Bobby Womack is a name revered in certain circles where tight horn arrangements are the norm, extended monologues expected and substantive delivery is the row that’s hoed without exception. At an impressive 22 tracks, you’d have to search far and wide to come across another career-spanning compilation by a single artist that’s packed with more soulful goodies than this release.
Contemporaries like the recently deceased Isaac Hayes or the masterful Johnnie Taylor certainly measure up to this giant of song, but Womack has the unique distinction of having worked with everyone from Sam Cooke and Sly & the Family Stone to Janis Joplin and Joe Tex, recording, producing and writing both romantic and gritty material for decades on end. Whether expressing heartfelt inner city tribulations in the seminal “Across 110th Street,” most recently dropped on the American Gangster soundtrack, or getting sweet and sweaty on “That’s The Way I Feel About Cha,” Womack’s original music is far ranging and astoundingly good. Competent proselytizing on the live “The Preacher/More Than I Can Stand,” or working hard over the bumping bass lines of “Woman’s Gotta Have It,” “Communication,” “You’re Welcome, Stop On By,” prove there’s little disputing the vocal power this man delivers on each and every tune, no matter the subject at hand, not to overlook the fact that the man can shred on the guitar. Take a listen to the tail end axe screechin of “I Can Understand It,” if you need another reason to believe the man could have prospered mightily as a side man if the spotlight didn’t shine so bright on his solo career.
Womack’s choice of cover songs, however, exhibits how this true music lover can flip a given musical genre on its head and call it soul. “California Dreamin’,” by the Mamas & the Papas gets some incredible phrasing, giving the whole tune an innovative and flat-out astounding new relevance. Equally impressive are the takes on James Taylor’s “Fire And Rain,” “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” “Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words),” and “Nobody Loves You When You’re Down And Out.”
There’s little this smooth innovator couldn’t handle or wrap his talents around. Every time I throw this album on, it kills me to know much of this music won’t resonate with a younger demographic weaned on the tacky stuff of American Idol and radio pop tunes with production sounds pushed so far to the high-end there’s no room for the measured singing, gifted musicianship and expansive arrangements of the kind that used to define a quality studio recording. Where the hell did the soul go? Thankfully, it’s still with us on albums like this. There’s just never enough Bobby Womack to permeate the plethora of the subpar singers and songs clogging the sound waves of this land.
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