen him since I was sick,” he says, “and I wanted to see him before I departed on this tour. You know, I was really ill there, at times I didn't even know where I was but a lot of people were praying for me and I'm just thankful that I'm up and able to do what I love to do, which is music, again.

“When people say 'soul survivor', I used to take that for granted until after I got sick and was able to come back. I now have a lot more respect for that title.”