Bobby Womack: The Bravest Man In The Universe

BOBBY WOMACK: THE BRAVEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE (2012)

1) The Bravest Man In The Universe; 2) Please Forgive My Heart; 3) Deep River; 4) Dayglo Reflection; 5) What­ever Happened To The Times; 6) Stupid Introlude; 7) Stupid; 8) If There Wasn't Something There; 9) Love Is Gonna Lift You Up; 10) Nothin' Can Save Ya; 11) Jubilee (Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around).

Flip forward almost thirty years. For almost a decade after his Beverly Glen albums, Bobby went on riding from one short-lived record contract with a little-known label to another, releasing al­bums that never charted, rarely attracted any (positive) critical attention, and went out of print so quickly that, in the end, I sort of gave up upon trying to locate them, especially since there is re­latively little hope that the chase would be well worth the catch. Then, after 1994's boldly titled Resurrection (which was anything but), he ceased writing songs altogether, and, apart from a Christmas album from time to time, sank into near-complete seclusion — not that I blame him at all, considering the dire fate of modern R&B, a genre Bobby had worked so much for.

Then something really weird happened, one of those accidental turns of events that generate an auspicious opportunity — none other than Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz fame contacted Bobby with a suggestion to work together. Apparently, the man was a fan of Womack's classic material, yet simply being a fan is one thing, and actually going out all the way is quite another: an Albarn / Womack collaboration, without prior notice, would be quite an unlikely combination. It was Bobby's daughter (a closet Gorillaz fan?) who convinced her father to accept the invitation, and this first led to Bobby adding vocals to several Gorillaz tracks — and then, in return, to Al­barn co-writing and co-producing a brand new Bobby Womack album, his first and, so far, only one in the 21st century.

Based on this information alone, you can easily tell without even hearing it that The Bravest Man In The Universe would be somewhat of a «special» record. Critics fell all over it, not ne­cessarily because they loved it, but probably because they'd never heard anything quite like it. And, indeed, the record defies simple analysis — each of its ingredients is not at all special or even all that good in itself, but together, Albarn and Womack create a puzzling combination that you can love or hate, but cannot ignore.

Almost in its entirety, the album is electronic — loops, beats, cycles, lots of programming, the usual thing, not too surprising, considering that it all stemmed from Gorillaz anyway. On top of these electronic grooves, which are usually moody and minimalistic, Womack records his vocal melodies — shaky and a bit gargly in an elderly manner, but still capable of an emotional grip — to work out a series of reflections on life, love, the past, the future, man's destiny, and even on those who use the Lord's name in vain, ʽStupidʼ being his lyrical answer to Genesis' ʽJesus He Knows Meʼ, in a way. The two are aided in this (un)godly mix by Albarn's co-worker Richard Russell, and big trendy femme-fatale™ star Lana del Rey makes a guest appearance on ʽDayglo Reflectionʼ; other than that, the studio is empty — quite an unusual deal for Bobby.

Does it «work»? I don't know. In all honesty, I would say that it doesn't. It is intriguing to see Albarn take the old chum in the studio and provide him with a background of drum machines, bleeps, pings, and synthesized sonic veils (he does play some live instruments from time to time, too, but they are not so much upfront) — but none of this stuff seems tailor-made to suit Bobby's style. The electronic and vocal melodies are synchronized, yet it is hard for me to imagine Bobby drawing actual inspiration from these sounds and using it for his own vocal delivery. Albarn says that he gave instrumental demos to Womack, who would then write lyrics around them — I do wonder what those demos were and whether they were not simply played on acoustic guitar, be­cause it is hard for me to imagine Bobby putting lyrics and vocal melodies on top of these elec­tronic arrangements. (It is even harder for me to imagine Bobby, with his life-long penchant for guitar and funky groove, liking Albarn's and Russell's production, but at least officially he did).

Nevertheless, at least these arrangements try to be creative, unlike, say, the generic Eighties pro­duction on The Poet series — the title track, for instance, puts a thin, moody veil of strings and some minimalistic piano tinkles on top of the programmed percussion, giving the song an am­bient feel, that is, something previously unthinkable for a Bobby Womack song. The title is for­mally cut out of the song's refrain — "the bravest man in the universe is the one who has forgiven first" — but could easily be seen to refer to Bobby himself, of course, as it must have taken him quite a bit of bravery to go along with such a radical reinvention of himself.

«Classic» Bobby makes a brief appearance on the traditional tune ʽDeep Riverʼ, where the man is featured solo with an acoustic guitar — barely two minutes in all, just to give us a brief reminder of what it used to be like, yet it manages to take a good shot at winning top prize in that short time span, especially when placed next to ʽDayglo Reflectionʼ, a self-consciously «mystical-ro­mantic» composition where the main hero is not Bobby, but rather the perfidiously crowned «siren of the 2010s», large-lipped lady Lana del Rey that, according to everything I've heard and seen of her, is the perfect embodiment of phoniness in «sensual pop art».

Unfortunately, this is not the only song where there is too much going on and not nearly enough Bobby Womack — upbeat «dance» tunes like ʽLove Is Gonna Lift You Upʼ and ʽJubileeʼ also sound more like Albarn and Russell's take on making an electronic facsimile of classic R&B than songs that merit and justify Womack's presence on them. (ʽJubileeʼ is kinda fun, though, with its big badass bass drum pounding out the tribal beat like crazy — the one track on the album where, instead of scratching or wracking your head, you might just be tempted to lose it for a bit.).

But on most of the ballads, Bobby does sing as if he cared, and his ruminations on the world, the times, and even the exorbitant fake preachers sound exactly like they should — troubled, but tightly controlled and technically sound confessions of a worn and torn, but still viable old man. Actually, the age is only being betrayed by a little extra hoarseness and maybe just a tad lessened range (which was never that big to begin with): no decrepit relic here, even if he has to struggle a bit to strike out the anger necessary to fuel ʽStupidʼ (that's the one about the preachers).

I give the album a thumbs up, first and foremost, not for «quality» as such, but for its unusual­ness (I was going to write «novelty factor», but we are talking of a feat rather than a gimmick here, so that might be a little demeaning). The very fact that something like this came out in 2012 deserves recognition — and, let's face it, it could have been worse in all possible respects (even Lana del Rey at least has her own brand of phoniness, where they could have invited some com­pletely faceless chick instead, out of millions available). The Bravest Man In The Universe should not be judged as a collection of songs — it's more of an experimental modern art lick on an old canvas, where some will pretend to going gaga over the modern art, while others will simply admire the good old art of weaving canvas. Personally, I'm just glad the old guy can still sing with so much feeling — and a big thank you to Damon Albarn at least for ensuring that the arrangements always stay minimalistic enough to let that voice soar and flutter all over them.

Check "The Bravest Man In The Universe" (CD) on Amazon
Check "The Bravest Man In The Universe" (MP3) on Amazon

Bobby Womack: The Poet II

BOBBY WOMACK: THE POET II (1984)

1) Love Has Finally Come At Last; 2) It Takes A Lot Of Strength To Say Goodbye; 3) Through The Eyes Of A Child; 4) Surprise, Surprise; 5) Tryin' To Get Over You; 6) Tell Me Why; 7) Who's Foolin' Who; 8) I Wish I Had Someone To Go Home To; 9) American Dream.

Playing the «sequel game» is always a risky business, and if you are doing it in the hedonistic / technocrazy 1980s, and if you have already shown declining immunity to musical crap-a-titis in the disco era, winning chances are slim. It all begins, as usual, with the album cover: same Bobby, same guitar, but the way he is dressed and the way he is wielding it shows that the fashionable Bobby is out, and Bobby «The Ladies' Man» Womack is in. Of course, the man was never a stranger to direct sexual attraction, but this presentation is a tad too obvious.

So it comes as no big surprise that the first three songs are rather shapeless, and emotionally si­milar, R&B ballads on which Bobby engages Patti LaBelle in a series of soulful duets, every one of which, sooner or later, turns into a screaming match — which Bobby inevitably loses, because trying to outscream Patti LaBelle is a futile enterprise for any man. The songs are extremely bland and generic, though, just the regular anthemic, overproduced crapola of the times, and not even Bobby's guitar licks, moving closer and closer to regular jazz patterns, can redeem the lack of memorable melodies or the empty keyboard sound. Besides that, Patti LaBelle's singing style is also an acquired taste (most of the time, the lady operates in overdrive mode, and that can wear a listener out pretty quickly).

It gets a little better from there on in the songwriting department, but not in the production area. ʽSurprise, Surpriseʼ is written in late period Stevie Wonder's style (soft, steady dance rhythms, gently rocking synths, catchy chorus, etc.) and has a touch of genuine tenderness to it (percussion is really dreadful though). ʽWho's Foolin' Whoʼ is actually a potentially great electrofunk groove, but also spoiled with excesses (silly backing harmonies and way too many synth overdubs — why didn't they just leave it all to Bobby and the bass guitar?). And probably the best two songs are left for last: ʽI Wish I Had Someone To Go Home Toʼ finally gives us a pinch of classic Bob­by Womack desperation, featuring his best (most credible, at least) vocals on the entire record, in addition to some surprising tone and mood changes from verse to bridge — and ʽAmerican Dreamʼ, hinting at the latter's unreachability, is a fairly grand social statement to conclude such a lightweight album, but at least it's a curious conclusion (even incorporating a bit of Martin Luther King for extra heaviness). «Probably» the best, because, like everything else, these songs, too, suffer from dated production ideas.

Despite a few bright spots, the album as a whole still gets a thumbs down. It did manage to sell relatively well, carried on by memories of The Poet, but, nevertheless, failed to match the sales and chart success of its predecessor, and initiated the beginning of Bobby's final (as we all thought until recently) slide into total obscurity and oblivion. The LaBelle duets that were re­leased as singles never matched the success of ʽIf You Think You're Lonely Nowʼ, either. And yet, at the same time, The Poet II is clearly way more commercially-oriented than The Poet, a much more clearly calculated / manipulative affair that should have duped the public, but did not, maybe because of the presence of so many fresh new stars in the early 1980s who actually had interesting new things to say — Bobby, on the other hand, was pretty much spent with that one last gasp, no matter how much his cheerful poise on the album cover, with so many inches of his guitar sticking out your way, try to insinuate the opposite.

Bobby Womack: The Poet

BOBBY WOMACK: THE POET (1981)

1) So Many Sides Of You; 2) Lay Your Lovin' On Me; 3) Secrets; 4) Just My Imagination; 5) Stand Up; 6) Games; 7) If You Think You're Lonely Now; 8) Where Do We Go From Here.

By 1981, Bobby was stuck with Beverly Glen Music, a record label so insignificant that it does not even have its own Wikipedia page. Amazingly, this did not impede the man from undergoing a brief revival of sorts: ʽIf You Think You're Lonely Nowʼ, a romantic «new style R&B» ballad, unexpectedly became a huge hit, and helped pull the album up the charts as well — higher, in fact, than any previous Bobby Womack album. Of course, the well-chosen title and the cool sleeve photo (nice match between guitar and suit color, among other things) helped a lot, but on the whole, this dazzling commercial success requires some effort to understand.

It is definitely true that The Poet reflected a certain shake-up. With disco dead and gone, and R&B beginning to undergo the next stage of transformation — with synthesizers and electronic drums replacing live bands — it was only natural that Bobby, who had already kowtowed to cur­rent trends on his previous two albums, would not be above kowtowing to the latest change in fashion. From that point of view, The Poet sounds more or less like any normal R&B album circa 1981. We do have the synthesizers, and the treated drums, and the echoey backing vocals, and every production aspect typical of those years.

But it is also true that these songs, unlike anything on Roads Of Life, carry some actual meaning. To appreciate the album, it helps a lot if one listens to the acoustic demos for two of its key tracks (ʽGamesʼ and ʽSecretsʼ), appended as bonus tracks to one of the CD issues. They are actually so good that I cannot help wondering how much stronger would the entire album have been if it were just Bobby and his acoustic guitar — naturally, an album like this wouldn't be much of a chart contender, but a legend contender, for sure. ʽGamesʼ, in particular, comes across as a tragic plea for humanity, punctuated by mournful chords and plaintive vocals. When you listen to it in its final incarnation, the mournful chords are gone, replaced by completely expressionless key­boards, and the plaintive vocals are diminished in power by the rest of the arrangement.

Still, that fact alone is enough to realize that at least Bobby is back on an «artistic» track. A few songs dealing with spiritual matters, most of them still dealing with his favorite topic (dissatis­faction with his latest object of desire), but all of them conceived as actual songs and not simply launchpads for mindless (and toothless) grooving. Even the openly dance-oriented tracks like ʽLay Your Lovin' On Meʼ are sung with a level of passion that exceeds any of his disco numbers; and musically, there is a strong soft-jazz streak to them, with pianos and saxophones sometimes rising over the synthesizers and introducing a moody, living vibe that redeems some of these ar­rangements. There may not be any particular masterpieces — or, at least, the arrangements al­most never succeed in bringing out the best in these melodies — but this stuff is not «fodder».

Of course, the album's best known song, as it frequently happens, is arguably one of its worst tracks — ʽIf You Think You're Lonely Nowʼ, a midnight ballad about Bobby dumping his bit­chin' girlfriend (again), is mostly memorable for the endless repetition of its chorus hook and little else (well, Bobby does play some nice jazzy electric licks in the background, but, as usual, they are few and far in between and when I say «background», I really mean it). But if you hear it on the radio and fail to pay attention to its never-ending monotonous coda and then learn with surprise that it was a huge hit for Bobby Womack, do not let it fool you: there is more to The Poet than that one song. The big question is, would you actually care to go back in time and re­cover the soul of this album from under the crappy generic arrangements?

If anything, Bobby should have done the record with a small jazz combo — acoustic guitar, bass, piano, maybe just a little sax, maybe no drums at all — and it would have been a beautiful, oc­casionally deep-reaching experience (do look for these acoustic demos, they are far worthier than the finished product). As it is, The Poet is badly dated through generic misproduction, the songs suffocated by plastic treatment. But even so, I still give the album a thumbs up, since its inten­tions are clearly good — and wherever they are not hampered too much by extra gloss, carried out brilliantly: for instance, ʽJust My Imaginationʼ (not a Temptations cover!) may have been one of the most gorgeous songs recorded by the man.

Check "The Poet" (CD) on Amazon

Bobby Womack: Roads Of Life

BOBBY WOMACK: ROADS OF LIFE (1979)

1) The Roads Of Life; 2) How Could You Break My Heart; 3) Honey Dripper Boogie; 4) The Roots In Me; 5) What Are You Doin'; 6) Give It Up; 7) Mr. D.J., Don't Stop The Music; 8) I Honestly Love You.

Bobby's label-hopping begins in earnest here: no longer welcome at Columbia, he is switching over to Arista, for which he only made this one album before getting the sack. And do we even need to wonder why? Bland, hookless, run-of-the-mill disco grooves and sentimental ballads that pick up right where Pieces left off and downgrade the artist one or two more notches. This time around, old-school «funky grit» is eliminated completely, so that the entire album flows by with­out demanding any of your attention. Just fourty minutes of unnoticeable background muzak for healthy clubbing. You go on the floor to stretch out your limbs during the fast ones, then back to the table for a drink and a chat during the slow ones. You don't even remember the dude's name, not even if ʽMr. DJʼ has taken the time to announce it.

The most dreadful thing to realize is that all of the songs, except for the last one, are self-penned this time. The only choice for a cover is quite telling: ʽI Honestly Love Youʼ, a 1974 hit for Olivia Newton-John, a pretty awful song when it came out, and Bobby's attempt to inject some «genuine soul» in it is about as successful as trying to force-feed amphetamines to someone who's been paralyzed from head to toes. In reality, this can only mean one thing: by 1979, lost and confused in the whirlwind of musical change and personal troubles, Bobby had become com­pletely separated from good taste. Oh well; it's not as if he was the only one.

The less said about the «originals», the better. Deep lovers of soul in all of its varieties might find something enjoyable about ʽHow Could You Break My Heartʼ (easily done, Bobby, as long as you keep seducing your ladies with this sort of material; the tacky «phone conversation» alone at the beginning of the track makes it unpalatable), or about ʽThe Roots In Meʼ, a romantic duet with singing lady Melissa Manchester, but probably even those who are ready to forgive almost everything will find it very hard to become inspired by the interminably boring disco grooves that take themselves too seriously to generate the required fun quotient — ʽMr. DJ, Don't Stop The Musicʼ is almost like a philosophical piece in itself, even if there is absolutely nothing going on in the song. As in, you know, somebody told us that there has to be this four-on-the-floor thing, and some wah-wah guitar, and some strings, and some chicks singing backup in the background, and that's, uh, the way it goes. Hey, how come Mr. DJ stopped the music after all? What do you mean, he never even began it? What's wrong with the way we're doing it?

What is wrong is that it's all deadly dull. Disco works if you really agree to stoop to its level — make it raunchy, or at least make it catchy, and there's a guilty pleasure for you all right. But on Roads Of Life, just like on Pieces, Bobby still works from an essentially «polite» point of view, incapable of crossing the line. And he ain't the Gibb brothers, either, having always placed his faith in the groove and the soulfulness rather than melody, so there is no chance of any of these songs attaining the level of a ʽNight Feverʼ. In the end, it's just another forgettable embarrassment, and a thumbs down without any regret.

Check "Roads Of Life" (CD) on Amazon

Bobby Womack: Pieces

BOBBY WOMACK: PIECES (1978)

1) It's Party Time; 2) Trust Your Heart; 3) Stop Before We Start; 4) When Love Begins Friendship Ends; 5) Wind It Up; 6) Is This The Thanks I Get; 7) Caught Up In The Middle; 8) Never Let Nothing Get The Best Of You.

If you like disco as a phenomenon — if the tracks in question do not have to have something juicily outstanding about them, rising over the conventions, in order to satisfy your taste — Pieces, which is Bobby's first full-speed-ahead plunge into the pit, might sound just as healthy and enjoyable to you as anything else he put out in the 1970s. Besides, not every track on here is «regular» disco: ʽIt's Party Timeʼ, ʽWind It Upʼ, and ʽNever Let Nothing...ʼ are the three «an­chors» that are strategically placed at the front, at the back, and in the middle to keep the party going strong and throw the obligatory fuel into the fire whenever necessary — yet there are quite a few moody ballads, and even a couple old-schooler funk numbers, to offer diversity.

Nevertheless, so many crucial elements are missing from the platter this time around that yes, I think it is quite safe to define Pieces as that particular turning point beyond which lies shame, obscurity, and only a slim, costly chance at redemption. For starters, Bobby Womack the guitar player is almost completely absent from the stage — ʽWhen Love Begins, Friendship Endsʼ is pretty much the only song here where he is still playing excitingly soulful lead licks. For another thing, gone completely are his creative re-inventions of classic songs: all the material here is new, credited to either Bobby himself, or the rest of the Womacks, or Bobby's producer, or some of the local riff-raff that nobody remembers any more. For good reason, because the «writing» process must have occupied Bobby and his backers least of all circa 1978.

Without his playing, and without his unpredictability, Bobby becomes merely one more face in the crowd — and not as colorful or clownish as hinted at on the album sleeve, either. The ballads, such as the Candi Staton duet on ʽStop Before We Startʼ, still show him capable of solid soulful drama, but it is the kind of material that every more or less respectable soul singer with a good timbre could deliver in his or her sleep at the time; and the subject matter — resist temptation or yield to temptation — is hardly worth praising all by itself, seeing as how it had alreay been ex­plored by Bobby as deep as it was possible for him.

In the end, the title of the last track, ʽNever Let Nothing Get The Best Of Youʼ, is hilariously ironic, seeing as how Bobby belts it out against a backdrop of cheesy disco beats, corny Latin horns, and cooky «party noises» overdubbed in the background — here, clearly, we have our­selves a man who let quite a few things get the best of him, be it the record industry, the stupid musical fashions of the time, the party lifestyle, or just that good old cocaine. Deeply embarras­sing in some spots and merely listenable in others, Pieces is the first — and, unfortunately, far from the last — definitive thumbs down in Bobby's career.

Check "Pieces" (CD) on Amazon

Bobby Womack: Home Is Where The Heart Is

BOBBY WOMACK: HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS (1976)

1) Home Is Where The Heart Is; 2) Just A Little Bit Salty; 3) Standing In The Safety Zone; 4) One More Chance On Love; 5) How Long; 6) I Could Never Be Satisfied; 7) Something For My Head; 8) A Change Is Gonna Come; 9) We've Only Just Begun.

Although Bobby's «country-western debacle» cost him his contract with United Artists, he did deliver the album, so all they could do in the end was sell him out to a different label — which they did, and Bobby found himself transferred to Columbia. Not a particularly shabby deal, either, but now that he discovered that they could trade him around as much as they wanted to, until he ended up on some totally God-forsaken label, he had to come around to his senses and work more carefully. Consequently, Home Is Where The Heart Is drops all crazy pretense and returns us to the safe, commercial formula of Safety Zone.

Few things, good or bad, could be stated about this record. It has a significant disco quota to fill (title track; ʽSomething For My Headʼ; most importantly, the mind-melting groove of ʽStanding In The Safety Zoneʼ), but it is not gruesomely dominated by disco, preserving plenty of space for older style funk, R&B and balladry as well. Unfortunately, the production mostly bows down to the requirements of its time, smoothing and streamlining the sound until all of Bobby's backing band begins to sound like a mere background canvas for the vocal hooks (if they are present) or the vocal atmosphere (in case of ballads that do not require hookpower).

Bobby's guitar is the only instrument that consistently shows signs of life, but there are so many additional players that his signature licks, no matter how inspired, are not enough to properly tilt the balance. It is not at all likely that you will remember ʽSafety Zoneʼ as «that one song with some classy wailing guitar» on it — more likely, it will simply be «that lengthy disco vamp, all pinned to just a couple of bars of melody». On the other hand, the guitar bits (as well as a sax part that sounds as if that instrument, too, was trying to procure itself some individuality) at least add a pinch of replay value, so it is one of those examples of «semi-successfully working from within the formula» that guarantees itself at least some fans even after quite a while.

Still, the only memorable song on the entire first side for me is Eddie Hinton's ʽJust A Little Bit Saltyʼ, and only because it manages a great vocal build-up from verse to chorus, with the first line of the chorus delivered by Bobby with almost percussive precision (for that matter, the late Eddie Hinton remains quite an underrated sessionist and songwriter from the Muscle Shoals team). There is some injustice, I believe, in that the song only runs for three minutes where a flabby, mushy ballad like ʽOne More Chance On Loveʼ drags on for almost seven (largely due to Bobby's decision to have a pseudo-improvised «scat duet» midway through with his piano player, all of which sounds quite forced and artificial).

The second side works better, mainly since it is dominated by two covers of classics — finally, not a moment soon, Bobby decides to cover his beloved mentor's magnum opus (ʽA Change Is Gonna Comeʼ), and then immediately follows it up with ʽWe've Only Just Begunʼ, a duet with some unknown lady who sure is no Karen Carpenter, but carries out her duties well enough. I am not sure, however, whether we should be happy or sad about both of these songs performed in a very straightforward manner, without any of Bobby's usual experimental trimmings. I mean, it is understandable if he worshipped ʽA Change Is Gonna Comeʼ like a sacred object to the point of not wanting to change anything, and he nails its essence as understandingly and lovingly as Sam did in his time, but what do we get out of this? Not to mention that, with all of its sociopolitical connotations, the song was perfect for 1964, but not necessarily so by 1976, when racial tension in the US had already moved to a different level — at any rate, it does feel a little weird to have Sam's song, performed so very close to the original, sitting on the same album with red-hot disco vamps, even when you look at it from a forty-years-later perspective.

That said, the record has to be set straight: a few comments that I have encountered referred to the Columbia transfer as having a negative effect on Bobby's artistry — just put it all in context, and it is clear that it is not the record label, but the overall musical environment, that has to be held responsible. The transition to a smoother, more dance-oriented, empty-headed style, leaving less and less space to create, had already begun circa 1974, and the «mad» country-western record only aggravated the situation: it was a reckless go-out-and-get-drunk move after a week of point­less, depressing toil in the office, and in the end, it cost Bobby whatever still remained of his creative freedom and inspiration. But since the slide was gradual, Home Is Where The Heart Is is still quite listenable, and in spots, quite lovable (unfortunately, none of these spots were written by Bobby himself — yet another sign that things were not going in the right direction).

Bobby Womack: B. W. Goes C & W

BOBBY WOMACK: B. W. GOES C&W (1976)

1) Don't Make This The Last Date For You And Me; 2) Behind Closed Doors; 3) Bouquet Of Roses; 4) Tired Of Living In The Country; 5) Tarnished Rings; 6) Big Bayou; 7) Song Of The Mockingbird; 8) I'd Be Ahead If I Could Quit While I'm Behind; 9) You; 10) I Take It On Home.

The album that singlehandedly brought Bobby's career to a standstill. At the height of the disco era, for an R&B artist to come up with an album that consisted exclusively of covers of country songs — well, you gotta give the man some respect. After all those years and years of enduring compromises between the will to experiment and commercial expectations (even saving up space on his own records to explain the situation), Bobby suddenly comes up with this mighty torpedo, blowing his ship to bits: he almost shoved the record down the throats of United Artists executi­ves, but after it predictably bombed, they had no choice but to let him go, and, from a business point of view, that was probably the only reasonable solution.

What is really depressing about the situation is that the circumstances surrounding this record are far more curious and amusing than the record itself (for instance, when first asked to come up with a suitable title, Bobby suggested Step Aside Charley Pride, Give Another Nigger A Try). The actual songs recorded for the album, ten of them, all covers of old country standards by Charlie Rich, Eddy Arnold, Jimmy Newman, etc., might appeal to really big fans of the genre, but it's not as if Bobby were doing anything surprising with them. The material does get a little funkified and decorated with the appropriate synthesizers and wah-wah guitars, typical of the mid-1970s, but other than that, I am not even sure of what to say.

Ironically, the only song that Sam Cooke ever wrote about the country was ʽTired Of Living In The Countryʼ ("gonna get me a fine apartment, where the water runs hot and cold"), and, of course, Bobby had to do that one as well, addicted as he was to having at least one Sam cover per album (or, at least, per every couple of albums). It generates a little more excitement than every­thing else, even ʽTarnished Ringsʼ where Bobby drags out his own father, Friendly Womack, to sing a family duet (in authentic country-western fashion, I guess).

It isn't as if Bobby couldn't have done anything with the songs — the man who could turn ʽNo­body Knows Youʼ into a red-hot funk workout, and ʽSomething You've Gotʼ into ska comedy, could probably come up with some hilarious transformations for regular country stuff as well. But it seems as if he thought that the very gesture was enough — that, perhaps, the very fact of em­barking on this enterprise could turn him into the Ray Charles of 1976. And in thinking that, he forgot to introduce any spice into the arrangements: even the guitars are bland and mechanic throughout the sessions. The singing tries to be passionate, but Bobby's singing is always passio­nate: like with so many first-rate R&B / soul singers, there is abso­lu­tely no telling when he is exactly «getting into it» and when he is just being professional.

Even though the album only runs for less than half an hour, it is still less than half an hour of excruciating boredom, unless you worship the power of the waltz tempo, the slide guitar, and the sentimental strings in all their doings. A ridiculous decision if there ever was one (and, if I read Bobby's own memories of that correctly, drugs had some say at least in the matter). Thumbs up for the audacity, perhaps, but the music is clearly thumbs down worthy, even if it is a very dif­ferent thumbs-down in nature from all the usual thumbs down circa 1976-77.

Bobby Womack: Safety Zone

BOBBY WOMACK: SAFETY ZONE (1975)

1) Everything's Gonna Be Alright; 2) I Wish It Would Rain; 3) Trust Me; 4) Where There's A Will There's A Way; 5) Love Ain't Something You Can Get For Free; 6) Something You Got; 7) Daylight; 8) I Feel A Groove Comin' On.

Ironic title, considering that this was Bobby's first serious plunge into disco waters — the last track is a ferociously non-stop eight-minutes-on-the-floor workout, and ʽEverything's Gonna Be Alrightʼ and ʽWhere There's A Will...ʼ do their best to keep up with the hotness as well. For the first time in his life, alas, it seems like Bobby is giving in to outside pressure, with a loss of face. When it comes to straightforward disco, he has no way of «womackizing» it.

Seriously, ʽI Feel A Groove Comin' Onʼ, despite preceding ʽDisco Infernoʼ for about three years, already sounds like an embarrassing parody on The Trammps (a gruesome conclusion, conside­ring that much of the time, The Trammps themselves sounded like an endless self-parody). Eight minutes of a totally mind-boggling, robotic groove, with one ska-derived brass figure repeated over and over with no extra coloring — my only hypothesis is that this was Bobby's way of snap­ping back, «oh, you want real red hot? I'll give you real red hot, you brainless idiots!» There is an odd surprise — at 6:30 into the song, there is an unexpectedly classy piano break that pushes the song sky high for about one minute, and no wonder: check the liner notes and you will see that the piano player is no less than Herbie Hancock himself (!). A beautiful reward, no doubt, for those who have been patient enough to suffer through the rest of the song, but is it really adequate relative to the overall cruelty?

ʽWhere There's A Will, There's A Wayʼ is actually less embarrassing if you like that sort of jumpy mid-1970s vaudeville (of which Billy Preston was a particular master) — at the very least, it has an intricate, non-trivial brass-pop arrangement that Blood, Sweat & Tears would probably kill for (just the kind of sound they needed to fortify the dance-oriented part of their reputation). And the seven minutes of ʽEverything...ʼ actually try to balance between darker, funkier verses and the lighter, bouncier, more discoish chorus — an interesting, unusual attempt to merge the two facets, but it does not seem to work well: the «seams» are too crude and artificial for the mood transitions to become believable. One minute you are standing in a spooky swamp of wah-wah riffage, faraway ghostly-echoey guitar shrieks and warlike brass blasts, then the next minute you are happily dancing your head off to a merry disco beat — sounds intriguing on paper, per­haps, but not so much in real life.

The remaining half of the album is still occupied by examples of the more traditional Womack sound: highlights include ʽTrust Meʼ, written half a decade ago for Janis Joplin and revisited here under a more modernistic coating — but even so, the plastic synthesizer sound is not enough to wipe out traces of genuine soulfulness — and ʽDaylightʼ, a dance ballad with an ironic flavor, sung by Bobby from the viewpoint of a «nightlife addict» who treats «daylight» as «the only time when I can unwind». Could be hilarious if Bobby didn't succeed in making it sound a little tragic. As for the trademark «oddity number», this time around it is the old Chris Kenner chestnut ʽSomething You Gotʼ, redone as a comical reggae number: too self-consciously cute for its own good, but at least showing that the old style of cerebral gymnastics is still very much alive.

All in all, this round of the battle is still being won by Bobby, but when you start counting tro­phies and casualties, the former only barely exceed the latter. It is clear enough that, at this point, the man finds himself forced to engage in something that he obviously does not like too much, and that it gets harder and harder to find an acceptable compromise between «soul» and «com­merce». The solutions that he offers on Safety Zone — such as merging the dark and the light on the lead-in track, or subtly mocking the values of disco on the lead-off number — betray a con­cealed cry for help and may be read as the Morse code equivalent for «I'm as irritated with this crap as you are, guys and girls», but that does not automatically redeem an album where Herbie Hancock is invited to contribute just one minute of piano playing on a generic eight-minute disco track. Whose idea of a pleasant surprise was that, anyway?

Check "Safety Zone" (MP3) on Amazon

Bobby Womack: I Don't Know What The World Is Coming To

BOBBY WOMACK: I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE WORLD IS COMING TO (1975)

1) Interlude No. 1 / I Don't Know; 2) Superstar; 3) If You Want My Love, Put Something Down On It; 4) Git It; 5) What's Your World; 6) Check It Out; 7) Interlude No. 2; 8) Jealous Love; 9) It's All Over Now; 10) Yes, Jesus Loves Me.

Yes indeed, it is hard to tell what the world is coming to if it no longer agrees to buy mass quan­tities of Bobby Womack records. This one completely fell through the floor — the lead single ʽCheck It Outʼ barely scraped the charts, and its follow-up, a revised (in fact, completely reinven­ted, which might have added to the problem) take on ʽIt's All Over Nowʼ, missed them complete­ly. The LP itself also fared poorly, and the most disappointing thing about it was that you couldn't even accuse Bobby of feeling «out of time» — on the contrary, the record clearly pays attention to ongoing trends, incorporating more electronics and tighter dance beats than ever before. All in all, Bobby makes it clear that he is ready to undergo a transition to disco. So why the decline in popularity? How come he got outsold by the Bee Gees on this market, anyway?

Most likely, the album simply fell through the cracks. At his best, Bobby was a master of the friendly funky groove and the soulful vocal tear. But the more he stoops to the new demands of the time, the less impressive the groove is, and the less space is left for the soulfulness. A succes­­ful disco hit needs a major hookline, and just how many major hooklines are there on these parti­cular songs? ʽCheck It Outʼ features a pleasant enough four-note brass / guitar riff as its main point of attraction, but it has neither sufficient cockiness for the boys, nor the required sexiness for the girls. The thing is, Mr. Womack's soul is still dwelling in the «gallant Sixties», and the thrills that he offers here for listeners in 1975 are too obsolete to properly thrill — in fact, proper­ly titillate — their gut feelings. In other words, ʽCheck It Outʼ is no ʽYou Should Be Dancingʼ when it comes to really getting people up on their feet in a way they've never been gotten up be­fore. The old funk school is getting dusty.

Re-evaluated forty years after the fact, though, I Don't Know What The World Is Coming To seems to be just another decent, not-too-special Womack record. Other than the quickened tem­pos, everything seems to be in place: passionate vocals, clever guitar licks, unusual arranging ideas, tight backing band. The title track, for instance, has a thoroughly cool twin set of guitar lead lines trailing through all of its duration — a «clean» «woman tone», playing a melodic part all based on sustained humming notes, and a distorted, frenzied, psychedelic guitar explosion. Unfortunately, they are not separated into separate channels and are kept well below Bobby's vocals in the mix: as usual, the man is just too humble to let the guitar play a distinctive part, not even if one of the players on the track is Glen Coins from Parliament/Funkadelic.

On Side B, the same double-tracking trick is repeated on ʽWhat's Your Worldʼ, another classy groove where the tension is further driven up by the mean bassline which, at about 3:14 into the song, explodes in a murky sea of apocalyptic fuzz, then, a minute later, comes back to its senses, then, towards the fade-out, does it again. It's the little things like that — totally superfluous from a general point of view — that add spice to the otherwise plain, not-too-memorable grooves and show that Bobby's will to hunt for new sounds was hardly diminished. The problem is, you, the listener, likewise, have to sniff that will out; sometimes only an intent, thoroughly focused listen in headphones will bring out the complexity of the arrangements.

And there are misfires, too. The new version of ʽIt's All Over Nowʼ, for instance, is a mess; where Bobby's previous self-reinventions always preserved the gist of the tune, this particular one is clearly self-referential, and could only work as an extra coda to the original — Bobby's duet with Bill Withers centers on endless re-runs of the chorus and chaotic vocalizing: you are offered three minutes of cheerful dance-centered insanity without a good understanding of what all the hoopla is about. The only thing sillier than recording this track was the attempt to release it as an official single — for whom?

It is also a little strange to sit through a whole album of mostly high-powered dance music, lightly interspersed with a few ballads, only to have it end on a slow, reverential note with a gospel num­ber: ʽYes, Jesus Loves Meʼ seems like a hasty toss-off, almost like an instantaneous apology to the Lord for over-indulging in «pleasures of the flesh» on the rest of the record (musically more than lyrically), and the gospel genre is not really tailor-made for Bobby's stylistics.

But in all honesty, that's just nitpicking. It would be all too easy to say that the album finds Bob­by in a directionless state of confusion, and use its very title for an indirect confirmation — in reality, I don't feel any confusion, and, for what it's worth, serious soul artists have always com­plained about the state of the world, regardless of the actual historical context (which is why so much of their stuff sounds timeless, applicable to any epoch). It is really quite a self-assured, so­lid recording in its own right — its only serious «flaw» being in that it tries to give the people what they want, the way they want it, but fails, because it is still delivered the way the author wants it. Or something like that, anyway.

Check "I Don't Know What The World Is Coming To" (MP3) on Amazon

Bobby Womack: Lookin' For A Love Again

BOBBY WOMACK: LOOKIN' FOR A LOVE AGAIN (1974)

1) Lookin' For A Love; 2) I Don't Wanna Be Hurt By Ya Love Again; 3) Doing It My Way; 4) Let It Hang Out; 5) Point Of No Return; 6) You're Welcome, Stop On By; 7) You're Messing Up A Good Thing; 8) Don't Let Me Down; 9) Copper Kettle; 10) There's One Thing That Beats Failing.

It is not exactly clear why Bobby decided to re-record his decade-old Valentinos hit, ʽLookin' For A Loveʼ, for the lead single off his new album, not to mention using its title for the entire LP. One might have easily taken this for a sign of stagnation — even despite the fact that Bobby did come up with a bunch of original compositions this time; none of them, apparently, could be re­garded as commercially viable, and indeed, while ʽLookin' For A Loveʼ still managed to hit No. 1 on the R&B charts, its follow-up, the «soft-funk» dance number ʽYou're Welcome, Stop On Byʼ, was a relative flop in comparison.

The essence of ʽLookin' For A Loveʼ, which used to be indeed one of the finest mergers of R&B and doo-wop in the early 1960s, is preserved quite caringly, but the arrangement has been up­graded to include an intrusive synthesizer lead that makes the revision as dated to its epoch as the original; so you have yourself a choice of preference here, depending on whether you prefer ge­neric Sixties production (crisp, but poorly-recorded sound) or generic Seventies (well-recorded, but somewhat sterile and stuffy in comparison). In any case, revisiting past successes is always a bad omen for the artist, and it does not help that the remaining nine songs all pale, one way or another, next to the opening vigorous punch of the title track.

Bobby still retains enough strength to come up with another unpredictable reinvention — this time, he is experimenting with the old folk standard ʽCopper Kettleʼ, but even though the new ar­rangement, envisaged as a lush blend of country and R&B, with a slow bass groove and slide guitars, is properly creative, it all ends up losing the song's original essence and turning it into just another soulful declaration of... well, whatever can be soulfully declared. Reinvention keeps the juices flowing alright, but everything has got to have reasonable limits: you can't do that much with yer basic campfire tune without depriving it of its basic sense (for an example of a reasonable reinvention, check out Dylan's version on Self Portrait).

Other than that, you've got your regular proto-disco dance fun (ʽLet It Hang Outʼ, with some fa­bulously ecstatic guitar soloing), your regular R&B ballads (ʽI Don't Wanna Be Hurt Againʼ), your regular slow soul-burning ballads (ʽDoing It My Wayʼ), and so on. As usual, it all sounds good, and Bobby's singing is formally impeccable, but there is a strong impression that he is not trying all that much, running on auto-pilot and milking that old «strong feeling» vibe instead of looking for interesting chord sequences or startling vocal flourishes. As a result, everything is even, smooth, and modestly classy, but the distinct lack of individual highlights means only one thing: the man is finally caught in a rut. Consequently, I cannot recommend this record for «fans of R&B» in general — only for fans of Bobby in particular, since, at the very least, there are no attempts here to change at the expense of his own identity.

Check "Lookin' For A Love Again" (CD) on Amazon

Bobby Womack: Facts Of Life

BOBBY WOMACK: FACTS OF LIFE (1973)

1) Nobody Wants You When You're Down And Out; 2) I'm Through Trying To Prove My Love To You; 3) If You Can't Give Her Love Give Her Up; 4) That's Heaven To Me; 5) Holdin' On To My Baby's Love / Nobody; 6) Facts Of Life / He'll Be There When The Sun Goes Down; 7) Can't Stop A Man In Love; 8) The Look Of Love; 9) Natural Man; 10) All Along The Watchtower.

Back from soundtrack territory to regular LP turf again, Bobby tosses off another fine batch of tunes — nothing particularly spectacular, just some more of that solid, believable, classy-soun­ding soul stuff that seemed to come so easily to him in the early 1970s. By now, it was obvious that he would not be remembered as a major visionary or innovator of Stevie Wonder's caliber, but his interest in «minor» experiments and production twists still kept him miles ahead of many, if not most, competitors in the same genre.

For instance, how many people would be able to come up with the idea of redoing the old Jimmy Cox standard ʽNobody Wants You When You're Down And Outʼ as a funk-pop number, with a nasty bassline and proto-disco strings? Nothing whatsoever, except for the lyrics, is left over from the original in the process, but hey, good idea — the song is about internal turmoil and pissed-off disillusionment, and why not strengthen these feelings with a bit of a funky tempest? Perhaps the mix is not clever enough to let us fully appreciate Bobby's electric guitar parts (too eclipsed by the overriding brass), but fairly strong all the same.

Another example — who would dare take ʽ(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Womanʼ, so clo­sely associated with Carole King and Aretha, and turn it into ʽNatural Manʼ? Well, apparently a little-known R&B singer called Fred Hughes got the start on Bobby five years earlier, but, from what limited amount of his songs I have heard, Fred sported a bit of a «womanly» image, follow­ing in the shoes of Clyde McPhatter and Smokey Robinson, whereas Womack was totally «vi­rile», and this kind of gender turnaround might have been seen as risqué by some of his fans. Yet his vocal parts are totally credible, as he'd already cut his teeth on reinterpreting stuff like ʽClose To Youʼ — and, for that matter, they also inspired Rod Stewart to repeat the venture on his own cover, recorded for the Smiler sessions a year later. (Not sure of whether this should be used as a positive argument — Smiler wasn't that hot a record, but at least he still had Ronnie Wood by his side at the time, and the decline process was not yet irreversible).

More questionable is Bobby's decision to put his own stamp on ʽAll Along The Watchtowerʼ, where he takes the Hendrix version for default and dares to offer his own guitar playing, heavily wah-wahed and double-tracked, for comparison. The final results are good, but there is a reason, after all, why Jimi is revered as a visionary guitar player and Bobby is not — Jimi's fire comes out of ingeniously tuned firethrowers, while Bobby's fire is satisfied with steady crackling in the hearth: the song has no dynamics, and is in danger of becoming boring already after the first mi­nute, especially if it is hard for you to erase the Jimi comparison from your head.

Concerning originals, there are relatively few here: ʽHe'll Be There When The Sun Goes Downʼ, a rhythmic, lush-string-drenched ballad of the Al Green variety, is probably the best of the lot, just because the string groove seems unusually complex and emotional, and, most importantly, it falls well in line with the song's lyrical vibe. It actually begins as a long spoken piece (title track), where Bobby, a little tongue-tied and confused, explains that his contract does not allow him to keep a steady relationship — so "don't get hung up on me, cause tomorrow I might be gone on down the road". The strings help carry on this subtle mix of romance and loneliness, even if the message itself is sorta questionable, but then, as long as he ain't justifying date rapes or anything, the man has a right to defend his lifestyle of one-night stands, and the music here is an excellent soundtrack for a one-night stand if you're sick and tired of family values or anything.

Most of the other songs, be they originals or covers, do not submit themselves to comments that easily — I could rave on about how wonderfully deep and tender I find ʽThat's Heaven To Meʼ, but it's a rather faithful Sam Cooke cover, and should rather be discussed in a Sam Cooke con­text. In any case, it all sounds good; my only problem with Facts Of Life is that it goes a bit too far in the «soft» direction, with only the first and last track rocking out with decisiveness — and all the ballads and melodic upbeat R&B numbers are starting to fall together after a while. But it's not as if this problem did not exist before, be it with Bobby or a million other serious, hard-working ar­tists, and it ain't no reason to deprive the album of another thumbs up — if only because, given the musical climate of the time, the age of the artist, the original talent, and the good sense of taste, it would be hard to imagine how Facts Of Life could be anything but not a «solid» album, at least. Maybe if he'd been impressed by Barry White's early singles...

Check "Facts Of Life" (CD) on Amazon

Bobby Womack: Across 110th Street

BOBBY WOMACK: ACROSS 110TH STREET (1972)

1) Across 110th Street; 2) Harlem Clavinette; 3) If You Don't Want My Love; 4) Hang On In There (instrumental); 5) Quicksand; 6) Harlem Love Theme; 7) Across 110th Street (instrumental); 8) Do It Right; 9) Hang On In There; 10) If You Don't Want My Love (instrumental); 11) Across 110th Street (part 2).

Nice little soundtrack here to a mostly forgotten «blaxploitation» movie (come to think of it, are there any «blaxploitation» movies that have not been mostly forgotten?), starring Yaphet Kotto and Anthony Quinn. The soundtrack was mostly forgotten, too, until Tarantino acted on the urge to revive the title track for Jackie Brown, which is where the average pop culture fan is most like­ly to get his first taste of ʽAcross 110th Streetʼ.

It is somewhat unfortunate, though, that the song never made it to a regular LP: it is good enough to transcend soundtrack quality, a tempestuous tale of «gotta-get-out-of-this-place» ghetto suffering with a formulaic, but terrific arrangement and one of Bobby's most soulful vocal deliveries ever — you won't find much of that sort of ominous, disturbing fury even on a Stevie Wonder or a Marvin Gaye record. Sure, the brass fan­fares and howling pre-disco strings sound dated not only to their epoch, but even to their movie genre, yet in this case, they actually work in full unison with the escapist message of the song. And this is without even mentioning the reprise of the theme at the end, where the vocals quickly give way to a nightmarish mix of wailing gui­tars, electronic keyboard effects, and occasional ghoulish screaming — the thickest, densest ar­rangement on a Womack album so far, with a heavy psychedelic effect if played at top volume.

The rest of the album wanders between several other vocal numbers, masterminded by Bobby, and several instrumental themes, directed and conducted by Jay Jay Johnson «and his Orchestra»: Jay Jay, formerly a bebop trombonist, had only recently moved to film score composing, and his work here is quite outstanding in its own way — ʽHarlem Clavinetteʼ is swaggerishly funky and polyphonic, with predictable wah-wah guitar passages alternating with far less predictable flute solos; ʽHarlem Love Themeʼ is a good example of early 1970s «fusionistic» take on the late night jazz standard of the 1950s (provided you can stand the ultra-high frequencies of those opening keyboards — Jay Jay must have been appealing to the bat segment of his audience); and his in­strumental reworkings of Bobby's own compositions always bring out the best in their melodies (the brass substitution of the vocal melody in ʽAcross 110th Streetʼ fully preserves the tension and decisiveness in Womack's delivery).

As for Bobby, he contributes a new, slower, more romantic reworking of ʽIf You Don't Want My Loveʼ, and a couple extra funk numbers: ʽQuicksandʼ goes by too fast to be memorable, but ʽDo It Rightʼ is a pretty hot rocker, set to a rhythm that will be familiar to everybody who knows The Who's live rendition of ʽSpoonfulʼ (though I'm sure it must have had an even earlier precedent) and featuring some smoking guitar and Moog solos. On a curious note, most of these numbers also feature Bobby in «totally loose» mode, repeatedly screaming his head off like he'd never al­lowed himself earlier on any of his proper LPs — talk about the liberating powers of blaxploita­tion filmmaking!

For technical reasons, Across 110th Street has no chance to remain as culturally significant and thoroughly enjoyable as Curtis Mayfield's Superfly, still arguably the definitive blaxploitation soundtrack of its era — too many instrumentals, too many reprises, too many rewrites — but in the overall context of Womack's artistic travelog, it is not to be overlooked, and if you are a major fan of orchestrated funk experiments of the decade, Jay Jay Johnson's work here also makes it a must-have. Thumbs up.

Check "Across 110th Street" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Across 110th Street" (MP3) on Amazon

Bobby Womack: Understanding

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

Bobby Womack: Communication

BOBBY WOMACK: COMMUNICATION (1971)

1) Communication; 2) Come L'Amore; 3) Fire And Rain; 4) (If You Don't Want My Love) Give It Back; 5) Mono­logue / (They Long To Be) Close To You; 6) Everything Is Beautiful; 7) That's The Way I Feel About Cha; 8) Yield Not To Temptation.

Although his previous records were hardly the epitome of commercial success, fate still smiled on Bobby and got him a nice promotion in the early 1970s — for his next record contract, Womack was rewarded with United Artists, and a possibility to record with the cream of the crop: the re­gular team at Muscle Shoals. Not that his older band was worth any serious criticism, but they were kind of old-fashioned, and in 1970, whether you were black or white, you had to change and adapt, or be ready to go down.

That same year, Bobby also played guitar on Sly & The Family Stone's There's A Riot Goin' On, learning how to behave in a hotter, crazier, funkier environment, and the results are immediately obvious on the very first track of his new album: ʽCommunicationʼ is a sleazy, steaming guitar groove that could be very easily mistaken for a mating call, if the lyrics did not explicitly refer to the idea of improving social relations through the power of communication and mutual trust (well, on the other hand, one does not necessarily exclude the other). Wah-wah riffage, distorted wailing leads, brass fanfare, Bobby at his screeching best (still a few notches below James Brown, but a decent substitute in case of need) — if this is a graduate exam in Funk School, I'd give senior student Robert Dwayne Womack a solid A, hold the plus for disciplinary reasons.

In general, however, Communication cannot be pigeonholed as a «funk album». Apart from the opening track, everything else is much more traditional: smooth, non-syncopated mid-tempo R&B grooves alternating with slow soulful ballads. As it always happens with Bobby, tracks are regularly loaded with small surprises, but «small surprises» are not «major stylistic revolutions»; the general difference is really in the backing band, which always seems on the verge of laun­ching into something different, but in the end, stays where Bobby wants them to stay. On ʽGive It Backʼ, for instance, they fiddle and fuss around for about ten seconds, even starting out with the first bar of ʽBaby Please Don't Goʼ (that might actually be Bobby himself), then straighten out for the album's second-funkiest, but still «lite-dance-funk»-oriented groove.

The biggest hit from the album, and the song that genuinely restored Bobby's name on the chart of public conscience, was ʽThat's The Way I Feel About Chaʼ, a credible, but not particularly outstanding, love anthem whose major point of attraction might not even be the vocal melody and the repetitive chorus, but the melodic lead parts played by Jimmy Johnson, who does not get to have an instrumental break, but still takes the opportunity to solo all the way alongside Bobby's singing. This adventurous approach from the Muscle Shoals people is certainly an improvement over the competent and devoted, but not too initiative-oriented, style of Bobby's Memphis band.

In a particularly risky and bold approach, the man allocates almost ten minutes of Side B to an extended version of ʽClose To Youʼ, the first half of which is actually given to a half-spoken, half-hummed «monologue» in which Bobby apologizes to his audience for going «commercial» — quite an apt thing to do on a cover of a Burt Bacharach song that had just been turned into a monster hit for The Carpenters. With this cover, Bobby sets out to illustrate the major point of the monologue — that «music is music», and that, no matter what sort of material you sing or play, what really matters is the amount of soul you put into it.

To be honest, I am not sure that he is completely right on the issue — in fact, I'd probably take the slick, straight-jacketed Carpenters version of the song, pre-packaged and calculated as it is, over Bobby's sincere attempt to «ruffle» it up here and make it live and breathe. You can't really bring the stillborn back to life — you can stuff the stillborn and make it into an imposing, eerie waxwork, but you can't make it walk and talk, and ʽClose To Youʼ is one of those songs I'd rather hear as stiff and mechanical, because they are more memorable that way. Still, at the very least, Bobby's stance makes sense, and it is curious and instructive to hear him cover the song the way he does it. Whatever be, these nine and a half minutes are not wasted.

Without discussing the other songs (most are covers of not particularly strong material, and it is not clear if you will ever really need yet another individualistic version of James Taylor's ʽFire And Rainʼ), I will simply conclude that Communication is an uneven, but curious and rewarding «transitional» album, worthy of its thumbs up but not quite on the same level with the stuff that would follow. The most important thing about it is that the shift to a major label had not, in any way, silenced or muted the individual voice of Bobby Womack — on the contrary, just like Mar­vin Gaye and Stevie Wonder at about the same time, the man's primary concern always rests on one crucial issue: how to remain inside the machine without turning into a part of the machine. He does not exactly resolve that issue — Communication has its fair share of «genericity» — but he is willing to give it a bigger try than ever before.

Check "Communication" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Communication" (MP3) on Amazon