BOBBY WOMACK: UNDERSTANDING (1972)
1) I Can Understand It; 2)
Woman Got To Have It; 3) And I Love Her; 4) Got To Get You Back; 5) Simple Man;
6) Ruby Dean; 7) Thing Called Love; 8) Sweet Caroline; 9) Harry Hippie.
If a record called Communication is quickly followed up by a record called Understanding, this already suggests
that there is not going to be a hell of a lot of difference between the two.
And indeed, they have more or less the same length, more or less the same
message, more or less the same stylistic and emotional variety, more or less
the same players, and more or less the same balance between original
songwriting by Bobby, original songwriting by his partners (Joe Hicks), and
covers of contemporary material and oldies. The only objective difference is
that Understanding was a much
bigger hit — selling far more than its predecessor, as well as yielding another
Top 50 single for Bobby (ʽHarry Hippieʼ).
The LP sales were actually bolstered by the
radio popularity of the lead-in track, ʽI Can Understand Itʼ, which never made
it onto a legit single, but became a club favorite nevertheless. Technically,
it is not disco, but the combination of steady dance rhythmics, brass, and «lush»
strings makes it the perfect accompaniment for nightlife in 1972 — loud,
romantic, intoxicating, and calling for peace, love, and mutual understanding.
My only complaint is that Bobby's sensuous lead lines are buried so deep in the
mix, making the brass/strings combination the focal point of the tune and, consequently,
somewhat dating its continued impact.
At the time, though, the track was extremely
«commercial», and the rest of the album shows that Bobby was not at all
interested in aligning himself with the likes of either Sly (for extra psychedelia
or «social rebelliousness») or Funkadelic (for extra experimentation and a more
aggressive sound). He got some teeth to chomp, for sure, but he does it only
once: ʽSimple Manʼ is a nasty funky groove with an appropriately simple, but
nagging bass line around which Bobby parades distorted guitar riffs, screechy
blues leads, dark electric piano rolls, brass fanfare, and even some relatively
primitive Moog synth solos. A simple man he may be, but so much less the reason
to fool around with the simple man who can growl and snarl alongside the best
of 'em.
But this is actually rare. More commonly, Bobby
is content with covering Neil Diamond (ʽSweet Carolineʼ — finally, a cover that
sticks relatively close to the original and, in some ways, transcends it) —
and the Beatles (ʽAnd I Love Herʼ, not as good because the song predictably loses
much of its uniqueness by being given a full-blown early 1970s soul
arrangement), or co-writing, with either Joe Hicks or other Womacks, soft
«dance-soul» numbers, such as ʽWoman Got To Have Itʼ, the first single for the
album whose most memorable aspect is probably its jumpy bassline, tense,
boppy, and fidgety in comparison to the relatively stable groove of the rest of
the song. Meanwhile, ʽRuby Deanʼ is notable for some fine acoustic riffage,
which goes along fine with harmonica solos and Bobby's melancholic howling.
Still, the most striking song on the album is
probably ʽHarry Hippieʼ — written by songwriter Jim Ford. The song acquired
additional poignancy two years later, when Bobby's brother, Harry Womack, was
killed by his jealous girlfriend, upon which the tune became re-dedicated to
him; but the original lyrics seem to have been referring to an
abstract-collective Harry, summarizing the artist's feelings towards the hippie
stereotype — "I'd like to help a man when he's down / But I can't help him
much when he's sleeping on the ground". You can feel Bobby really getting into the spirit here,
trying to rub up as much sympathy towards the character as possible, but put it
all in a tragic context all the same. For Bobby Womack, who was always careful
to walk the thin line between «manufactured, well-paid, stable entertainment»
and «artistic recklessness», the song must have been a particularly important
manifesto at the time. And its choice for the album's coda has its own meaning
— letting us know that Understanding
is not that easy to come by if your mental languages differ so much.
I would not rip Understanding out of its context and award it with a much more
enthusiastic thumbs
up than usual just because it incidentally happened to be more
popular than usual. But its spirit burns just as brightly as that of Communication, and together, they
represent early 1970s «dance-oriented soul» at its average finest. It isn't
«great art», but it is perfectly crafted, meaningful, and highly tasteful
entertainment.
Check "Understanding" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Understanding" (MP3) on Amazon
It should be mentioned that COMMUNICATION and UNDERSTANDING were recorded during the same series of sessions, just a few days apart.
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